What is happiness?
rvard happiness expert Daniel Gilbert explains it here. Most interesting takeaway from the video: "We are happy when we have family, we are happy when we have friends and almost all the other things we think make us happy are actually just ways of getting more family and friends." Daniel Gilbert is the author of the bestseller Stumbling on Happiness. More on his work here. Join over 151,000 readers. Get a free weekly update via email here. Related posts: 6 Hostage Negotiation Techniques…
1 min read
Being Compassionate Reduces Stress
more compassionate: The present study examined the role of compassion for others and social support in physiological stress reactivity. In this experiment, participants who had previously completed an online assessment of compassion experienced a social stress task in front of either two supportive or neutral evaluators, while their blood pressure, cortisol, high frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), and liking for the evaluators were monitored. Participants’ compassion for others interacted with social support condition to buffer their physiological reactivity to…
1 min read
Would you feel better if you were walking in nature right now? (Don’t trust your answer.)
u would feel better. But you probably underestimate how much. Modern lifestyles disconnect people from nature, and this may have adverse consequences for the well-being of both humans and the environment. In two experiments, we found that although outdoor walks in nearby nature made participants much happier than indoor walks did, participants made affective forecasting errors, such that they systematically underestimated nature’s hedonic benefit. The pleasant moods experienced on outdoor nature walks facilitated a subjective sense of connection with nature,…
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Can happiness stop you from getting sick? Can it make sick people better?
happiness good for your health? This common notion is tested in a synthetic analysis of 30 follow-up studies on happiness and longevity. It appears that happiness does not predict longevity in sick populations, but that it does predict longevity among healthy populations. So, happiness does not cure illness but it does protect against becoming ill. The effect of happiness on longevity in healthy populations is remarkably strong. The size of the effect is comparable to that of smoking or…
1 min read
A Simple Trick To Help You Worry Less
ck a specific time to do your worrying every day. Via MSNBC: For those concerned with shedding some of their anxieties, it seems planning a certain time every day to worry may help stop the stress-out cycle. When people with adjustment disorders, burnout or severe work problems used techniques to confine their worrying a single, scheduled 30- minute period each day, they were better able to cope with their problems, a new study by researchers in the Netherlands finds. And:…
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Is this why it’s so hard to be compassionate?
en when things occur by accident our brains prefer to make them sound deliberate: Three studies tested the idea that our analyses of human behavior are guided by an “intentionality bias,” an implicit bias where all actions are judged to be intentional by default. In Study 1 participants read a series of sentences describing actions that can be done either on purpose or by accident (e.g., “He set the house on fire”) and had to decide which interpretation best characterized…
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Should you be optimistic going into negotiations?
o studies demonstrate that negotiation processes and outcomes can be altered by the creation of Positive Expectations. Study 1 participants were American undergraduates seeking agreement with a confederate about allocation of funds to programs differentially favoring undergraduates vs. graduates. Study 2 participants were Israeli Business School students seeking agreement with an Arab confederate about allocation of funds to projects differentially favoring Israelis vs. Palestinians. In both studies prior information suggesting the consistent success of previous dyads prompted acceptance of the…
1 min read
Are good relationships better than Tylenol?
lationships may influence adjustment to chronic pain conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We examined how both marital status and marital adjustment were related to pain, physical disability, and psychological disability in 255 adults with RA. Among married participants (n = 158), better marital adjustment (assessed using the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Scale) was correlated with less pain and physical and psychological disability (all P values < .05). Married participants were divided into distressed (n = 44) and nondistressed (n = 114) subgroups…
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