Research indicates that we are less caring today than we were thirty years ago, leading former President Obama to argue in 2006 that Americans are suffering from an "empathy deficit." An empathy expert, Dr. Jamil Zaki, an Associate Professor of Psychology at Stanford and the...
The April 2022 Tales of WellBeing included a review of a book on human happiness written by social psychologist and professional ethicist Dr. Jonathan Haidt. Haidt looked at happiness and how it might be achieved from the perspective of positive psychology. Professor Ng’s new (open...
The first World Happiness Report (WHR) was issued in 2012. Therefore, this year (2022) is the tenth anniversary of that event. The WHR founders’ statements in the opening chapter of WHR 2022 assert; 1. The true measure of progress is the happiness of people. 2....
In the June 2020 Tales of WellBeing, Professor Alan Kazdin of Yale contributed an article promoting contact with nature to improve mental health. There is a growing academic literature on the importance of nature in promoting human subjective well-being. For example, in 2019, a paper...
Several well-being and happiness research centers and policy units have been established in the last decade at major universities. For example, Harvard’s School of Public Health established the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness in 2016, while Oxford University launched its Wellbeing Research...
President Biden signed the awkwardly named 'Puppies Assisting Wounded Servicemembers for Veterans Therapy Act' or the 'PAWS for Veterans Therapy Act' (PAWS Act of 2021) into law at the end of August 2021. This Act requires the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to implement a...
The first World Happiness Report, drawing extensively on Gallup’s World Poll data, was published in 2012. The report is now released every year on March 20th and the 2021 World Happiness Report is the ninth in the series. The first eight reports were produced by...
Over the past decade, there has been an explosion of interest in the use of assistance dogs to help military veterans cope with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) and other challenges posed by a return to civilian life. Numerous organizations have been founded to provide such...
Once upon a time, there was a family of raccoons who lived in a suburban neighborhood. Their home was a beautiful tree (perhaps a hickory tree) with a large hole about halfway up and a mysteriously built wind breaker next to the entrance. It made...
Have you ever wondered what effect end-of-year seasonal rituals have on well-being? Here is a brief description of what the celebrations are about and where they occur. The end of the Western calendar year (Gregorian – established in 1582), based on the Earth’s revolution around the sun, brings a variety of...
