The key to success at work is being happy -- not the other way around, says Shawn Achor (TED Talk: The happy secret to better work). To learn more about his positive philosophy of the workplace, meet the people who laid the groundwork for his thinking, in this list of must-read books and articles on happiness. Learned Optimism Martin E. P. S...

"We think we have to be successful, then we'll be happier. But the real problem is our brains work in the opposite order," said Shawn Achor in his charming, immensely popular TED Talk from TEDxBloomington, "The happy secret to better work.” Achor is the CEO of consulting firm Good Think, which conducts research on positive psychology and helps p...

Behold, the new multimillion-dollar effort to quantify what happens when you let your mind wander. Try this: Picture a famous monument. Let’s say it’s the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. You’re directly in front of it and you can see the whole thing, or at least your version of it—sandals, robe, face, crown, torch. Now, rotate it so you s...

Feeling like you’ve got all the time in the world is a wonderful sensation; too bad it occurs so rarely. But by developing the skill of savoring, you can maximize your moments -- and your experience of time, according to author Laura Vanderkam. People who feel like time is abundant approach the present in two ways. There’s the practical: they l...

Why in the world did I do that? How can I do better? Chances are you've asked yourself these questions at least once today. To understand how your mind works and how you can improve your decision-making, explore these six psychology and behavioral economics books, each one recommended by a TED Talks speaker. Why did I do that? "Edward L....

The key to harnessing self-doubt starts with self-efficacy, or our confidence in our ability to set ourselves up for success. And we can improve self-efficacy through something that we all already do: talk to ourselves, says writer Rich Karlgaard. We live in a society where people are obsessed with early achievement, but most of us don’t expl...

If you’d like to see the ways your mind is leading you astray, it’s not enough to look at what you’re thinking. You need to examine how you’re thinking, too. Psychologist Joan Rosenberg names five faulty thinking patterns and tells how you can start to change them. If you looked at the contents of your mind, would most of your thoughts be posit...

This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from people in the TED community; browse through all the posts here. When was the last time you felt fully engaged in a task and the hours just melted away? That's your flow state, something that psychology researcher Mihaly ...

Yes, it’s number 1 on the list of 7 deadly sins, but pride can actually move us toward our goals -- and toward better behavior -- according to psychology professor David DeSteno. Gratitude and compassion are universally seen as positive feelings. By making our minds value the future, these two emotions make us more patient, more willing to pers...

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely Ariely (TED Talk: How to change your behavior for the better), a professor of psychology and behavioral economics, reveals through many studies why we so often behave in a way that totally contradicts logic. While reading it, I had to smile many times because I cou...

Health psychologist Kelly McGonigal is here to talk about stress. In particular, she's here to make the case that stress might not, in fact, be the enemy we tend to think it is. To do this, she asks those assembled in the conference hall in Edinburgh to indicate how much stress they've felt in the past year. Surprise surprise, the majority o...

Elizabeth Loftus studies false memories. As she describes in her TED Talk, The fiction of memory, she has implanted erroneous memories of childhood trauma into adult study subjects as part of her work. She has pinpointed failures in eyewitness testimonies. She’s found that misinformation can reshape taste preferences. And, she's found that p...

The world of athletics is brutal. Athletes put themselves through grueling workout schedules and intense competitions, pushing their bodies and minds to the limit. But because part of being an athlete is constantly going up against (and sometimes with) faster, stronger and/or younger competitors, by far the hardest test any athlete faces is thei...

It sounds paradoxical, but accepting our negative emotions can actually make us happier in the long run. Psychologist Susan David explains how. This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here. Most of us have be...

What does it mean to be “good” at stress? Does it mean you don’t get stressed out? That you stay calm under pressure and bounce back from adversity? Actually, no. The truth of stress as I’ve researched it shows two important things. Firstly, that trying to avoid it is fundamentally counterproductive. Secondly, that thinking that we can emerge...

