Wealth, Happiness and Life Satisfaction

Here's my latest article on Positive Psychology News Daily on that age-old subject of wealth and happiness. It seems to have caused a bit of a stir with some readers, judging from the number of comments (32 as of today), although maybe not for the right reasons!

Never mind, I'm sure you'll find the recent research interesting. Feel free to write your comments on the Positive Psychology News Daily site itself.




Image: thisduck

Positive Psychology and Politics

A great article from The Guardian yesterday about the plans of Lord Layard, the so-called 'Happiness Tsar', to bring happiness to the UK masses. As an economist, his epiphany was the realisation that above a certain point, money and happiness aren't correlated.

Putting aside the argument about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and depression (which is one definitely worth having), I'm not yet convinced that government intervention to make us all happier is either necessary or effective. I'm all for educating people to make their own decisions but perhaps the government should concentrate its efforts on creating better schools and hospitals first...

But no doubt it would become bogged down in happiness measurements, targets and standards anyway before any real difference was made!

Iceland - the Happiest Country?

As with any happiness or life satisfaction league table, who comes top depends on exactly what's being measured and how. In this article by The Observer journalist John Carlin, Iceland is referred to as the happiest country in the world. How can this be? We all know that it's Denmark!


Carlin's conclusion is based on Iceland's ranking in the Human Development Index (HDI), one of the four United Nations assessments of human potential - it measures three basic dimensions - a long and healthy life, education and a decent standard of living.

1. Health is measured by life expectancy at birth,
2. Education is measured by a combination of the adult literacy rate and the combined gross enrolment ratio in primary, secondary, and tertiary education,
3. Standard of living is measured by Purchasing Power Parity (PPP US$).

So the HDI isn't actually quantifying either happiness or life satisfaction, and it's questionable (in Positive Psychology terms) whether health, wealth and education significantly contribute to happiness anyway.

In fact there are some elements of Icelandic society which would contradict the conclusion that it's one of the best countries in the world to live in, for example, the highest divorce rate in Europe. However, this doesn't mean they have unhappy families - in fact writes Carlin', "The kids will be just fine, because the family will rally round them, and likely as not, the parents will continue to have a civilised relationship, based on the usually automatic understanding that custody of the children will be shared".

The article provides further insights into those character traits which might explain why Icelanders are generally happy people (if not the happiest), for example, optimism, resilience, self-confidence and a can-do attitude. That said, if we follow Lyubomirsky's "Happiness Pie" model, after genes (50%), what we chose to do with our time is the largest contributor (40%) to our happiness - do we have any readers who could comment on how the average happy Icelander spends his/her time?


Whether or not it's the happiest country, Iceland takes first place in the 2007/08 HDI, followed by Norway, Australia, Canada and Ireland. The USA is in 12th position, Denmark 14th and the UK 16th. At the bottom , not surprisingly are the West African countries of Guinea (175th), Burkina Faso (176th) and Sierra Leone (177th). For the full list, see here.


Image: Gúnna

Money can buy you happiness...

...but not in the way you might think.







Positive Psychologists are often quoted as saying that after a certain point, more money can't make you significantly happier, implying that there's no point in busting a gut to get that next bonus or promotion.

This article however reports the findings of a recent study by the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School, which shows that spending your money on other people makes you happier than spending it on yourself.

Not convinced? Well, I'm happy to be the recipient of your largesse if you want to try it out!


Image: Material Boy

The Cost of Ill-health and Happiness

The cost of ill-health to the British economy is a staggering £103 billion a year according to a recent report from Professor Dame Carol Black, National Director for Health and Work. This article from today's spiked suggests that the government's attempts to get the unemployed back to work by e.g. re-branding "Incapacity Benefit" as "Employment and Support Allowance", is merely tinkering at the edges. I'm inclined to agree. Other carrot-and-stick measures such as tougher health tests for those claiming IB and requiring doctors to intervene sooner are unlikely to be successful and will instead just create more expensive targets and measures to be monitored and circumvented, in the same way that hospital waiting lists have been.

The article quotes one professor of psychiatry, Simon Wessely, as saying that many normal human experiences are being medicalised; for example feeling sadness after a bereavement is now seen as a health "problem" for which there should be a medical cure. People are encouraged to think of negative emotions as something can and should be avoided - take the frequency with which counselling is offered after traumatic events for example, even though there is growing scientific evidence that most people heal better and more quickly without it.

