Lara Aknin's guest appearances

Lara Aknin

ManTalks Podcast

Happiness and Humans

Success Engineering

Opinion Science

OwlTail

Do you want to know how COVID affected the happiness and mental health of the world?It may not be what you think...Dr. Lara Aknin a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University,  co-editor of the World Happiness Report and Chair of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Task Force of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission.In this episode, we discuss how COVID affected the happiness and mental health of countries around the world, and the link between generosity and its affect on our happiness.  Her work has been published in various academic journals, including Science, Nature, Human Behaviour, the Lancet Public Health, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and has been covered in international media outlets such as CBC, CNN, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.This is the second in our 3 Part series on happiness featuring the co-editors of the World Happiness Report. 

Do you want to know how COVID affected the happiness and mental health of the world? It may not be what you think... Dr. Lara Aknin a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University,  co-editor of the World Happiness Report and Chair of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Task Force of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission. In this episode, we discuss how COVID affected the happiness and mental health of countries around the world, and the link between generosity and its affect on our happiness.  Her work has been published in various academic journals, including Science, Nature, Human Behaviour, the Lancet Public Health, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and has been covered in international media outlets such as CBC, CNN, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. This is the second in our 3 Part series on happiness featuring the co-editors of the <a href="https://worldhappiness.report" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">World Happiness Report. </a>

S7E8 Happiness Part 2 Dr. Lara Aknin: How did COVID affected our happiness and mental health? (It's not what you think...)

It's more important than ever to ground healing work with expertise, careful research, and study. Otherwise, it's basically just cheerleading. This is why I brought on one of Canada's best social psychologists, Lara Aknin. Lara's work centers on not just what makes people happy, but what keeps them happy: gratitude, reminding yourself and others of shared connections and community, and more. Obviously, the pandemic shut out a lot of ways we cultivate connection and community—at least physically. So I wanted Lara to share some scientific grounding on how covid has affected anxiety and depression rates, stress levels, and mental resiliency in general. Lara Beth Aknin is a Canadian social psychologist. She is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University and a Distinguished University Professor. After earning her Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia, Aknin joined the faculty of psychology at Simon Fraser University in 2012. That year, she published Giving Leads to Happiness in Young Children with J. Kiley Hamlin and Elizabeth Dunn, which supported the idea that humans may have evolved to find giving rewarding. In 2014, Lara and her colleagues Michael Norton and Elizabeth Dunn co-published a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and CIHR funded review of whether spending money had a positive effect on people's happiness. The following year, her contributions to the field of social psychology earned her the President’s New Researcher Award from the Canadian Psychological Association and a fellowship at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. By 2019, she received an SSHRC grant for her project, Can Repeated and Reflective Giving Nurture Canada's Next Generation of Philanthropists? She was also honored by the university for her research and contributions to social Psychology with the title of Distinguished SFU Professor. During the pandemic, she has served as Chair of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Task Force of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission. She also serves as an associate editor of the World Happiness Report. Connect with Lara: -Website: https://www.sfu.ca/psychology/about/people/profiles/laknin.html -Twitter: https://twitter.com/lbaknin -Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6a21v6wAAAAJ    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's more important than ever to ground healing work with expertise, careful research, and study. Otherwise, it's basically just cheerleading. This is why I brought on one of Canada's best social psychologists, Lara Aknin. Lara's work centers on not just what makes people happy, but what keeps them happy: gratitude, reminding yourself and others of shared connections and community, and more. Obviously, the pandemic shut out a lot of ways we cultivate connection and community—at least physically. So I wanted Lara to share some scientific grounding on how covid has affected anxiety and depression rates, stress levels, and mental resiliency in general. Lara Beth Aknin is a Canadian social psychologist. She is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University and a Distinguished University Professor. After earning her Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia, Aknin joined the faculty of psychology at Simon Fraser University in 2012. That year, she published Giving Leads to Happiness in Young Children with J. Kiley Hamlin and Elizabeth Dunn, which supported the idea that humans may have evolved to find giving rewarding. In 2014, Lara and her colleagues Michael Norton and Elizabeth Dunn co-published a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and CIHR funded review of whether spending money had a positive effect on people's happiness. The following year, her contributions to the field of social psychology earned her the President’s New Researcher Award from the Canadian Psychological Association and a fellowship at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. By 2019, she received an SSHRC grant for her project, Can Repeated and Reflective Giving Nurture Canada's Next Generation of Philanthropists? She was also honored by the university for her research and contributions to social Psychology with the title of Distinguished SFU Professor. During the pandemic, she has served as Chair of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Task Force of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission. She also serves as an associate editor of the World Happiness Report. Connect with Lara: -Website: <a href="https://www.sfu.ca/psychology/about/people/profiles/laknin.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.sfu.ca/psychology/about/people/profiles/laknin.html</a> -Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/lbaknin" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://twitter.com/lbaknin</a> -Google Scholar: <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6a21v6wAAAAJ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6a21v6wAAAAJ</a> See <a href="https://omnystudio.com/listener" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">omnystudio.com/listener</a> for privacy information.

