Archive for the ‘happy’ Category
Monday, April 28th, 2008
“Happiness gets trashed. It’s considered too pink and fluffy for the workplace,” Alex Linley, founder of the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology (CAPP) in Coventry, England, told attendees at the 2008 World Federation of Personnel Management Associations World Congress here April 15. Linley, a psychologist and management consultant, founded the nonprofit CAPP to help companies find the happy, positive sides of employees in order to attract, retain and develop them.
“Neurological research shows that when people are happy, they learn things better, are more receptive to [manager direction] and are more engaged,” Linley said.
A positive, or “strengths-based,” organization seeks to buoy what is right in people rather than correct what is wrong. It’s an ingredient that is missing in the workplace, Linley said, noting that only 17 percent of U.S. workers use their strengths at work, according to Gallup Poll research that was first compiled in Marcus Buckingham’s bestselling book, First, Break All the Rules (Simon & Schuster, 1999.)
Click here for the full article.
Tags: 2008 World Federation of Personnel Management Associati, Centre for Applied Positive Psychology, Coventry, England, Happiness, happy, Positive, Postitivity, Work, Workplace
Posted in 2008 World Federation of Personnel Management Associati, Centre for Applied Positive Psychology, Coventry, England, Happiness, Positive, Postitivity, Work, Workplace, happy | No Comments »
Monday, April 28th, 2008
Are you happy with your life? Do you find joy in the things that you do? If not, how would you find joy and happiness? And once you find it, do you think you can keep it and be happy all the time?
You can be happy now and all the time. How you might ask. Try this, think back to a time when you were very happy. Think of a moment when you were laughing and having a great time; when you were on holiday, when you were surrounded by friends, watching a movie, listening to your favourite music. Do it now and take your time.
When you reflected on your happy times, how did you feel? Did you notice a change in how you felt? More than likely, the least that happened is you smiled. Well, that´s a start. You found something to be happy about in an instant.
Reminiscing on good times makes you feel happy, doesn´t it? Imagine if you can expand on that so you may remain joyous and happy all the time. How would you go about sustaining the joyful and happy feelings?
An extremely powerful way is to take control of your thoughts; by actively choosing which thoughts to focus on.
Click here for the full article.
Tags: Friends, Good Times, Happiness, happy, Happy Feelings, Holiday, Joy, Joyful Feelings, Joyous, Laughing, Life, Movies, Music, Smiled, Smiling, Thoughts
Posted in Friends, Good Times, Happiness, Happy Feelings, Holiday, Joy, Joyful Feelings, Joyous, Laughing, Life, Movies, Music, Smiled, Smiling, Thoughts, happy | No Comments »
Friday, April 25th, 2008
The UAE may offer a cosmopolitan lifestyle, great job opportunities and supply us with endless credit cards that enable us to buy fancy cars and designer gear - but even still, out of the Persian Gulf states, the Emirates came last in recent survey rating happiness. Maktoob Research, a regional online survey group found that the happiest people in the region live, not here, but in Oman and Saudi Arabia.
Having studied 7,434 residents of diverse nationalities across 11 countries, the study reveals that Oman has the highest percentage of happy people, followed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. Next comes the UAE, followed by Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Morocco and last on the list, troubled Lebanon.
[...] Some may be surprised to hear that a rigidly conservative and totalitarian society like Saudi Arabia topped the charts in terms of happiness. Ruba Ayat, is a 23-year-old from Lebanon, who has lived 18 years in Dubai, certainly was. “I am very shocked that Saudi Arabia was found to have the happiest people. I would have said people in the UAE were happiest, as we have the social life. I am incredibly happy here. It’s a home away form home,” says Ruba.
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Tags: Bahrain, Dubai, Egypt, Happier, Happiest, Happiness, happy, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Maktoob Research, Morocco, Oman, Persian Gulf, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates
Posted in Bahrain, Dubai, Egypt, Happier, Happiest, Happiness, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Maktoob Research, Morocco, Oman, Persian Gulf, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, happy | No Comments »
Friday, April 25th, 2008
[...]Imagine you are a president or prime minister. It is imperative to keep your people happy because you hope to be re-elected in order to make your citizens happier and to run your country efficiently. You also know that people care about personal factors like health, income, education and development in general. You have an intuitive idea that they care also about external factors like inflation and security. But how do you work out the relative importance of all these things that constitute well-being which in turn translate to happiness? We are talking about happiness economics.