Off hand I don't know how the UK compares to other European countries regarding the true cost of ill-health (if anyone reading this does, let me know!). I agree with Mick Hume that the answer lies not in treating the entire problem as one of ill-health (and certainly not in the ways the government proposes), rather we need to be looking more seriously at the underlying causes. If it is the case that many of those people on IB should really be at work, the question is why they prefer to claim state benefits rather than make a meaningful contribution to society. That is a much deeper issue.

Once again I'm left thinking that those of us with an interest in Positive Psychology and the science behind happiness need to ensure we talk about the benefits of PP in business without it sounding like we inhabit cloud-cuckoo land.



Image: Lindseyy

Happiness Lessons in Schools

Here's an interesting article from the Guardian about the argument for and against teaching happiness lessons in schools.

You can see why Anthony Seldon, head of Wellington College (one of the most elite schools in the UK) is so keen that kids get something more than the National Curriculum, since it will hardly prepare them for the adult world in the 21st Century after all. But teaching them Positive Psychology doesn't fill Richard Schoch with confidence, largely because he says you can't measure meaning and engagement, which are the holy grail of happiness. He thinks there is a place for well-being in the classroom, but doesn't really have any suggestions about how to teach it, other than getting kids to read ancient texts.

Hmmmmm.

I'm not sure that's the answer either!

The really interesting question is why we feel that children need to be taught about happiness in the first place. Some people (including Seldon) have argued that kids are more prone to depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses than in the past. So teaching them various life skills will help them survive these issues. If that's the case, shouldn't we be asking ourselves what is causing them to be more prone to depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses in the first place, and try to do something to fix that?

According to Schoch, Positive Psychology is a bit like Marmite, i.e. you either love it or you hate it. The challenge for Positive Psychologists is how to persuade its critics that it's a useful subject which can make a positive difference to how people choose to live their lives. I'm not sure it's succeeding in that aim at the moment. What do you think?


You can read the original debate between Seldon and sociologist Frank Furedi here.

Positive Psychology and Coaching

My MAPP colleagues and I were discussing the number of books on happiness being published at the moment: Lyubomirsky's "The How of Happiness" is the latest. Great book, shame about the sunny yellow cover...

Is it possible, we wondered, to broadcast the important positive psychology research findings, i.e. the ones that might make a difference to the way people live their lives, without it being accused of being merely happiology, or moralistic? For example, research tells us (if our grandmothers haven't already) that earning large amounts of money doesn't make a significant difference to our happiness levels. It also shows that building strong relationships (with friends and family, between generations, in the community and at work) is one of the most important things we can do to improve our well-being. Yet the vast majority of us still act like money is the be all and end all.

It's a difficult call, we concluded, especially when the media the world over insists on calling it happiology, as this recent article from PressTV in Tehran illustrates.


Choosing the right Positive Psychology interventions

We also discussed whether Lyubomirsky's emphasis (Chapter 3) on the importance of choosing activities to fit your lifestyle was useful or not. If, as a coach, you leave it up to the client to choose their own interventions, the chances are they won't go for the ones which look too simple, such as keeping a gratitude diary, yet activities like this can have a profound effect.

Opting for more difficult ones (such as meditation) straight off might need a great deal more perseverance. It's worth discussing these potential difficulties with your client before deciding what approach to take. Experienced coach and trainer, Lucy Ryan, suggests advising clients to try the simple interventions first - they have nothing to lose, and a great deal to gain, after all.

Poetry in the Boardroom

A few weeks ago I wrote about the role of Leadership, Positive Psychology and Creativity. Here's some more "Boardroom Poetry", this time from Ralph Windle, a.k.a. Bertie Ramsbottom. I particularly liked the boardroom ballad called 'The Business Consultant' and his profile of Sir John Harvey-Jones**, 'Born Again'. Plus it was a joy to re-read Betjeman's ' A Subaltern's Love Song* which it parodies.


* Incidentally, while I was googling Betjeman, I came across many other spoofs, this one celebrating York University's 40th Anniversary in 2003.

** 11/01/08 Sadly now the late Sir John Harvey-Jones. It'd be interesting to revisit his Troubleshooter TV series from the 90s, to see what became of the companies who were brave enough to call him in.....

Positive Psychology - science or psychobabble?

In Wednesday's HARDTalk programme, BBC journalist, Stephen Sackur, interviewed Professor Martin Seligman, founder of positive psychology, about such questions as whether positive psychology is truly scientific or mere psychobabble, whether or not well-being should be a political issue, and whether it would be better to put our efforts into alleviating mental illness instead.