Lara Aknin - The Science Of Happiness

Lara Aknin studies what makes people happy. In particular, she’s spent a lot of time looking at how being generous can improve one’s well-being. She is an associate professor of social psychology at Simon Fraser University, and you heard her a couple weeks ago on Opinion Science. Her work was featured on our episode on gift-giving, but she has so much interesting work that it seemed setting aside a whole episode for our entire conversation.Things that come up in this episode:College students were happier when spending money on others vs. on themselves (Dunn, Aknin, &amp; Norton, 2008; for a replication see Aknin et al., 2020)The positive effects of spending on others extends around the world (Aknin et al., 2013), in small rural societies (Aknin et al., 2015; Aime et al., 2017), with children (Aknin, Hamlin, &amp; Dunn, 2012), and among ex-offenders (Aknin et al., 2018).Giver-focused gifts promoted greater relationship closeness than recipient-focused gifts (Aknin &amp; Human, 2015)For reviews of the effects of “prosocial spending,” see Aknin et al. (2018) and Dunn et al. (2020)  Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/when-money-buys-happiness-with-lara-aknin/  Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.

<a href="http://www.sfu.ca/psychology/research/hhl.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lara Aknin</a> studies what makes people happy. In particular, she’s spent a lot of time looking at how being generous can improve one’s well-being. She is an associate professor of social psychology at Simon Fraser University, and you heard her a couple weeks ago on Opinion Science. Her work was featured on our episode on gift-giving, but she has so much interesting work that it seemed setting aside a whole episode for our entire conversation.Things that come up in this episode:<ul><li>College students were happier when spending money on others vs. on themselves (Dunn, Aknin, &amp; Norton, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1150952" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2008</a>; for a replication see Aknin et al., <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pspa0000191" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2020</a>)</li><li>The positive effects of spending on others extends around the world (Aknin et al., <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031578" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2013</a>), in small rural societies (Aknin et al., <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000082" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2015</a>; Aime et al., <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0187787" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2017</a>), with children (Aknin, Hamlin, &amp; Dunn, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0039211" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2012</a>), and among ex-offenders (Aknin et al., <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2018.11.001" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2018</a>).</li><li>Giver-focused gifts promoted greater relationship closeness than recipient-focused gifts (Aknin &amp; Human, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2015.04.006" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2015</a>)</li><li>For reviews of the effects of “prosocial spending,” see Aknin et al. (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12386" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2018</a>) and Dunn et al. (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.aesp.2019.09.001" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">2020</a>)</li></ul>  Check out my new audio course on Knowable: <a href="https://knowable.fyi/courses/the-science-of-persuasion/?fpr=andrew28&amp;fp_sid=opsci" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"The Science of Persuasion."</a>For a transcript of this episode, visit: <a href="http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/when-money-buys-happiness-with-lara-aknin/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/when-money-buys-happiness-with-lara-aknin/</a> Learn more about Opinion Science at <a href="http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/</a> and follow <a href="https://twitter.com/OpinionSciPod" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@OpinionSciPod</a> on Twitter.For a transcript of this episode, visit this episode's page at: <a href="http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episodes/</a> Learn more about Opinion Science at <a href="http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/</a> and follow <a href="https://twitter.com/OpinionSciPod" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@OpinionSciPod</a> on Twitter.

#28: When Money Buys Happiness with Lara Aknin

1) Lara what makes you happy? 2) Can you tell us about your research on giving and happiness?3) What is the World Happiness Report?4) Emotions are your thing? 5) What is the Broaden and build theory of emotions?6) What’s your view on Emotion as a data point?7) In your opinion what is the most significant data in the world happiness report?8) What was your biggest surprise in the data when you were editing the World happiness report? 9) If a listener is trying to build a business case for happiness what is the one bit of evidence you would recommend citing?

1) Lara what makes you happy? 2) Can you tell us about your research on giving and happiness? 3) What is the World Happiness Report? 4) Emotions are your thing? 5) What is the Broaden and build theory of emotions? 6) What’s your view on Emotion as a data point? 7) In your opinion what is the most significant data in the world happiness report? 8) What was your biggest surprise in the data when you were editing the World happiness report? 9) If a listener is trying to build a business case for happiness what is the one bit of evidence you would recommend citing?