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happier.com Hits the Road with Meetups and Experts in Philly, DC, NYC, Portland, LA, San Francisco and More

happier.com — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:00:59 +0000

It’s a unique opportunity to meet people who share similar interests and get excited about positive psychology. I hope to be turning on more friends in the area to happier.com.
- Patty Ferssizidis from happierDC

Upcoming Meetups

happierPhilly.com
Philadelphia, PA: Thursday, November 19, 6:00pm. A focus on practitioners: The best books, tests, and tools for coaches, consultants and happiness trainers. With special guest, Coach Emiliya Zhivotovskaya, MAPP. Open to everyone, with a focus on practitioners. Register now.

Click here to check out
The happierPhilly – Happiness Group Philadelphia!

happierPortland.com
Portland, OR: Sunday, November 22, 2:00pm. Inaugural Meetup: Surprising Findings from the Science of Happiness. At the inaugural meeting of happierPortland, we’ll have a special guest: noted author and educator Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener, author of Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. 40+ registered; limited space still available. Register now.

Click here to check out
The happierPortland – The Portland Happiness Club Meetup!

Online Webinar
Everywhere. Wednesday, December 16, 3:00pm EST. Using happier.com with your Clients: A special Webinar for Positive Psychology Practitioners. This special webinar is designed for positive psychology coaches, consultants, trainers and other practitioners. Join us from your home or office for this one-hour networking and learning opportunity. Hear “what works” from expert positive psychology practitioners. Free. Register online or email with questions.

happierLA.com
Long Beach, CA: Wednesday, January 6, 6:15pm. Ten Tips To Improve Your Happiness NOW! Hosted by UniqueScan, with happier.com co-founder Andrew. Registration is now open.

Click here to check out
The HappierLA!

happierSanFrancisco.com
San Francisco, CA: Thursday, January 7, 6:15pm. Surprising Discoveries from the Science of Happiness: What Works, What Doesn’t, and What You Can Do About It. With happier.com co-founder Andrew. This meetup is a direct result of user interest and organization! Sign up now to reserve your spot.

More meetups are in the works for Boston, DC, New York, Chicago and Seattle. Interested in getting involved in your neck of the woods? Email us.

Click here to check out
The happierSanFrancisco – Happiness Group San Francisco!

Recent Meetups:

happierPhilly.com October 14th, 2009. Philadelphia, PA. Over 75 people RSVP’d for Staying Resilient in Tough Times: Why Happiness is Important in Business. Panelists included Dr. Karen Reivich, author of The Optimistic Child (co-author) and The Resilience Factor and Scott Asalone, Fortune 500 consultant. View pictures.

happierDC.com October 15, 2009. Washington, DC. Dr. Todd Kashdan hosted an intimate conversation: New Findings in Happiness & Personality: Looking Within People, Not Just Between. Attendees were in for a special treat when a crew from CNN came to learn more about the meetup and talk with attendees. View pictures.

Click here to check out
The Happier DC – The Washington DC Happiness Club!

happierNYC.com November 12, 2009. New York, NY. Co-founder Andrew introduced the science-backed tools and tests of happier.com and host Emiliya Zhivotovskaya led the group in positive psychology exercises.

Here’s the presentation from the NYC meetup

happier.com: a personal trainer for your happiness

View more presentations from happier.com.

happier.com is a personal trainer for your happiness. With more than a dozen tools and tests to help you measure, track and improve your happiness, you can trust the happier.com experts to help you reach your goals. Exclusive videos and a popular blog mean there’s something new to learn every day. Download the free iPhone application or find what you’re looking for with the Positive Psychology Practitioner Directory. happier.com is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter and has meetup groups in Washington, Philadelphia, and Portland, with more planned. Click here for a social media press release from our launch.

Special Free Program for Practitioners: Thursday at 6pm, in Philadelphia

happier.com — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:30:49 +0000

This meetup will focus on practitioners. A definition of different types of practitioners is online including Educators, Executive Coaches, Life Coaches, Therpaists, OD Consultants, and Wellness Coaches. We’ll focus on the practice of positive psychology and discuss best practices.

Special guest and November meetup leader is Emiliya Zhivotovskaya, an organizer of Happiness Club NY, the world’s largest!

Emiliya is a practitioner herself and will be leading a special workshop of particular interest to positive psychology practitioners. All people are welcome.

