DIRECTOR:

  • Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D.

DOCTORAL STUDENTS:

  • Ramona Martinez (4th year) (bottom right)
  • Nina Radosic (4th year) (not pictured)
  • Madison Montemayor (2nd year) (top, 2nd from left)
  • Tanya Vannoy (2nd year) (bottom left)
  • James Chinn (1st year) (top, left-most)
  • Stephen Cadieux (1st year) (top, right-most)
Lab Photo

Get Involved

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If you’re interested in becoming a research assistant in our laboratory, please contact one of my doctoral students email pawlab@ucr.edu.

You must be a Junior or a Senior (or have completed Psych 1, 2, 11, and 12), need to have at least a B+ average GPA in Psychology and have the ability to work for 2 to 4 units (i.e., 6 to 12 hours per week). Additionally, a two-quarter minimum commitment is required. You will receive an email if your application is accepted.

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Check us out in the news!

The Architecture of Sustainable Happiness

  • Mechanisms of Sustainable Change in Happiness
  • The Positive Activity Model: Mediators and Moderators of the Effects of Activity-Based Happiness-Increasing Interventions
  • Pursuing Sustainable Happiness Through Practicing Gratitude, Kindness, Optimism, Social Interactions, Extraverted Behaviors, Self-Compassion, Awe, Savoring, and Self-Affirmation
  • Effects of Digital Media, Social Media, and Face-to-Face (vs. Virtual) Connections, as well as AI-Infused Interventions, on Well-Being
  • Under What Conditions and Individual Differences Might Positive Activities Backfire?

The Architecture of Strengths: Connection as the Key to Happiness

  • Promoting Meaningful Connecting Moments: The Role of Social vs. Prosocial Interactions, Virtual vs. In-Person Interactions, and Type of Partner
  • Predictors of Connection in Conversations: The Role of High-Quality Listening and Other Factors
  • A Model of Interpersonal Chemistry: What Is It, How Does It Emerge, and How Does It Operate?
  • Shifts in Social Connection From Before to After COVID-19 and Moderatoring Social and Personality Factors
  • Toward a New Science of Psychedelic Social Psychology: The Effects of MDMA on Social Connection

The Architecture of Strengths: Generosity, Gratitude, Humility, and Curiosity

  • Benefits of Practicing Kindness for Happiness, Social Life, Peer Acceptance, Immune Gene Expression, and Telomere Length
  • Spill-Over Effects, Pay-It-Forward Effects, and Elevation Effects of the Propagation of Generosity in a Social Network
  • Gratitude as a Trigger of Self-Control and Self-Improvement Efforts in the Domains of Work, School, Health, Benevolence, and Parenting Among Adults and Adolescents
  • Inducing Curiosity: A Model of the Antecedents, Causes, Correlates, Outcomes, and Consequents of Curious States of Mind
  • Measurement, Antecedents, Causes, Mechanisms, and Consequences of State Humility for Individuals and Organizations
  • Self-Affirmation, Gratitude, and Awe as Triggers and Outcomes of Humble Feelings
  • How Can People Become Lastingly More Humble?

Why Are Some People Happier Than Others?

Cognitive, Motivational, and Behavioral Processes in Subjective Happiness
  • Individual and Societal Benefits of Happiness and Positive Affect
  • The Parenthood Paradox: When and Why Are Parents More or Less Happy?
  • Ambulatory, Sociometric, Genomic, Psychophysiological, EEG, Smartphone, and Virtual Reality Methodologies to Assess and Induce Happiness and Its Outcomes

Cultural, Population, and Age Influences on the Pursuit of Happiness

  • Cultural Differences in the Mechanisms and Effectiveness of Happiness-Increasing Interventions: Trials With Asian-American, Japanese, Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Korean, Indian, Chilean, Hungarian, German, French, Spanish, Canadian, and British Participants
  • Mechanisms Underlying the Success of Happiness-Increasing Interventions in Middle School Students, High School Students, Coronary Heart Disease Patients, and Corporate Employees
  • Positive Activities as Protective Factors Against Mental Health Conditions in At Risk and Clinical (Suicidal, Depressed, Anxious) Populations

Hedonic Adaptation to Positive Experience

  • Adaptation to Positive Experience as a Barrier to Sustainable Happiness: Mechanisms (Appreciation, Novelty, Variety) and Interventions
  • The Role of Elevated Aspirations in Consumerism, Materialism, Indebtedness, and Overspending: Thwarting Hedonic Adaptation and Fostering Thrift