If you have 30 minutes to spare this is an excellent introduction to the background and current issues in positive psychology. Sackur's argument that helping mentally ill people is a more worthwhile pursuit for psychologists than increasing others' happiness is one which many in the first MAPP cohort have wrestled with. Seligman's response is interesting - getting rid of depression and anxiety does not in itself lead to well-being because the skills you need to fight these conditions are not the same as the skills you need to experience positive emotion and find engagement and meaning in life.

Asked whether his ideas can live comfortably with 'ruthless capitalism', Seligman says no; his point is that there is bad consumerism (material goods to which we habituate) and good consumerism which creates engagement and meaning.

I'm wondering whether Seligman would have come out of the argument quite so well had Jeremy Paxman been interviewing him. Sackur doesn't ask, for example, why the schools Resilience project that Seligman is spearheading in South Tyneside (and Hertfordshire and Manchester) is aimed at helping kids combat depression; surely what the project should be focussed on, if you buy the whole happiness argument, is increasing kids' well-being?

For me, there are two important points. Firstly, no-one in positive psychology is asking why depression levels amongst school-kids (and adults for that matter) in the UK are increasing in the first place*, and what we are doing to address the causes. I'm sure Seligman would have had an answer for that.

The other point is that 'people muddle through' is not a very sound argument with which to criticise positive psychology! Not only does depression impact life-chances negatively e.g. it affects ability at school, attendance at work and your immune system (all of which are huge costs to society), research shows that happiness brings benefits such as increasing health, longevity and productivity. I think these seem like very good reasons for taking positive psychology seriously, don't you?


* But see child psychologist Oliver James' work "Affluenza".




Thanks to Thanos Karanatsios for the link

Leadership: The Role of Positive Psychology and Creativity

In our MAPP class today we were fortunate enough to have Mark Templeton, O2s Director of Organisation Development, present to us on the positive psychology approach to leadership development that he has implemented with great success over the past year.

One thing that really intrigued me was the mention of David Whyte, a.k.a the "Corporate Poet". I'm a huge fan of using creative approaches in the workplace, ever since I took the fantastic Open University Business School B822 course in Creative Management (now called Creativity, Innovation and Change).

So I followed this up, to see what David Whyte had to say about using poetry in a corporate setting:


"Every worthwhile organization is asking for qualities of adaptability, vitality and creativity. And none of these qualities can be legislated, none of them can be coerced out of people. You cannot invite anyone into your office and say I want a 9 percent increase in your creativity quotient this week. The request is absurd because there is no lever inside that person that they can pull to turn on their creativity. If there was one, they surely would have pulled it years ago.

The only thing you can do is to create a conversation in the workplace that will be invitational to those great qualities of creativity that have long been associated with the soul, with a person’s sense of belonging. The main task of leadership is no longer strategic management, though this will always have importance, but of creating imaginative and participative conversations that bring out the best in themselves and others".

I couldn't agree more - what Whyte says here fits exactly with positive psychology approaches to developing leadership and positive organisations.

Photo Credit: Cygnoir, San Francisco

Positive Thinking about Positive Psychology

Here's an interesting article in Personnel Today magazine; just don't be fooled by the title into thinking it's about Positive Mental Attitude stuff and boosting your self-confidence by repeating 'I'm great' twenty times a day....

It quotes Dr Tim Anstiss as saying "Wellbeing is not just about long walks, jogging and improving your diet, but about flourishing, discovering and using your strengths, and reaching your potential as a human being." Here, here. As a medical doctor with a masters degree in sports medicine and a post-graduate diploma in occupational medicine, Anstiss knows all about the benefits of exercise and nutrition. And we've been saying for some time now that companies which think they're got their well-being strategy sorted just because they provide salads in the canteen and issue free pedometers are missing the most important point; positive psychology is about way more than how much exercise you take and what you eat.

Anstiss presented to our UEL MAPP class a month or so ago on one of the projects he's working on, which is using a positive psychology approach to get the long-term unemployed back into work. I think that shows it's got credibility, don't you?

What's important to make clear from the start though is that in order to be of benefit to business, just like change management positive psychology has to be taken up and championed by leaders and managers outside of the HR department.

Empirical research shows that positive psychology really does present the opportunity of creating more resilient, engaged and productive employees. In a world where change is the only constant, which company could afford to turn their nose up at that?


Photo Credit: bibliogrrl


Thanks to Viv Thackray for the link

The Politics of Happiness

Can Gross National Happiness ever be an accepted substitute for GDP?




