Someday students will stand during class sessions

We all follow behavioral scripts. When we see someone we know, we look at the person and say hello. When we enter a building, we walk in frontwards. When we go to a class as a student, we sit at a desk. In Australia, we never go into a classroom and squat, kneel, or...

Want to be very successful?

By design or by chance, I have read four books this year about hugely successful individuals: Arnold Schwarzenegger (‘Total Recall”) Steve Jobs (‘Steve Jobs”), Richard Branson (“Losing My Virginity”), and Valerie Browning...

Let’s get happy

Would you like to feel happier? There are studies showing that individuals can feel happier if they take certain actions. Nicola Schutte and I just completed a set of studies aimed at creating a measure of these actions. We found that two types of actions, engaging in...

Smile — for fun and profit

Years ago I gave my last exam before leaving a university to take another position (on a different continent!). A student handed me her exam and gave me a huge, dazzling smile. I felt amazed and wondered where that came from. Part of the dazzling aspect of the smile...

Is giving to others good for you?

To tell which countries have the most generous people, charities created the World Giving Index, which combines responses to samples of people about whether they gave money to a charity, did some free work for a community organization, or helped a stranger in the past...