The Good Life

Positive psychology and what makes life worth living.

by Christopher Peterson

Other People Matter: From Birth to Death

Let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. —1 John 4:7 Read More

Another Morning With President Obama

Some while ago, I wrote a blog entry about the 2010 University of Michigan Commencement Address by Barack Obama. At the time, I thought that hearing a standing President speak would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. I was wrong, because he spoke in Ann Arbor on Friday, January 27, 2012, and I was among the 4000 people in attendance. Read More

On the Virtue of Compromise

The word compromise is used in two different senses, one typically positive and the other typically negative. The good sense of compromise is finding a common ground with another person.The bad sense is being untrue to your core values and beliefs. Read More

Are We as Bad as the Worst Thing We’ve Ever Done?

Politicians and everyday people are certainly capable of doing bad things, and most of us do a few of these during our lives. The issue I would like to raise is whether it makes sense to judge a person solely on the basis of the worst thing he or she has ever done. Read More

The Face of Leadership

A "gee whiz" study was recently described by Elaine Wong, Margaret Ormiston, and Michael Haselhun (2011). These researchers were able to predict the financial success of Fortune 500 companies from the facial width-to-height ratio (WHR) of the CEO. That is, how wide was the CEO's face relative to how long it was? Read More

The Presenter's Paradox: When Less is More

Life Satisfaction in the Wake of Disability

One of the parable studies in positive psychology is an investigation reported some years ago by Phillip Brickman, Dan Coates, and Ronnie Janoff-Bulman (1978). These psychologists were then at Northwestern University, and the state of Illinois had just started to run a lottery. Read More

Learning from the Life of Steve Jobs

Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?- Steve Jobs

Is It Time for Negative Psychology?

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom; it was the age of foolishness. It was the epoch of belief; it was the epoch of incredulity. It was the season of Light; it was the season of Darkness. It was the spring of hope; it was the winter of despair. We had everything before us; we had nothing before us. Read More

Affirmation on Your Desktop

I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest. — Muhammad Ali Read More

False Positive Psychology

You've got to accentuate the positive,Eliminate the negative,And latch on to the affirmative.Don't mess with Mister In-Between- Johnny Mercer (1944)

This essay is not about positive psychology, false or true, although I hope the deliberately ambiguous title drew some of you readers here. Read More

11/11/11 – Hail to Corduroy Day

The news, like always, is not all that uplifting today. From the cascading scandal at Penn State to the ongoing NBA lockout to the yo-yo-ing stock market, there is little going on that brings a smile to my face. Read More

Is Good Enough Really Good Enough?

An important study by Justin Arneson, Paul Sackett, and Adam Beatty (2011) was recently published looking at the relationships between ability as measured by standardized tests and performance as measured by what people actually accomplish. Read More

Banning Men from Sporting Events … and Elsewhere?

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting. - George Orwell Read More

Doing the Right Thing for the Right Reason

We make a living by what we do, but we make a life by what we give. - Winston Churchill

It has just come to my attention that on July 19, 2011, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution about happiness. Unlike many matters that concern the UN, this resolution was unanimously supported.

Among the ideas set forth in the resolution are the following, thoroughly consistent with recent theorizing and research in positive psychology: Read More

The 800-Pound Gorilla

"Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility." --Peter Drucker Read More

Bow Ties and Other Signatures

Wearing a bow tie is a statement. Almost an act of defiance. - Rick Kaplan

I was surfing around this morning and found several websites devoted to well-known men who wear bow ties, from Aaron Beck and George Will to Pee Wee Herman and Donald Duck.

We are kept from our goal not by obstacles but by a clear path to a lesser goal. - Robert Brault

I have written previously about psychological differences across states in the US, and I have written previously about accidents. So, my interest was drawn to a recent research article by Collin Barnes, Ryan Brown, and Michael Tamborski (2011) finding that the death rate due to accidents - traumatic mishaps like auto crashes, drowning, and fires - is higher in some states than in others. Read More

Celebratory Gunfire: Savoring with a Bang

Applause is a celebration not only of the actors but also of the audience. It constitutes a shared moment of delight. - John Charles Polanyi Read More

Dealing with E-Mail: The 24-Hour Rule

I don't believe in e-mail. I'm an old-fashioned girl. I prefer calling and hanging up. - Sarah Jessica Parker

Health is the state about which medicine has nothing to say. - W. H. Auden Read More

There Are No Accidents

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don't let yourself believe it will happen to you. - Muhammad Ali

This idea [Wikipedia] ... it's not really about the software, it's about the people. It's about helping people find resolutions to problems and being supportive and loving and at the same time being firm with people who are trying to disrupt things. - Jimmy Wales, co-launcher of Wikipedia

In a land of immigrants, one [is] not an alien but simply the latest arrival. - Rudolf Arnheim

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not? - Robert F. Kennedy

What annoyances are more painful than those of which we cannot complain? - Marquis De Custine

I just finished reading an interesting book titled Annoying by science writers Joe Palca and Flora Lichtman (2011). The book is a free-ranging and intelligent discussion of what is known about the things that annoy us: what, who, when, why, and how. Read More

It's Not the Coverup ... It's the Crime

Honor and integrity are traits that show who you really are when no one else is around. - John Di Lemme Read More

What Good Are Fathers?

Those of you with access to a college or university library are familiar with PsycINFO, a wonderful on-line resource of the American Psychological Association that allows a computerized search by keywords of English-language studies published by psychologists, from 1872 to the present. Read More