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Virtual workshops offer resilience training to Penn community
Rocks stacked in water.

Virtual workshops offer resilience training to Penn community

Penn’s Division of Human Resources, in collaboration with the Positive Psychology Center, is hosting virtual workshops as a part of a six-part series presenting core resilience during COVID.

Dee Patel

Is the secret to happiness having a gratitude practice?
The Wall Street Journal

Is the secret to happiness having a gratitude practice?

Martin E.P. Seligman of the School of Arts & Sciences spoke about the benefits of gratitude practices: “Humans are built to attend to the things that go badly in our lives. A lot of the exercises in positive psychology are ways of teaching people to savor and pay attention to what goes well.”

How to make good habits stick
WHYY (Philadelphia)

How to make good habits stick

Katy Milkman of the Wharton School was interviewed about her research on motivation and establishing good habits. Milkman co-led a study on exercise habits with more than 60,000 participants.

Finding Flow: When work feels like play
Philadelphia Inquirer

Finding Flow: When work feels like play

Angela Duckworth of the School of Arts & Sciences wrote about the legacy on Mihaly “Mike” Csikszentmihalyi and the importance of encouraging young people to pursue activities that put them in a flow state.

Navigating holidays in a pandemic, again
A piece of pumpkin pie on a serving spatula, a dollop of whipped cream on top.

Navigating holidays in a pandemic, again

Experts from Penn’s Center for Public Health Initiatives and Positive Psychology Center offer six tips for making the holiday season joyful, fun, and safe.

Michele W. Berger, Erica K. Brockmeier

Finding beauty in everything, through a camera lens
The underside of a bridge, with blue, purple, and teal greens visible.

Finding beauty in everything, through a camera lens

Karen Reivich of Penn’s Positive Psychology Center turned to photography to reconnect to herself during the pandemic. It helped her discover a new way of seeing the world.

Michele W. Berger

Go ahead. Fantasize
The New York Times

Go ahead. Fantasize

Martin Seligman of the School of Arts & Sciences said dreaming about the future can help people live well in the present. “Imagining the future—we call this skill prospection—and prospection is subserved by a set of brain circuits that juxtapose time and space and get you imagining things well and beyond the here and now,” he said. “The essence of resilience about the future is: How good a prospector are you?”

Four strategies to find joy in a very different holiday season
Two pairs of socked feet, up on a bench next to a steaming mug of hot liquid. In the background is a fireplace with a fire.

Four strategies to find joy in a very different holiday season

Experts from Penn’s Positive Psychology Center suggest tweaking traditions, acknowledging the situation’s highs and lows, and seeking help from people in your life.

Michele W. Berger

A lesson in grit from Angela Duckworth
angela duckworth in huntsman hall Angela Duckworth has been studying grit for 15 years, including as part of her doctoral work at Penn. In each class session of her new course on the subject, running for just the second time this semester, students experience an interactive section, a lecture, and a conversation with a gritty person, including Penn President Amy Gutmann, retired Yankee Alex Rodriguez, and celebrity chef David Chang, among others.

A lesson in grit from Angela Duckworth

Her new Grit Lab course, part of the Paideia Program, teaches Penn undergrads how to develop more passion and perseverance for long-term goals.

Michele W. Berger

The one thing you can control right now: Yourself
The Wall Street Journal

The one thing you can control right now: Yourself

Angela Duckworth of the School of Arts & Sciences said self-control is more difficult when people are under extreme stress. “You can think of self-control as bandwidth,” she says. “And right now, it’s divided.”