The Kingdom of Bhutan, a predominantly Buddhist country of approximately 750,000 inhabitants in the Eastern Himalayas, has been measuring Gross National Happiness since the late '80s. The King, Jigme Singye Wangchuk, was concerned about the sorts of issues affecting countries which focussed only on increasing economic prosperity, and as a result, he declared that GNH (Gross National Happiness) not GDP, was the priority for his people. "The ultimate purpose of government", he said, "is to promote the happiness of its people". This, of course, was more than a decade before Martin Seligman launched the Positive Psychology movement.

Now, says writer, analyst and UN Editor Rasna Warah, GNH vs GDP has become an issue in the upcoming Kenyan elections (December 27th). In this article on the All Africa Global Media website, Warah explores the background to GNH, and why it matters. It's the case that back in 2006 presidential candidate Dr Raila Odinga, cast doubt on the accuracy of Kenyan economic growth figures being quoted by other candidates, and proposed that a GNH survey be carried out instead. In an interview with Nation Magazine, Odinga is quoted as saying: “People are happy when they put food on the table, feed and educate their children.” However I haven't been able to find any mention of Gross National Happiness on Odinga's election website. Could it be the case that when the chips are down (and when votes are needed) what people really want to see is good old-fashioned economic growth?




Image: New Scientist

Thanksgiving in 21st Century

Most people know that Thanksgiving is celebrated in North America on the 4th Thursday in November (i.e. last Thursday 22nd), and also in Canada in early October. Like our own Harvest Festival in September, this traditional holiday is an opportunity to give thanks for all the things that you have at the conclusion of the harvest season, both tangible and intangible.

In this New York Times article last week, journalist Henry Fountain considers Thanksgiving 21st Century style - via the practice of keeping a Gratitude Diary. We've talked about gratitude several times before; there's increasing empirical evidence to show that being grateful in a mindful way, for example through a diary or a letter, increases your well-being.

What I like about Fountain's article is the acknowledgement that giving thanks is simple but not easy, it requires some effort and self-discipline.

I think this is a very important message to get across to the Victor Meldrew's of this world*; happiness isn't something that just happens, despite what you often see in films and magazines, you actively need to do something. That something varies from person to person, although Positive Psychology is giving us a lot to go on.
So if you haven't tried it, I challenge you to keep a gratitude diary for three weeks, and see what a difference it makes.


PS You might like to know that there is a Victor Meldrew Appreciation Club on the business networking site Ecademy...and yes, it is British....




Thanks to Viv Thackray for the link

Regret, Well-being and Maturity

Regrets, I've had a few: How finding the silver lining contributes to happiness and maturity

This article on yesterday's Positive Psychology News Daily looks at research into regret which suggests that it's about more than learning from experience, it's beneficial for the process of psychological maturity itself, and that the accommodation of regret has profound implications for human development, and ultimate happiness.




Image: Orbitcast

Life Lists: Goal Achievement and Happiness

As we mentioned in this post, it seems that Seligman's 3 pillars of happiness and well-being (positive emotion, engagement and meaning) may soon be joined by two more, namely positive relationships and positive achievement.

I doubt many would argue about positive relationships being a corner-stone of happiness and well-being, although you might be interested to know that there is remarkably little published scientific research into this field. But the importance of positive achievements seems to have people divided.

In the business world, goal-setting has been the back-bone (along with a smidgen of good luck) of company and personal prosperity since the dawn of time. Call it strategy, business planning or personal development planning, it's all about creating a new, more successful future. To some, particularly coaches, goal-setting and accomplishment is vital, it's what successful coaching is all about. When we were training as coaches, one of the first things we learnt was how to help clients (or coachees) define where they want to be by setting their goals clearly and then to help them achieve these goals. After all, how can you get where you want to go unless you know where you're going in the first place?

Goal-setting is also making its way into normal life; you will no doubt have noticed yourself the proliferation of books and articles about so-called Life Lists, those 101-things-you-must-do/see/experience- before-you-die type lists. Earlier in the year for example, the New York Times published an article called 10 Things To Do Before I Finish This Article. If you google 'Life Lists', you'll retrieve millions of entries, such as the original 43things.com, which invites you to publish your own Life List and which contains everything from the quirky ("build a trebuchet") to the frankly quite dull ("organise my filing cabinet"). You can get Life List websites which list the things you need to consider when making your list. Curiously, in my google search for UK Life Lists, three of the top ten were by bird-watchers; it left me wondering whether twitchers are happier than your average UK resident. Perhaps that could be the subject of my MAPP dissertation.....

