‘Afstand scheidt enkel de lichamen, niet de geesten’ (Erasmus)
Desiderius Erasmus, the well known Dutch Renaissance humanist, once said that:
“Distance only separates our bodies, our minds are always connected”.
Which is a remarkable contribution to the Virtual Happiness Hypothesis. Especially when you think of the fact that Erasmus lived from 1469 - 1536.
And no, he didn’t [...]

My good friend Maarten Lens-Fritzgerald is on an amazing journey. You should definitely check out his weblog about his fight against a tumor named Theo.
But the reason that I mention him here, is that he shared a book by Alain de Botton with me that is titled “The Architecture of Happiness“.
A little preview on the [...]

Today I received a very nice email from Linda Stone, who I met during at the PicNic Conference.
She’s was enthousiastic about our project and called it “ambitious” Also she asked if we were familiar with the “internet makes me sad”-research, which was done in 1998.
I’ve been receiving a lot of these [...]

Stumbling on Happiness is an absolutely fantastic book that will shatter your most deeply held convictions about how your own mind works.
Ceaselessly entertaining, Gilbert is the perfect guide to some of the most interesting psychological research ever performed. Think you know what makes you happy?
You won’t know for sure until you have read [...]

Many people have tried to come up with a definition for “happiness”.
Amongst others:
Dr. Benjamin Spock:
Happiness is mostly a by-product of doing what makes us feel fulfilled.
David Lee Roth:
Happiness is … a bathing suit.
Brigitte Bardot:
There is a French proverb: To live happy, live hidden. Where can Brigitte Bardot hide?
We would like to invite you to [...]

Today we launch the first global survey for our research project. It is the short form of the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, a well known and respected tool to measure happiness.
Please read the introduction to the questionnaire carefully because some statements are phrased positively and others negatively.
If you would like to take part in the longer [...]

This is the text version of our launch at the PicNic Festival in Amsterdam.
We also put the slides online, as well as a video from the presentation.
–
In the next couple of minutes I would like to share with you
two observations and one announcement.
The first observation has to do with happiness.
Because: what is happiness?
Albert [...]

Professor Barry Schwartz shares with us the secret to happiness:

(Recorded in February 2006 at the TED Conference)

Bohnke and Kohler published in January of 2008 a fascinating study about “Well-being and Inequality“. A survey among 18.000 people across Europe combined a selfreported form of subjective well-being with factors like income, eduation, health, environment and so on.
Abstract
An objective and a subjective approach to study well-being is introduced. The objectiveapproach is particularly useful to [...]