If you’re interested in learning more about positive psychology and the science of well-being, below are twelve key sites to get you started. Each cover a range of topics and also often offer both academic and practical resources that you can pick and choose from, depending on your personal interests.
If you want to take part in an online course, Yale is currently offering ‘The Science of Well-Being’ via Coursera, which you can join/audit for free. Alternatively, Action for Happiness is offering the free email-based coaching program ‘10 Days of Happiness’.
Action for Happiness
Promotes positive social change and encourages small proactive changes to behaviour and thoughts. Open to all, it offers many free resources and ideas as well as an online community.
European Network for Positive Psychology (ENPP)
An organisation offering free membership and sharing knowledge and research on positive psychology. European conferences on positive psychology are held every two years with Reykjavík, Iceland hosting the 2020 conference with the theme ‘Creating a world we want to live in’.
Greater Good Magazine
Berkley’s Greater Good Science Center offers a wide range of resources including articles, videos, podcast links, blog posts, quizzes…
Happify
Offering evidence-based tools and techniques to enhance your well-being and mental health using positive psychology, mindfulness and cognitive behavioural therapy. Also produces some great infographics.
International Journal of Wellbeing
A peer reviewed open access academic journal which promotes interdisciplinary research on well-being.
International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA)
The official website for IPPA, its goals are to promote the science of positive psychology, encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and share the findings of up to date research with as many people as possible. Membership required to access most content.
New Economics Foundation
An independent UK foundation which acts to improve quality of life by challenging mainstream thinking on core environmental, social and economic issues.
Positive Psychology
An online community of positive psychology practitioners offering access to science-based information, ideas and tips as well as a regular blog on a variety of topics.
Positive Psychology Center
The University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center, directed by Martin Seligman provides access to useful research, information, education and questionnaires.
Positive Psychology News
One of the first online journals for sharing positive psychology news, research, conference information and linking positive psychology to current affairs.
Positive Psychology 2.0: Towards a Balanced Interactive Model of the Good Life
A paper written by Dr Paul Wong exploring the challenges faced by positive psychology and the criticisms of it. The need for a more balanced, cross cultural approach in the form of ‘Positive Psychology 2.0’ is discussed.
World Happiness Report
Provides free access to current and previous annual reports from the United Nations on the subjective well-being of many citizens around the world, exploring which factors impact our level of happiness.
I hope you enjoy exploring some of these sites and find practical ideas and tools that will benefit both yourself and those around you. Please take the time to share with others if you found them useful …
