Greater Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life
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Keys to Well-Being - Greater Good
Sep 3, 2024 · Get the science of a meaningful life delivered to your inbox. These are Greater Good's 10 building blocks of individual and community well-being — the behaviors that research suggests will support your health and happiness, and …
Happiness - Greater Good
Nov 1, 2024 · Coming up with a formal definition of happiness can be tricky. After all, shouldn’t we just know it when we feel it? In fact, we often use the term to describe a range of positive emotions, including amusement, joy, pride, and contentment. But to understand the causes and effects of happiness, researchers first need to define it. For most, the term …
Topics | Greater Good
Oct 31, 2024 · How an Altruistic Doctor Could Help You Stay Healthy. Get the science of a meaningful life delivered to your inbox. The Greater Good Science Center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being, and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society.
Mindfulness | Greater Good
Nov 1, 2024 · Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens. Mindfulness also involves acceptance, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them—without believing, for instance, that there’s a “right” or “wrong” way to …
Gratitude - Greater Good
Sep 19, 2024 · Robert Emmons, perhaps the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude, argues that gratitude has two key components, which he describes in a Greater Good essay, “Why Gratitude Is Good.” “First,” he writes, “it’s an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we’ve received.”
Purpose | Greater Good
Sep 24, 2024 · To psychologists, purpose is an abiding intention to achieve a long-term goal that is both personally meaningful and makes a positive mark on the world. The goals that foster a sense of purpose are ones that can potentially change the lives of other people, like launching an organization, researching a disease, or teaching kids to read. Our sense of purpose will …
Why We Should Share Our Good News (Not Just Our Struggles)
Jan 23, 2024 · Study coauthor Alexandra Gray of Northeastern University says these findings suggest sharing good news is a way to enhance gratitude and reap the rewards of that. “When you share positive events with other people, you experience gratitude,” says Gray. “We know gratitude has its own benefits, like increased well-being or increased ...
Empathy | Greater Good
Oct 30, 2024 · The term “empathy” is used to describe a wide range of experiences. Emotion researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. Contemporary researchers often differentiate between two types of empathy: “Affective empathy” refers to the …
Forgiveness | Greater Good
Oct 7, 2024 · Psychologists generally define forgiveness as a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness. Just as important as defining what forgiveness is, though, is understanding what forgiveness is not. Experts who study or teach …