Positive Activities and Well-Being Laboratory

DIRECTOR:

  • Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D.

DOCTORAL STUDENTS:

  • Annie Regan (5th year) (top center)
  • Ramona Martinez (3rd year) (bottom right)
  • Nina Radosic (3rd year) (top left)
  • Madison Montemayor (1st year) (bottom left)
  • Tanya Vannoy (1st year) (top, second from right)

MOST RECENT PHDs:

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CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS:

The Architecture of Sustainable Happiness

  • Mechanisms of Sustainable Change in Long-Term Positive Affect
  • The Positive Activity Model: Mediators and Moderators of the Effects of Activity-Based Happiness-Increasing Interventions
  • Pursuing Sustainable Happiness Through Practicing Gratitude, Kindness, Optimism, Attention Redirection, Extraverted Behaviors, Self-Compassion, Awe, Savoring, and Self-Affirmation
  • Effects of Digital Media, Social Media, and Face-to-Face Connections on Well-Being
  • Targeting Positive Activity Interventions to Match People’s Philosophical Views of Well-Being
  • Under What Conditions and Individual Differences Might Positive Activities Backfire?

The Architecture of Strengths: Generosity, Gratitude, and Humility

  • Well-Being Benefits, Spill-Over Effects, Pay-It-Forward Effects, and Inspiration 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
  • Measurement, Antecedents, Causes, 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 Developmental 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 Elementary School Students, High School Students, Coronary Heart Disease Patients, Suicidal Patients, and Corporate Employees
  • Positive Activities as Protective Factors Against Mental Health Conditions in At Risk and Clinical (Suicidal, Depressed, Anxious) Populations
  • Meaning, Experience, and Expression of Happiness and Suffering: The U.S. vs. Russia

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