Easily accessible to public transportation and parking. Blue Line at 34th and Market and Green Line at 36th and Walnut.

Penn Bookstore

3601 Walnut, 2nd Floor

Philadelphia, PA 19104

RSVP today online: http://www.meetup.com/HappierPhilly/calendar/11509013/

Click here to check out
The happierPhilly – Happiness Group Philadelphia!

The Best Books on Positive Psychology, from happier.com and Amazon

Michael Durkheimer — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:20:17 +0000

In our Amazon store you can buy the books from our experts and other prominent minds in the field of positive psychology! Also, use the store to stay up to date with new releases as experts continue to discover groundbreaking findings in the science of happiness.

Here are 4 great books to start with:

Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment by Martin Seligman

Curious? Discovering the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life by Todd Kashdan

Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth by Ed Diener, Robert Biswas-Diener

Positivity: Groundbreaking Research reveals how to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome negativity and Thrive by Barbara Fredrickson

Or try these others:

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz

The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt

Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment by Tal Ben-Shahar

A Primer in Positive Psychology by Christopher Peterson

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want by Sonja Lyubomirsky

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

Here is a video of Martin Seligman talking about his favorite Positive Psychology books:

Come visit our Amazon store today!

How Much Television is Too Much for Children? for Adults? Science Weighs In

ToddKashdan — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:56:11 +0000

By happier.com expert Todd Kashdan, Ph.D.

Scientists have it in for television. On the surface, television seems to be a big, bad creature that corrupts youth. Promising athletes are transformed into immobile, morbidly obese balls of flesh. Courtesy of Showtime, kind, compassionate children become violent, sex-crazed lunatics. If your kid is typical, television plays a big part in their life, so pay attention.

According to new study in the October 2009 issue of Child Development, television is destroying our families. Here is the press release:

A new study looks for the first time at the effect of background TV on interactions between parents and young children. Using an experimental design, researchers found that when a TV was on, both the quantity and quality of interactions between parents and children dropped. This study challenges the common assumption that background TV doesn’t affect very young children if they don’t look at the screen.

Gulp! Keep your television and you are killing your family, one conversation at a time. This study, just like similar studies, received a ton of media attention. The consensus is that one of the easiest ways to improve the quality of our life, our children, and our family, is to turn off the TV.

But let’s get into the details. Because if there is one thing I learned about the media and research, it’s that the details make all the difference and they are often the first to go. In this particular study, scientists observed 50 kids between the ages of 1-3 and their parents for one hour. For half of the one-hour session, parents and children were in a playroom without TV; for the other 30 minutes, parents chose a program to watch. Now let’s go back to the conclusion. Watching TV interferes with the quantity and quality of conversations between parents and children. No $#@! I have some titles for other studies:

“Books are bad for kids- Tell them to stop reading, now!”
- after all, if kids have a book open and they are immersed in the story, this will make it hard to talk to their parents and friends.

“The neglected, untreated cause of erectile dysfunction- Iphones!”
- Even when naked on top of another adult, checking your email and reading the latest news on your iphone is going to harm your sexual performance. Go ahead, see for yourself.

Personally, I don’t mind if researchers want to study whether television is harmful. What I suggest is that they ask the right questions. Instead of fighting the content of what people do, scientists should focus on the function. If someone watches television to recharge their batteries after intense socializing (because perhaps they are highly sensitive) and it works, then I say let them keep their strategy. If watching television helps an active, social child unwind at the end of the day and transition into their nighttime routine of brushing teeth, getting into their pajamas, and going to sleep, so be it. Sounds like a perfect strategy to regulate their mood. The reasons that people watch television can range from the helpful (learning about astronomy, recharging their energy supply) to the unhelpful (procrastinating from studying for an exam, avoiding other people because socializing is anxiety provoking).

Let’s move beyond the silly argument of how much television people should watch and focus on the motives behind the movements. If you are a parent, the amount of hours your children watch television should not be yet another area for you to stress about. There are enough important, stressful areas that warrant your attention. Let this be your mantra- focus on function, not content.

Science should speak for itself but if the questions are silly then the data and the conclusions are going to be silly. In the absence of good research, nobody should be turning to scientists for opinions about how to have fun. Once scientists move outside their area of expertise, they are just as stupid as anyone else. Myself included.

Dr. Todd B. Kashdan is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at George Mason University. He is the author of Curious? Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life. For more about his books and research, go to www.toddkashdan.com

Live in DC? All Positive Psychology Enthusiasts Invited to Join HappierDC – Meetup This Thursday

Andrew Rosenthal — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:10:21 +0000

Happier DC – The Washington DC Happiness Club

Join other happiness enthusiasts based in Washington, DC for monthly meetups about the science of happiness.

New Findings in Happiness & Personality: Looking Within People, Not Just Between

Thursday October 15, 6:15pm in the Dupont Circle area

Our first meetup was a real success! The casual get-together was a chance for us to get to know each other and chat a bit about our goals for happierDC. And, thanks to everyone who responded to the survey questions asking: What do you want to get out of happierDC?

One consistent theme was that we want meetups to be an opportunity to learn and to socialize. And that’s why we’ve invited back noted author and professor Todd Kashdan, Ph.D. Todd is author of Curious? and is an expert on relationships, personality and positive psychology. This time, we’ve asked Todd to speak to us with some real detail on one of his favorite research areas: Happiness & Personality: Looking Within People; Not Just Between Them.

Our meetup starts at 6:15pm at the iStrategies lab space, in a private townhouse on Dupont Circle. The meetup location is very accessible to public transportation. Limited street parking is available and there is lots of garage parking.

Meetup schedule:
6:15pm – Gather and chat
6:40pm – Welcome and introductions
6:45pm – Todd Kashdan presents
7:45pm – Questions and discussion

Pictures from the last happierdc.com meetup

Panel on Staying Resilient: Why Happiness is Important in Business

happier.com — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:16:04 +0000

On behalf of Drexel University’s Business of Ambition: Co-Curricular Activities, Programs & Services, Kamina Richardson, Program Manager and co-sponsor happier.com invite you to attend:

“Staying Resilient: Why Happiness is Important in Business”

Wednesday, October 14th
Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design
Nesbitt Hall, Ruth Auditorium
33nd and Market Streets
Philadelphia, PA 19104
5 – 6 p.m. Panel Discussion
6-7 p.m. Reception

When the growth is stagnant and people are losing jobs, why should we care about happiness? What impact does employee happiness have on productivity and engagement, and how do we teach people to be more resilient in the face of adversity? What works for increasing employee happiness?

Leaders in the fields of management, consulting and psychology provide perspectives on staying resilient during tough times: why happiness is important for business. Learn what Merrill Lynch and the U.S. Army are already doing to increase happiness and resilience and hear about the latest findings in the science of happiness.

Panel Speakers:
Professor Diana Sandberg is an instructor for the Finance Department at LeBow College of Business. She is an expert in Risk Management.

Scott Asalone is partner and co-founder of ASGMC. He co-founded the firm to inspire and guide people in business to be their very best, through the use of his motivational speaking skills and management development expertise. Scott has a Masters Degree in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. He is an affiliate of the American Psychological Association and a member of the International Positive Psychology Association. He is certified in Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory, Firo-B, and Dimensional Management techniques.

Karen Reivich, Ph.D. is co-author of The Resilience Factor and of the best-selling The Optimistic Child. Dr. Reivich is a Research Associate at the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Psychology, and is also the co-director of the Penn Resiliency Project and an instructor in the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology program in which she teaches a course on Positive Psychology and Individuals.

Adam M. Grant, Ph.D. is an award-winning researcher and Associate Professor of Management at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Grant’s research focuses on work motivation, job design, pro-social helping and giving behaviors, initiative and proactive behaviors, and employee well-being.

To register: http://www.lebow.drexel.edu/Event/2528 or contact Kamina Richardson 215-571-3568 for additional information.

Media contacts: Christa Guidi, Cashman & Associates, 215.627.1060, cguidi@cashmanandassociates.com or Courtney Sochacki, Cashman & Associates, 215.627.1060, courtney@cashmanandassociates.com

30 of the Best Books on the Science of Happiness – Written by the Experts

happier.com — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:00:36 +0000

Looking for a new book? We’ve selected 30 of the best books about the science of happiness. Written by the happier.com experts and other thought-leaders, these books are the best place to go to learn about the research and practice of positive psychology and ways to start getting happier.

When we come across a new book or one of our experts recommends one, we’ll add it to the bookstore as soon as it’s available. And since the bookstore is actually run by amazon.com, you can use your existing account with the site.

Have suggestions for books to add or questions about what’s included? Just let us know!

Books include:

Curious? by Todd Kashdan

Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson

Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman

Over 100 Videos from the Happiness Experts – Free on happier.com

happier.com — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:27:32 +0000

happier.com now offers more than 100 videos from the happiness experts. Videos are available for free — just complete the 2-step registration process.

The videos feature Martin Seligman, Todd Kashdan, Acacia Parks, Barbara Fredrickson and other happier.com experts and contributors.

Videos are grouped into categories including education, exercises, gratitude, happienss, happier.com, optimism, positive psychology, relationships, resilience, strengths and tests.

Can We Change Our Personality? A guest post from Prof. Todd Kashdan

ToddKashdan — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:07:04 +0000

This post comes from happier.com expert Todd Kashdan, Ph.D.

While on vacation, I had a pivotal moment with two cousins aged 7 and 11. In a rare moment of conversation (instead of riding ocean waves or playing football), I asked them what they think are the ideal qualities for being successful in life. Without taking a breath, my 7-year old cousin blurted, “Running fast; I can run faster than my mom”. You could see the pride in his facial expression, a little Tigger ready to race anyone, anytime. Now running fast probably lands no higher than 180 on the chart of successful traits but then again, this wasn’t a game of Family Feud and he took this in stride. Being precocious little creatures, they asked me what I meant by this thing called personality that I kept referring to. Little did they know that scientists continue to ask the same question…

If you’re anything like me, you listened to psychologists when they talked about a rigid, unchanging thing called personality. From early childhood to the grave, people remain essentially the same. How did they know? Historically, researchers gave people a slew of questionnaires asking them to rate how much they agree with statements such as “I’m an even-tempered person” and “I try to be courteous to everyone I meet.” A few months or even years later, people were given the same questions and guess what? Their answers were similar to what they said the last time. This oversimplified approach perpetuated the myth that our personality crystallizes into stone by the time we reach our twenties. This might be very satisfying if people describe you as being cheerful, playful, and charismatic. But if people describe you as neurotic, disagreeable, and closed-minded, this could be disheartening―forget self-help books and the gobbledygook of therapists because your personality is bred in the bone. Thankfully, recent research has overturned this oversimplified thinking.
Of course there is some continuity in how we think, feel and behave. Problems arise when we form an idea about who we are, say pessimistic, and then fixate on this idea, ignoring and discarding moments that fail to fit in. The problem is just as bad when we label our lovers, friends, and acquaintances. Nobody wants to be boxed in because you happened to witness them do something silly, annoying, or immoral. Do you want to label children as unintelligent because they fail a test or a single class? Do you want to label an adult as shy because they said little at a party where they barely knew anybody? Researchers have found that we define a stranger’s personality after a mere 10 seconds. With this thin slice of information, we start to think and act differently toward them. If we label them as open-minded and curious, we prefer to spend more time with them; if we label them as disagreeable and neurotic, we prefer to keep our distance. An entire pattern starts to form after a mere 10 seconds!

When we think of ourselves and other people in rigid, immutable terms (“I am not funny,” “She is cold and emotionless”) this paves the way for a self-fulfilling prophecy. But more importantly, it’s simply wrong. Rigid terms can’t do justice to describe a person. I like to think of personality as a series of buckets. Every time you think something, feel something, or do something, there is a moment to be placed in a bucket. Think of moments as something tangible, perhaps a golf ball. When we say someone is sociable, what we are saying is that they have a large number of golf balls in the bucket for being sociable (when they are talkative and comfortable around other people). But everyone (I mean everyone) has moments when they prefer to be by themselves or worry about being rejected or judged harshly by other people. When this happens, a golf ball goes into the solitude or socially anxious bucket. Sure, the majority of golf balls land in the sociable bucket, but don’t forget that in a given month or year, a sizeable number of golf balls are going to fill the solitude bucket and the socially anxious bucket.

What this means is that at any given moment, you “may be” or “could be” sociable, but you also might want to be alone or you might feel uncomfortable around other people. This idea of personality is far closer to the truth about who we are and what other people are about. It also opens up the possibility for all of us to be free, alive, and creative. When we recognize that everyone has a little bit of every personality trait, we become open to change and we become tolerant and accepting.

Try to avoid the trap of using rigid terms for yourself and others. We can laugh and tease friends at “happy hour,” and we can be solemn and assertive when trying to get an errant late fee waived by a stubborn credit card representative. When we recognize the breadth of our personality, we essentially gain access to a greater variety of strategies to get the possible outcome in a situation.

When we believe that traits such as intelligence, compassion, and perseverance are fixed, that there are only so many golf balls we can add to these buckets, we feel powerless to change. We start to view failures as personal flaws instead of stemming from difficult situations or a lack of effort. When we view our personality as a fluid quality that changes depending on what we do and the situation we find ourselves in, we become more energetic, productive, creative, and successful in life.

As a starting point to improving your quality of life: be aware that there is a bucket for every side of every single personality trait that you can conceive and there are at least a few golf balls in each. Each and every bucket is a part of your personality and with certain intentional strategies, we can being adding more golf balls into buckets that reflect characteristics that you admire, strengths that work well for you, or behaviors that energize you.

It’s fun to contemplate the master list of personality traits that enable people to be particularly happy and successful. This includes assessing how many of these traits are in our personal arsenal. However, this exercise is one step removed from reality. Our lives are full of possibility when we are aware of the multiple sides of our personality and that we are still evolving. This flexible mindset sets the stage for a life well-lived.

Interested in specific strategies for how to add more golf balls to particular buckets? Do you want to build strengths and become more psychologically flexible? Discover dozens of exercises based on cutting-edge research in my latest book, Curious?
Dr. Todd B. Kashdan is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at George Mason University. He is the author of Curious? Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life. For more about his book and research, go to www.toddkashdan.com.

Follow him on Twitter: www.twitter.com/toddkashdan

In USA TODAY: Happiness – Staying Positive in Negative Territory

happier.com — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 05:18:03 +0000

This great article includes work by Robert Biswas-Diener and Todd Kashdan. Both are featured experts on happier.com.

Happiness: Staying positive in negative territory

By Sharon Jayson, USA TODAY

TORONTO — Pursuing happiness may be an inalienable right, but it’s tougher keeping those spirits up while your 401(k) is lower than it used to be.

Part of the reason, say those who study the subject, is that you may be looking for happiness in all the wrong places. People can be happy in an economic slump — they just have to change their ideas about what it takes to be happy, say a growing number of psychologists who study “positive psychology,” which emphasizes the benefits of optimism and having a positive outlook.

Although past studies have found those who live in countries with higher per capita incomes report many measures of greater well-being, it’s psychological wealth that helps people get through tough times, say researchers Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, who will present new findings at the four-day annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, which opens here today. About 10,000 psychology professionals are expected to attend.

Though money helps people lead more comfortable lives, it doesn’t necessarily contribute to the moments in life that bring happiness — which tend to come from social interactions and activities, not from accumulating material goods.

“Wealth really means having what you need, and money gives only one part of what we need,” says Diener, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign.

Diener and his son Biswas-Diener, a psychologist and lecturer at Portland (Ore.) State University, co-wrote a 2008 book, Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. They will present findings of a survey of 136,000 people in 132 countries on how income and wealth relate to psychological needs.

“When you look at the entire world, money does matter,” Diener says. “But it almost doesn’t matter at all for enjoying life.”

He says he and his wife had to cut back on spending when the stock market dropped. “It has mattered zero to our happiness,” he says. “We did have to make some tough decisions on what we can’t do,” such as canceling a trip with their five grandkids to Alaska.

They saved $10,000 by having the kids visit them at home in Salt Lake City instead. “It was not only OK, in some ways it was better. Without the traveling, life becomes slightly simpler and less hectic.”

Simplicity is a silver lining to the downturn, says psychologist Robert Wicks.

“In the up economy, people were successful, but in many cases, they were missing their lives,” says Wicks, a psychology professor at Loyola University Maryland in Columbia and author of Bounce: Living the Resilient Life, out next month.

“They weren’t spending time really enjoying themselves and weren’t spending time with family and friends. The simplicity that’s possible during difficult economic times would not come to the fore if a crisis had not occurred.”

Some research suggests focusing on gratitude can increase happiness.