There are even people who make their living out of their Life List, such as John Goddard, aka 'The World's Greatest Goal Achiever'. This is a man who has achieved 109 of his 127 life goals (you should look at them, this is not a man who needs to organise his filing cabinet...). Interestingly, his 126th goal was to marry and have children - he now has five. My question is, how on earth does he get time for them, in between scaling Mount Kilimanjaro, retracing the steps of Marco Polo and Alexander the Great, and exploring the Amazon river?

And going back to coaching for a moment, Caroline Adams-Miller, the well-known US life coach, author and Pennsylvania MAPP graduate, specialises in goal-setting theory and happiness in her coaching practice, based on the research evidence that identifying and achieving ones goals can increase your well-being (e.g. Locke 2005). Miller has also set up a very successful website where people can make a public statement about their goals, called Your100things.com.

But Life Lists don't attract support from every quarter; there are some who think that making a list of what you want to achieve in life actually detracts from what life is all about, i.e. living. I don't often listen to BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day on the Today programme, but this one by Rhidian Brook about Life Lists caught my attention, particularly Brook's claim that "They provide us with a kind of short cut to meaningful achievement and self-fulfilment". I'm not sure that's the case at all. Surely it depends to a large extent what your goals are (materialistic? altruistic?), whether they are realistic goals or just wild dreams, and how relentlessly you pursue them. Many Life Lists I've looked at contain a mix of goals which cover all Seligman's pillars of well-being (creating pleasure, engagement, meaning and good relationships).

And anyway, who is it who said that 'Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans'?

Using a Strengths Approach at BAE Systems

If you're sceptical about the value of using Positive Psychology at work, and don't think it can add much by way of improved business performance, think again.

In this article in 1st November's edition of the CIPD Magazine "People Management", Tim Smedley explains how global defence and aerospace company, BAE Systems, is adopting a common sense approach to using strengths at work, supported by Alex Linley, director of the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology.

According to Linley, it's not about concentrating only on ones strengths and ignoring ones weaknesses altogether, it's more about striking the right balance, and that will depend very much on your role and where you sit within the organisation. "Get your strengths up to an A grade - absolutely make the most of them. But if there's a discipline that you're not so good at, but that you need, then get that up to a pass, a C grade", he says.

Of course, many business people do think Positive Psychology is for tree-huggers. As Linley points out, one of the results of using a strengths approach is increased employee engagement and well-being, however that wasn't the main objective for BAE Systems. They had their sights firmly set on improving their business performance, and that's exactly what a strengths approach has enabled them to achieve.

Positive Psychology Conference - UEL

The times they are a-changin'

Yesterday many of my co-students and I attended the first "Positive Psychology: Well-Being and Business" Conference hosted by the University of East London - where we are almost half-way through our Masters in Applied Positive Psychology (the first programme of its kind outside of the US). The lecture theatre was full, mostly HR managers and leaders from public, private and NFP sectors, as well as a large sprinkling of independent coaches, psychologists and consultants, all keen to hear what Positive Psychology has to offer organisations.

The father of Positive Psychology, Martin Seligman, gave the keynote address; here was the opportunity we had all been waiting for. No Positive Psychologist worth their salt would willingly pass up the chance to hear the man in person. He referred to the three pillars of positive emotion, engagement and meaning which you will be familiar with from his Authentic Happiness book, then oh so casually mentioned the possibility of "a 4th or even a 5th pillar" although he presented no new research in support of this theory. Turns out many prominent Positive Psychologists, among them Caroline Adams Miller and UEL's own Dr Ilona Boniwell, have long been in favour of including positive relations and positive achievement in the definition of happiness, but are too polite to say 'I told you so'.

You'll remember from this posting a few days ago that I hoped Seligman would clarify his revelation at the Washington Global Well-Being Conference that Positive Psychology should henceforth be known as "Positive Social Science". Well, unfortunately he didn't elaborate. In our MAPP-only seminar, however, he said 'everything I told you this morning is wrong'.

Hmmmmmm.

These might just be word games, of course, but I suspect there is more to it than that. I got the sense that there is a lot of discussion and thinking going on about the possible emergence of a new field of science, which of course would have serious implications for the future of Positive Psychology.

It has been suggested that Positive Psychology is the new paradigm. With the emergence of Positive Social Science, however, I think we're already moving on.

