Greater Good Science Center

Q&A with researcher Robb Rutledge on mental health, expectations, decision-making and, yes, holiday planning!

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Have you ever looked for­ward to a con­cert, beach vaca­tion, or par­ty only to find your­self not enjoy­ing it as much as you thought you would?

You may be suf­fer­ing from over­ly high expec­ta­tions, says psy­chol­o­gist Robb Rut­ledge of Yale Uni­ver­si­ty. Rut­ledge and his col­leagues have been using smart­phone-based data col­lec­tion (via a free app called Hap­pi­ness Quest, where any­one can play short games and con­tribute to research) to see how our expec­ta­tions affect our future hap­pi­ness. Some of their find­ings point to nov­el approach­es for increas­ing our enjoy­ment of every­day life. [Read more…] about Q&A with researcher Robb Rut­ledge on men­tal health, expec­ta­tions, deci­sion-mak­ing and, yes, hol­i­day planning!

Five ways to clear foggy brains and improve cognitive well-being

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The oth­er day, my friend Kristi­na told me that one evening she unin­ten­tion­al­ly locked her hus­band in a down­stairs part of their house. She had known he was down there, but while dis­tract­ed­ly lock­ing the door for the night, for­got com­plete­ly. She didn’t real­ize what she’d done until she saw a text from her hus­band the next morn­ing ask­ing her to please let him out.

“I couldn’t believe I did that to him,” she says. “I was stunned and alarmed that I had no aware­ness, in the moment or after­ward, of what I had done.” [Read more…] about Five ways to clear fog­gy brains and improve cog­ni­tive well-being

From forest bathing to urban parks: How nature helps protect our well-being during a pandemic

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St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin, cour­tesy of Aerial.ie

Liv­ing through the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has had a severe impact on people’s men­tal health and well-being. Restrict­ed move­ment, loss, and iso­la­tion have led to increas­es in depres­sion, anx­i­ety dis­or­ders, stress, sleep dis­or­ders, and more. The effects have been even harsh­er for teens.

How can we help pro­tect our well-being dur­ing this par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult time? Though a pub­lic health response is def­i­nite­ly called for, one way we might try to help our­selves this year is spend­ing more time immersed in nature. In the last decade or so, research on the health ben­e­fits of nature expe­ri­ences has explod­ed, con­firm­ing what many peo­ple know intuitively—that green spaces are good for men­tal well-being, whether you’re walk­ing out­doors, look­ing at beau­ti­ful views, or even just see­ing videos of nature. [Read more…] about From for­est bathing to urban parks: How nature helps pro­tect our well-being dur­ing a pandemic

Q&A with Dr. Wendy Suzuki on the parasympathetic nervous system and harnessing anxiety for good

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Anx­i­ety can feel like a heavy weight that we didn’t ask to car­ry. Who wouldn’t love to get rid of it?

But neu­ro­sci­en­tist Wendy Suzu­ki wants to chal­lenge the way we look at our anx­i­ety. In fact, her new book is called Good Anx­i­ety: Har­ness­ing the Pow­er of the Most Mis­un­der­stood Emo­tion.

If you’re skep­ti­cal, so was I. But Suzuki’s point is that anx­i­ety is a nat­ur­al human emo­tion, one that evolved to serve a pur­pose. We feel anx­ious when there is some kind of dan­ger; it primes our body to fight or flee from that dan­ger, in hopes that we’ll end up bet­ter off (i.e., alive). In the same way, our mod­ern anx­i­eties can be a warn­ing sig­nal for things that are wrong: not enough rest, too much mul­ti­task­ing, iso­la­tion from oth­ers. Our anx­ious ener­gy alerts us to change our lives for the bet­ter, she argues. [Read more…] about Q&A with Dr. Wendy Suzu­ki on the parasym­pa­thet­ic ner­vous sys­tem and har­ness­ing anx­i­ety for good

Ten insights on human well-being and potential from two giants we sadly lost in 2021: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Ed Diener

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Many of us suf­fered ter­ri­ble loss­es in 2021. In the field of pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy, we lost two of our most influ­en­tial schol­ars: Mihaly Csik­szent­mi­ha­lyi and Ed Diener. In their hon­or, I’d like to remem­ber and appre­ci­ate the con­tri­bu­tions they made to the under­stand­ing of human flour­ish­ing. [Read more…] about Ten insights on human well-being and poten­tial from two giants we sad­ly lost in 2021: Mihaly Csik­szent­mi­ha­lyi and Ed Diener

Could I be wrong? Exploring research on cognitive bias, curiosity, intellectual humility, and lifelong learning

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A few years ago, I asked a sam­ple of adults to think about all of the dis­agree­ments that they have with oth­er peo­ple, from minor dis­agree­ments about rel­a­tive­ly unim­por­tant issues to major dis­agree­ments about impor­tant mat­ters. Then, I asked them to esti­mate the per­cent­age of dis­agree­ments they have with oth­er peo­ple in which they are the one who is correct.

Only 4% of the respon­dents indi­cat­ed they were right less than half of the time, and only 14% said they were right half of the time. The vast majority—a whop­ping 82%—reported that, when they dis­agreed with oth­er peo­ple, they were usu­al­ly the one who was right! (Pause a moment to ask your­self the same ques­tion: In what per­cent­age of the dis­agree­ments that you have with oth­er peo­ple are you the one who’s right?) [Read more…] about Could I be wrong? Explor­ing research on cog­ni­tive bias, curios­i­ty, intel­lec­tu­al humil­i­ty, and life­long learning