Gender plays a role

A study by Todd Kashdan, director of the Laboratory for the Study of Social Anxiety, Character Strengths, and Related Phenomena at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., published online in the Journal of Personality earlier this year, finds that gender plays a role in achieving well-being: Men are much less likely than women to feel and express gratitude.

Carla White, a website designer in Sioux Falls, S.D., says keeping a daily journal about things she’s grateful for allowed her to feel happy again after grappling with her father’s death for 18 months — unsuccessfully, she says.

“I think what a gratitude journal does is it shows me I actually have some good stuff in my life. I feel at peace. I feel happy because of that,” she says.

White, who also faced the prospect of job loss last year, has created a gratitude journal iPhone application, which she launched at the end of the year.

Anthony Scioli, a psychology professor at Keene State College in Keene, N.H., says he has tried to distance himself somewhat from the segment of positive psychology that focuses on happiness in the here and now.

“We do not live just in the moment. Philosophically, one could even say it is impossible to live in the moment because time is fleeting, and most of the ‘time’ we live in the future and the past,” he says. “Hope is predominantly about the future, but is also fueled by past experiences of success, empowerment, connection, security, coping.”

Scioli will present research on hope at an APA session on Friday.

“Hope brings a special kind of happiness, a more permanent form,” says Scioli, co-author of Hope in the Age of Anxiety, with clinical psychologist Henry Biller of the University of Rhode Island-Kingston.

“Hopeful people are sustained by the belief that there are always options,” Scioli says. “Diversify investments, consider a different line of work, or pick up a temporary part-time job. Rent a room in your house for extra income. Hopeful people are more apt to stay calm in a crisis due to their broader life perspective and faith in the future.”

But sometimes having hope and wanting to be happy aren’t so easy, especially when so many people have been laid off or can’t find work.

That’s when happiness really suffers, says Biswas-Diener, of Milwaukie, Ore., who is also program director for the Centre of Applied Positive Psychology in the United Kingdom.

“The truth is you do take a hit where your happiness is concerned if you get laid off,” he says, but “money is only one of the reasons. It’s the stress associated with not being able to pay bills. Also, jobs provide meaning. They structure your time. They give you a sense of identity. They allow you to provide for your loved ones. When you take away these critical psychological components, people really do feel it.”

Experiences trump stuff

Psychologists also have found that being highly materialistic affects happiness, with those who are most concerned about money and possessions actually being less happy.

Keeping too close tabs on the economy, such as daily monitoring of economic indicators that have been on a roller-coaster ride since the recession began, also hinders happiness.

“We find that people whose moods are up and down a lot are less happy. People who are less reactive to every event, in general, are happier,” Diener says.

But what about what money can buy? Previous research has found that using money to pay for something novel, social or experiential brings more happiness than buying things.

Some newer studies confirm these results. San Francisco State University researchers presented findings earlier this year to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, based on what participants said about their purchases.

They said they thought eating out or buying theater tickets was money better spent than on more things, such as a new tech toy or clothing, and the experiential purchase provided greater happiness for themselves and others, regardless of the amount they paid or their income.

Making happy memories

The researchers suggest that’s because experiences can provide happy memories, which don’t wear away as fast as the rush of buying a new possession.

But a study in this month’s Journal of Consumer Research found that negative experiences can turn the theory upside down.

Researchers at the University of Texas-Austin and Washington University in St. Louis found that a bad experience, like a vacation gone wrong, can have a more negative impact on happiness than other spending of a comparable amount.

Humans are predisposed to pay greater attention to the negative, psychologists say.

That’s partly evolutionary because humans automatically turn their attention to anything threatening before paying attention to rewards, says Diener — ignoring a lion’s threat, for example, could make you a goner, while ignoring something good isn’t a matter of survival.

Focusing on what’s good and the special moments that bring happiness to people’s lives is why Pamela Gail Johnson of Lewisville, Texas, says she created the Secret Society of Happy People.

Johnson says the group, started in 1998, has struck a nerve with at least 7,000 people she counts as official members.

The website (www.sohp.com) has had more traffic since the downturn, she says.

“When they’re in this global uncertainty, they start asking these tougher questions,” she says. ‘Do I need three cars? Does that make me happy?’ “

Johnson urges people to savor the happy moments, even in the midst of financial chaos.

“If your basic needs are met, happiness is not about money,” she says.