A Less Positive Perspective?

You don't often find Positive Psychology being overtly criticised (I suppose this would be very un-American) so when I came across this article on Richard Dawkins' website, I thought you might be interested; it gives a very different perspective.

It would appear that the Templeton Foundation does fund a huge amount of academic research into many Positive Psychology subjects such as gratitude, strengths and wisdom, and that Seligman's Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania was established on the back of a multi-million dollar Templeton grant. Templeton also funds other research unconnected with Positive Psychology, such as the natural sciences, world religions, freedom and free enterprise.

As far as I'm aware though, the Positive Psychology Summit (or the Global Wellbeing Forum as it's now called) referred to in Ehrenreich's article is actually funded by the mighty Gallup Organisation, which since the 1930s has provided consulting services and market research on public opinion to Fortune 500 clients.

According to one of my fellow MAPP students who attended the Washington conference, it was unexpectedly badly organised, so I think there are some sympathies with Ehrenreich's opinion on that score. As for her criticisms of the content of the conference, there is increasing evidence ((see Lyubomirsky, King and Diener (2005) for example)) that positive and/or strengths-based approaches in organisations ultimately provide a boost to the bottom-line. Even without the supporting research, common sense tells you that business benefits if its employees have more job satisfaction and are more engaged. It makes good business sense; we have previously featured organisations like Norwich Union and Standard Chartered who have benefitted from taking a strengths-based approach.


Incidentally, it turns out that The Center for Positive Organizational Scholarship at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business is also partly funded by the Templeton Foundation and by the Gallup Organisation. The Centre, whose purpose is to energise and transform organisations through academic research into the theory and practice of positive organising and leadership, is the number one source of information on this subject, so if you want leading edge ideas about business transformation and positive leadership, this is the place to start.





Thanks to UEL MAPP student Viv Thackray for this link

The Happiness Workout

Here's an interesting article from the Guardian which includes 5 simple steps to improve your happiness. These are all supported by empirical research, so you can have confidence that they'll actually have an effect, unlike some of the techniques you find in many self-help manuals.

What is particularly important about this article is Stanford University Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky's comment that in order to be happy you have to work at it. Although some people do seem to be born with a smile on their faces, others really do have to work harder at being happy.

We often assume that happiness can be ours simply for the price of a bigger house, larger car or another promotion but there is evidence to the contrary. And the more I study Positive Psychology the more I believe that happiness is something you do, not something you have. The American Declaration of Independence talks about 'the pursuit of Happiness' after all, not the acquisition of it. So why not try out some (or all) of the five steps in the article everyday for a week and let us know how you get on?



Thanks to MAPP colleague Viv Thackray for the link

Positive Psychology or Positive Social Science?

I hear it on good authority that at the recent Gallup Positive Psychology Summit* in Washington DC, Martin Seligman announced that Positive Psychology should now be known as 'Positive Social Science'.

Unfortunately I wasn't at the conference to hear the initial reaction, but I understand that the majority of delegates were somewhat shocked. As a science Positive Psychology is still in its infancy (the phrase having been coined around about the year 2000). People working in the field, whether psychologists, therapists, coaches or educationalists, are still getting used to the terminology. Others, it has to be said, are probably hoping that if they ignore it long enough, it will go away.

Well it seems that Seligman now wants this field of research to be known as "Positive Social Science". Those who support this idea believe it makes sense to take the study outside of the domain of just psychology, into health, neuroscience, economics and politics. The more I study the subject, the more complex it appears to become, and it does indeed touch our lives in many more ways than I originally thought. When you look at the make-up of the first UEL MAPP cohorts, you'll see that we're a very varied bunch, including GPs, therapists, coaches, trainers, business people, HR experts, journalists, teachers, social workers, economists and government policy makers. Yet all of us are taking something relevant from the course and applying it at work and individually. Positive Social Science seems a broad term to cover what is a very broad subject.

On the other hand, Positive Psychology is a young subject, and its students are relatively inexperienced when compared to those of traditional psychology. In the US, of course, it's much more firmly embedded (and accepted) in the world of work; here in the UK, it's only just taking off. Might changing its name at this early stage risk losing some of the enthusiasm and energy currently being poured into it?

We may get to hear all about Seligman's reasons at the forthcoming conference in a week's time. If so, I'll let you know what he says!


* Co-incidentally, the Gallup PP Summit has been renamed the Global Well-Being Forum, reflecting the their name change to the Gallup Institute for Global Well-Being.