Using Happiness Research to Better Adapt | Dr. John Helliwell | TEDxBrentwoodCollegeSchool

There is a common social theme that emerges consistently from the World Happiness Report 2015. At both the individual and national levels, all measures of well-being, including emotions and life evaluations, are strongly influenced by the quality of the surrounding social norms and institutions. Paying greater attention to the levels and sources of subjective well-being has helped us to reach these conclusions, and to recommend making and keeping happiness as a central focus for research and practice.


John F. Helliwell is Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and co-director (with George Akerlof) of CIFAR’s program on “Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being”. He is also Professor Emeritus in the Vancouver School of Economics at the University of British Columbia. He was Mackenzie King Visiting Professor of Canadian Studies at Harvard in 1991-94, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer in the Order of Canada. He is co-editor of the World Happiness Report (2012, 2013, 2015). Web page http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/jhelliwell/



This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx