Positive psychology studies the conditions that contribute to the optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions. It studies "positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions... it aims to improve quality of life."
O, The Oprah Magazine, also known simply as O, is an American monthly magazine founded by talk show host Oprah Winfrey and Hearst Communications. In 2021, Winfrey and Hearst rebranded it as Oprah Daily.
The term eustress means "beneficial stress"—either psychological, physical, or biochemical/radiological (hormesis).
Jonathan David Haidt is an American social psychologist and author. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at the New York University Stern School of Business. His main areas of study are the psychology of morality and moral emotions.
Robert Holden is a British psychologist, author, and broadcaster, who works in the field of positive psychology and well-being. He is the founder of The Happiness Project, which runs an eight-week course annually, called "Happiness Now", and the author of 10 best-selling books such as, Happiness NOW!, Be Happy, Success Intelligence and Shift Happens!. He runs the National Health Service (NHS) Stress Buster clinic, established first NHS "laughter clinic", and runs regular happiness workshops and seminars, with clients including employees of the NHS, the BBC and British Telecom.
Arthur C. Brooks is an American author, public speaker, and academic. Since 2019, Brooks has served as the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Nonprofit and Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and at the Harvard Business School as a Professor of Management Practice and Faculty Fellow. Previously, Brooks served as the 11th President of the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of thirteen books, including Build the Life You Want: The Art and Science of Getting Happier with co-author Oprah Winfrey (2023), From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life (2022), Love Your Enemies (2019), The Conservative Heart (2015), and The Road to Freedom (2012). Since 2020, he has written the Atlantic’s How to Build a Life column on happiness.
Envy is an emotion which occurs when a person lacks another's quality, skill, achievement, or possession and wishes that the other lacked it.
Oprah Winfrey's endorsement of Senator Barack Obama was one of the most widely covered and studied developments of the 2008 presidential campaign, as she has been described as the most influential woman in the world. Winfrey first endorsed Senator Obama in September 2006 before he had even declared himself a candidate. In May 2007 Winfrey made her official endorsement of candidate Obama, and in December 2007, she made her first campaign appearances for him. Two economists estimate that Winfrey's endorsement was worth over a million votes in the Democratic primary race and that without it, Obama would have received fewer votes. Then-Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich claimed that the endorsement was so significant in making Obama president-elect that he considered offering Obama's former seat in the Senate to Winfrey.
Oprah Gail Winfrey, also known mononymously as Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and media proprietor. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which ran in national syndication for 25 years, from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she was the richest African-American of the 20th century and was once the world's only black billionaire. By 2007, she was often ranked as the most influential woman in the world.
Despite a large body of positive psychological research into the relationship between happiness and productivity, happiness at work has traditionally been seen as a potential by-product of positive outcomes at work, rather than a pathway to business success. Happiness in the workplace is usually dependent on the work environment. During the past two decades, maintaining a level of happiness at work has become more significant and relevant due to the intensification of work caused by economic uncertainty and increase in competition. Nowadays, happiness is viewed by a growing number of scholars and senior executives as one of the major sources of positive outcomes in the workplace. In fact, companies with higher than average employee happiness exhibit better financial performance and customer satisfaction. It is thus beneficial for companies to create and maintain positive work environments and leadership that will contribute to the happiness of their employees.
Susan Horowitz Cain is an American writer and lecturer.
Amy Joy Casselberry Cuddy is an American social psychologist, author and speaker. She is a proponent of "power posing", a self-improvement technique whose scientific validity has been questioned. She has served as a faculty member at Rutgers University, Kellogg School of Management and Harvard Business School. Cuddy's most cited academic work involves using the stereotype content model that she helped develop to better understand the way people think about stereotyped people and groups. Though Cuddy left her tenure-track position at Harvard Business School in the spring of 2017, she continues to contribute to its executive education programs.
Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University who is known for her work in the field of "science help" which focuses on translating insights from psychology and neuroscience into practical strategies that support health and well-being. Mainstream media articles about inner-conflict-related aspects of modern lifestyles regularly quote her. A longtime advocate of self-compassion and mindfulness as stress-coping strategies, McGonigal has altered her focus on the problematic aspects of stress; in a talk at the TEDGlobal 2013, she emphasized the importance of an individual's subjective belief in themselves as someone who is able to cope successfully as being a crucial factor in their actual response to stress.
Cultural differences can interact with positive psychology to create great variation, potentially impacting positive psychology interventions. Culture differences have an impact on the interventions of positive psychology. Culture influences how people seek psychological help, their definitions of social structure, and coping strategies. Cross cultural positive psychology is the application of the main themes of positive psychology from cross-cultural or multicultural perspectives.
Optimism is an attitude reflecting a belief or hope that the outcome of some specific endeavor, or outcomes in general, will be positive, favorable, and desirable. A common idiom used to illustrate optimism versus pessimism is a glass filled with water to the halfway point: an optimist is said to see the glass as half full, while a pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
Second-wave positive psychology is a therapeutic approach in psychology that attempts to bring out the best in individuals and society by incorporating the dark side of human existence through the dialectical principles of yin and yang. This represents a distinct shift from focusing on individual happiness and success to the dual vision of individual well-being and collective humanity. PP 2.0 is more about bringing out the "better angels of our nature" than achieving optimal happiness or personal success. The approach posits that empathy, compassion, reason, justice, and self-transcendence will improve humans, both individually and collectively. PP 2.0 centers around the universal human capacity for meaning-seeking and meaning-making in achieving optimal human functioning under both desirable and undesirable conditions. This emerging movement is a response to perceived problems of what some have called "positive psychology as usual".
Well-being is a multifaceted topic studied in psychology, especially positive psychology. Biologically, well-being is highly influenced by endogenous molecules that impact happiness and euphoria in organisms, often referred to as "well-being related markers". Related concepts are eudaimonia, happiness, flourishing, quality of life, contentment, and meaningful life.
Susan A. David is a South African psychologist, speaker and author.
Alia Joy Crum is an American psychologist who is the principal investigator of the Stanford Mind and Body Lab.
Amy Blankson is an American author and speaker known for her advocacy of positive psychology and digital wellness.