We've all created our own personal histories, marked by highs and lows, that we share with the world -- and we can shape them to live with more meaning and purpose. We are all storytellers -- all engaged, as the anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson puts it, in an “act of creation” of the “composition of our lives.” Yet unlike most stories we’v...

The average person lies once or twice a day. And as Cornell psychology professor Jeff Hancock shares in today’s fascinating talk, given at TEDxWinnipeg, the anonymity and ambiguity of technology give us a whole new arsenal of ways to fib. He and his team have identified three new types of lies made possible by text messages, email and online c...

Dan Gilbert gave his first TED Talk in February 2004; The surprising science of happiness was one of the first we ever published, in September 2006. Here, the Harvard psychologist reminisces about the impact of TED, shares some suggestions of useful further reading — and owns up to some mistakes. When I gave this talk in 2004, the idea that v...

Smart advice from TED speakers to help you rediscover your joy on the job Dear TED, I’ve been at my job for a few years and it’s … fine? Actually, not so fine. What was once interesting has become a slog, and my boss seems checked out. While I’m glad to be employed, I occasionally fantasize about quitting, moving to Maine, and doing somethin...

Many of us are now working at home due to the pandemic. To our surprise, we’re seeing our coworkers more than ever before -- but as tiny heads on our laptops in video meetings. Instead of bringing us closer together, all this online togetherness can sometimes make us feel miles apart, literally and emotionally. On a recent episode of his TED...

As a psychotherapist and writer, I see firsthand the power of stories -- not only how faulty narratives can hold us back but also how simple edits can transform our lives. In my book Maybe You Should Talk To Someone, I bring people into the therapy room (two of them, actually: mine, where I’m the clinician; and my therapist’s, where I’m the ...

Anyone who has appreciated a meditative mental drift while knitting or mowing a lawn knows that there is something calming about engaging in a familiar, low-impact activity that requires minimal thought and bestows a clear sense of progress. That goes at least some of the way toward explaining the immense appeal of adult coloring books, which no...

This session was all about cities. From speakers parsing the cycles of violence in them, to those thinking far outside the box on what they could look like, read up on these ideas for cities. Robert Muggah is troubled by our cities. Not urban success stories like Shanghai and Seoul, but those that he calls “fragile cities,” quickly urbani...

Four and a half years after her popular TED Talk, the social psychologist updates the research on posture and hormones, responds to critics and discusses her current work. At the TEDGlobal 2012 conference, social psychologist Amy Cuddy gave the talk "Your body language shapes who you are," in which she detailed the effects of “power posing,” ba...

Do you think your country's political system is broken? Simon Anholt has a solution: the Good Country Party, which looks beyond borders to include everyone from everywhere. I’ve just started a party. It’s called the Good Country Party. It’s not exactly a drinks party, because for starters I’ve invited 700 million people to join. And it’s not...

By using the first day as a time for people to tap into their best selves -- and not just fill out paperwork -- companies could ease their stress and bring out their full potential, says business school professor Daniel Cable. “There is a new war for talent happening in the workplace today,” says London Business School professor Daniel Cable. “...

We all have important things we want to accomplish, but there are so many distractions and stumbling blocks that may get in our way. Here, writer Bina Venkataraman shares a startlingly easy strategy to use to defeat future challenges. Playing poker is like planning for the future in one sense: You’re making decisions with limited information, a...

In the final days of 2012, as Congress worked to hammer out a last-minute deal to avoid the fiscal cliff, it was difficult to turn on any American news source and not see political finger-pointing. Words like “extremist,” “angry” and “sharply divided” floated in the ether. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has long been interested in how...

It’s never too late -- or too early -- to learn the abilities that make up romantic competence: insight, mutuality and emotional regulation. And when you possess these skills, all of the relationships in your life will benefit, says psychologist and researcher Joanne Davila. This post is part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of ...

We tend to think of prejudice as something that other people, particularly bad people, have in their hearts and minds. The truth is, prejudice is inside us all. The good news is that psychology provides a powerful way to combat it. Prejudice is due in part to cultural learning, from our parents, our schools and social messages and depictio...