Historically, economists have said that well-being is a simple function of income. By their argument, happiness ought to be the preserve of the super rich— the Bill Gates and the Roman Abramovichs of this world. But the million dollar question is: Are the rich always happy?[...]
Rooted in this postulation is the thinking of happiness economics, which is the study of a country’s well-being by combining economists’ and psychologists’ techniques. The goal of happiness economics is to determine where people derive their well-being. Happiness economists hope to change the way governments view well-being and how to most effectively govern and allocate resources given this paradox.
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Tags: Economics, Education, Government, Happier, Happiness Economics, happy, Health, Income, Inflation, Psychology, Pursuit of Happiness, Security, Well-being
Posted in Economics, Education, Government, Happier, Happiness Economics, Health, Income, Inflation, Psychology, Pursuit of Happiness, Security, Well-being, happy | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
A large body of social-science research over the past decade has been devoted to studying happiness. In general, researchers rely on self-reported measurements of happiness—which, according to considerable work by psychologists, statisticians, and neuroscientists, are actually quite accurate and comparable among individuals. (This has been shown by comparing people’s survey responses to psychological evaluations, surveys of family members, and even tests of brain activity.) And over the past three decades, the nationwide General Social Survey (GSS)—undertaken approximately every two years by researchers at the National Opinion Research Center—has been one of the only repeated surveys to ask people about their happiness and has therefore been used in many happiness studies.
In 2000, the GSS also asked adult Americans about their attitudes about freedom. About 70 percent of the respondents said that they were “completely free” or “very free,” and another 25 percent said that they were “moderately free.” Further, about 70 percent thought that Americans in general were completely or very free.
Perhaps such results are not surprising in the United States. But the GSS also revealed that people who said that they felt completely or very free were twice as likely to say that they were very happy about their lives as those who felt only a moderate degree of freedom, not much, or none at all. Even when holding income, sex, education, race, religion, politics, and family status constant, we find that people who felt free were about 18 percentage points more likely than others to say that they were very happy.
Click here for the full article.
Tags: Americans, Free, Freedom, General Social Survey, Happier, Happiness, happy, National Opinion Research Center, Neuroscientists, Psychologists, Research, Social Science, Statisticians
Posted in Americans, Free, Freedom, General Social Survey, Happier, Happiness, National Opinion Research Center, Neuroscientists, Psychologists, Research, Social Science, Statisticians, happy | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
[...] People who describe themselves as “very religious” are among the happiest of people. Those who say they are “very religious” come in ten points higher than America as a whole on the Happiness Index (45% compared to 35% are considered “very happy”). In contrast, just over one-quarter (28%) of people who describe themselves as “not religious” were measured at that level of happiness.
A similar difference is noted among people who say they “pray or study religion at home” on a daily basis compared to less often. Over four in ten people (43%) who engage in “daily” prayer or religious study are very happy. In comparison, just over one-quarter (28%) of people who “never” pray or study religion at home have a comparable happiness level.
[...] Ethics also appears to affect happiness levels. Just under four in ten people (37%) who are “never or rarely pressured to act unethically” are very happy according to the Index. Only about one-quarter (26%) who are pressured to act unethically “all the time” or “often” are very happy according to the Index.
[...] Older people tend to be happier according to the Happiness Index. Less than one in three (29%) in the 18 to 24 age bracket are very happy according to the survey, compared to almost one-half (47%) of people age 65 and older. The survey results also show a clear trend in increasing happiness between those two age groups.[...]
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Tags: Age, Elderly, Ethics, Happier, Happiness, happy, Prayer, Religion, Religious
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Thursday, April 17th, 2008
Although some people may spend part of the Labor Day weekend complaining about their bosses or about job burnout, most Americans are satisfied with their jobs, a new University of Chicago study shows.
The survey found that job satisfaction increases with age, with workers over 65 among the most satisfied. The study shows that 86 percent of the people interviewed between 1972 and 2006 said they were satisfied at their jobs, with 48 percent saying they were very satisfied. Only four percent reported being very dissatisfied.
