The Good Life

Positive psychology and what makes life worth living.

Christopher Peterson is professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. See full bio

June 10, 2008

The Last Lecture: A Positive Psychology Case Study

My colleague Ben Dean and I recently conducted an Internet survey of 1464 adults interested in positive psychology that asked what they would most like to know about this new field. A large number wanted compelling case examples of actual people who lived life well. Read More

June 6, 2008

Money and Happiness

One of the popular conclusions supposedly stemming from research in positive psychology is that money cannot buy happiness. The problem with this conclusion is that it is wrong. Read More

May 30, 2008

Presidential Character

Character does matter, all would agree, whether it is the character of our nation's leaders or the character of ourselves, our family members, our friends, our colleagues, and our fellow citizens. Election 2008 has seen no shortage of discussion of character and no lack of strong opinions and pronouncements. Read More

May 16, 2008

What Is Positive Psychology, and What Is It Not?

In less than a decade, positive psychology has caught the attention not only of the academic community but also the general public. I just did a google search for “positive psychology’ and found 419,000+ hits. That is obviously impressive, although keeping all of us positive psychologists humble is that my searches for the “Olsen twins” and “Britney Spears” produced 6,390,000+ and 113,000,000+ hits, respectively. Read More

Happiness Basics

Research on how to increase positive moods and capitalize on your strengths has proliferated lately thanks to the positive psychology movement, and has shed light on ongoing insights into personality, mood, and cognition.

Go to the Happiness Basics page for more on Happiness including:

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Everyday Creativity

How to start living creatively and reap the benefits.