What is the key to happiness? Is it family relationships? Wealth? Job satisfaction? Helping others? Perhaps we need to spend more time in nature, and less time in cities. And is happiness a universal feeling, or are there significant differences in the experience of it based on culture, age or other factors? There are so many ideas about where happiness comes from, yet many of us still struggle to find it. Are some people simply hardwired to be happy and others not, or is it a state of mind that can be consciously pursued?
Moderator
Shiral Tobin – Producer of CBC’s The Early Edition
Panelists
Elizabeth Dunn – Associate Professor, UBC Department of Psychology
John Innes – Dean, UBC Faculty of Forestry; Forest Renewal BC Chair in Forest Management
Holman Wang, BEd(Elem)’95, MASA’98, LLB’05 – Children’s Author and Illustrator
Jiaying Zhao – Canada Research Chair in Behavioral Sustainability; Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology and Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, UBC
Relevant Books and Articles at UBC Library
Willingham, D. T., & Dunn, E. W. (2003). What neuroimaging and brain localization can do, cannot do, and should not do for social psychology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(4), 662. [Link]
Dunn, E. W., & Weidman, A. C. (2015). Building a science of spending: Lessons from the past and directions for the future. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(1), 172-178. doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2014.08.003 [Link]
Yu, R. Q., & Zhao, J. (2015). The persistence of the attentional bias to regularities in a changing environment. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, doi:10.3758/s13414-015-0930-5 [Link]
Mani, A., Mullainathan, S., Shafir, E., & Zhao, J. (2013). Poverty impedes cognitive function. Science, 341(6149), 976-980. doi:10.1126/science.1238041 [Link]
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