In addition to older workers, those with more education, those earning more money, and workers in the South Central states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississipi, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee were the most satisfied. Blacks, Hispanics and people doing unskilled labor were the least happy, according to the report “Job Satisfaction in America: Trends and Socio-Demographic Correlates” by Tom W. Smith, Director of the General Social Survey at the National Opinion Center at the University of Chicago.
Click here for the full article.
Tags: Alabama, Americans, Arkansas, Blacks, Bosses, Burnout, Education, General Social Survey, happy, Hispanics, Job Satisfaction, Job Satisfaction in America: Trends and Socio-Demograph, Jobs, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississipi, Money, National Opinion Center, Oklahoma, Salary, Satisfaction, Tennessee, Texas, University of Chicago, Unskilled Labor, Work
Posted in Alabama, Americans, Arkansas, Blacks, Bosses, Burnout, Education, General Social Survey, Hispanics, Job Satisfaction, Job Satisfaction in America: Trends and Socio-Demograph, Jobs, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississipi, Money, National Opinion Center, Oklahoma, Salary, Satisfaction, Tennessee, Texas, University of Chicago, Unskilled Labor, Work, happy | No Comments »
Thursday, April 17th, 2008
Are you happy? Well don’t try to be happier; you might become less happy. That is the gist of a multi-cultural study published recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
The study by University of Virginia psychology professor Shigehiro Oishi and colleagues at three other institutions found that, on average, European-Americans claim to be happy in general – more happy than Asian-Americans or Koreans or Japanese – but are more easily made less happy by negative events, and recover at a slower rate from negative events, than their counterparts in Asia or with an Asian ancestry. On the other hand, Koreans, Japanese, and to a lesser extent, Asian-Americans, are less happy in general, but recover their emotional equilibrium more readily after a setback than European-Americans.
“We found that the more positive events a person has, the more they feel the effects of a negative event,” Oishi said. “People seem to dwell on the negative thing when they have a large number of good events in their life.
“It is like the person who is used to flying first class and becomes very annoyed if there is a half-hour delay. But the person who flies economy class accepts the delay in stride.”
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Tags: Asian-Americans, European-Americans, Happier, happy, Japanese, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Koreans, Negative Events, Positive Events, Shigehiro Oishi, University of Virginia
Posted in Asian-Americans, European-Americans, Happier, Japanese, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Koreans, Negative Events, Positive Events, Shigehiro Oishi, University of Virginia, happy | No Comments »
Thursday, April 17th, 2008
A bar of chocolate, a long soak in the bath, a snooze in the middle of the afternoon, a leisurely stroll in the park. These are the things that make us the most happy, according to new research from The University of Nottingham.
In a study commissioned by the National Lottery, Dr Richard Tunney of the University’s School of Psychology found that it’s the simple things in life that impact most positively on our sense of well being.
The study compared the ‘happiness levels’ of lottery jackpot winners with a control group, using a ‘Satisfaction with Life Scale’ developed by the University of Illinois. Respondents were asked how satisfied they were in relation to different elements of their life, their different mood states explored, how often they treated themselves and what form this took.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t the flashy cars and diamond jewellery that upped the jackpot winners’ happiness quotient. It was the listening to music, reading a book, or enjoying a bottle of wine with a takeaway that really made the difference.
Click here for the full article.
Tags: Baths, Books, Cars, Chocolate, Diamond Jewelry, Happiness, happy, Moods, Music, Naps, Parks, Psychology, Reading, Satisfaction with Life Scale, The University of Nottingham, University of Illinois, Wine
Posted in Baths, Books, Cars, Chocolate, Diamond Jewelry, Happiness, Moods, Music, Naps, Parks, Psychology, Reading, Satisfaction with Life Scale, The University of Nottingham, University of Illinois, Wine, happy | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
Written by Tal Ben-Shahar and Geri Weis-Corbley
If happiness is the currency of life — the true measure of success, how hefty is your happiness account? How abundant is your contentment? How much happiness can you afford to give? Do you hoard or hide your true desires? Do you resent others for their happiness and curse their rose-colored glasses? Here are seven ways to boost your levels of happiness, and therefore, your success.
Click here for the full article.
Tags: Contentment, Desires, Geri Weis-Corbley, Happiness, happy, Success, Tal Ben-shahar
Posted in Contentment, Desires, Geri Weis-Corbley, Happiness, Success, Tal Ben-shahar, happy | No Comments »
