Gratitude Diary

A gratitude diary can change your whole life, and it only takes a couple of minutes each day. I show you how to do it, what to expect, and what scientific research is being done.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

More Research

Ulrich Schimmack is Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto at Mississauga

His area of Research is Personality and Well-Being.

He says "The main aim of my research is to contribute to the scientific understanding of happiness. The ultimate goal is to develop a causal theory of happiness that can be used to predict the impact of personal and societal changes on happiness (cf. Kahneman, Schwarz, & Diener, 1999, “Well-Being: The foundations of hedonic psychology”). The scientific term for happiness is subjective well-being (SWB). SWB has a cognitive and an affective component. The cognitive component is assessed with life-satisfaction judgments (“I am satisfied with my life.) The affective component is based on the amount of pleasant and unpleasant experiences in people’s lives."

Schimmack cautions people about the self-help section of their local bookstore, saying there is no universal advice on how to be happy.

He does, however, point to one strategy that has shown some effectiveness. "Every day at the end of the day, write down a couple of things you are thankful for in your own personal gratitude diary," he says. Research suggests that being more aware of the good things produces a long-term improvement in life satisfaction. "Athletes lose a lot of competitions, but they always remember the victories because they're more meaningful. Collect positive experiences like an athlete collects trophies."

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