Robert Emmons, perhaps the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude, argues that gratitude has two key components, which he describes in a Greater Good essay, “Why Gratitude Is Good.” “First,” he writes, “it’s an affirmation of goodness. We affirm that there are good things in the world, gifts and benefits we’ve received.” In the second part of gratitude, he explains, “we recognize that the sources of this goodness are outside of ourselves. … We acknowledge…| Greater Good
The term “empathy” is used to describe a wide range of experiences. Emotion researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. Contemporary researchers often differentiate between two types of empathy: “Affective empathy” refers to the sensations and feelings we get in response to others’ emotions; this can include mirroring what that person is feeling, or…| Greater Good
There’s nothing better for me than being immersed in nature. Whether I’m staring up into redwood trees, coming across a profusion of wildflowers, listening to ocean waves, or being mesmerized by a star-jeweled summer sky, I can’t help but feel awe, that wonder and sense of being part of something grander than myself. I’m not alone, either. People commonly experience awe in nature—so much so that researchers often expose people to nature in order to study awe’s effects on their wel...| Greater Good
It’s a warm, sunny weekday evening in July in the heart of Vancouver, British Columbia. Inside the Creekside Community Recreation Centre—which overlooks the Vancouver skyline—a group of more than 20 people have gathered for one of Climate Cafe Vancouver’s events, coming together to create art that reflects their emotions about climate change and the climate future they envision. Climate Cafe Vancouver meets regularly throughout the Metro Vancouver area, offering a safe space and uniqu...| Greater Good
At the Greater Good Science Center, we cover the science of a meaningful life. That means learning and writing about gratitude, relationships, joy, and awe—and reading other media and new research about those topics and more. As a result, I thought I had a comprehensive view of the other journalists, researchers, change agents, and media makers working in these areas. But our new initiative on the science of love opened my eyes. We received a whopping 1,334 applications for grants about lov...| Greater Good
When was the last time you thought about your ancestors? This guided meditation by Indigenous scholar Yuria Celidwen will help you connect to your heritage and reap the potent benefits of remembering your roots.| Greater Good
In a time when corruption no longer hides its face and political violence is becoming routine, outrage has become the default language of public life. Equanimity may seem irrelevant—or, worse, complicit. What kind of person stays calm in the face of injustice? Who, in their right mind, resists the pull toward righteous indignation when world leaders violate every essential norm of human decency? And yet, I’d like to suggest something quietly radical: that equanimity, rightly understood, i...| Greater Good
What is your relationship with your emotions on a daily basis? Some of us might deny that we’re influenced by our feelings at all. Others might try to leave our emotions behind when we move into certain environments, like work or school. We may believe that particular emotions are “bad” or “negative”—and so aim to avoid them as much as possible. But according to Marc Brackett, founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and author of the new book Dealing with F...| Greater Good
Today, Marc Brackett is the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. But he remembers what it was like to be a kid who struggled with his emotions. “I would sometimes just sit in a room and cry and catastrophize, like I’m never going to figure this out,” he recalls. He would think, “I don’t have anybody to talk to about it because I can’t talk about it, because people are going to think I’m weak.” In his latest book, Dealing with Feeling, Brackett share...| Greater Good
During my years as a Ph.D. student, I found myself for the first time in a familiar routine. For four years, my life settled into a predictable rhythm—weekly meetings with my supervisor, seminars to attend, research projects to juggle, students to teach. Even my personal life found its groove: Sunday apartment cleaning, Tuesday meal prep, Thursday laundry cycles. It was steady, purposeful work—not exciting, not stressful, just the consistent effort required to maintain my standing. I wasn...| Greater Good
Despite growing concern about climate change, many countries have seen backlashes against certain environmental policies, often because they are seen as costly, restrictive, or unfair. In France, an attempt to introduce a fuel tax was shelved after the yellow vests protests. In Germany, a proposed gas boiler ban was watered down after fierce resistance. And in the U.K., low-traffic neighborhoods have sparked strong opposition in some areas. Even non-existent measures, such as a proposed meat ...| Greater Good
To be honest, I’m not much of a joiner. I have a lot of great friends, but I don’t belong to many other social groups. I’m not on a sports team, nor do I attend a specific church or work for a particular charity. I guess my thought is that spreading myself thin that way might be bad for my well-being. New research suggests otherwise. A longitudinal study in Britain has found that people who belong to more groups—and, specifically, more varied types of groups—may be happier and healt...| Greater Good
“I can do it myself!” That’s a phrase we typically associate with young children when they learn to get dressed and eat breakfast. Later, they might use it as they start riding a bike or reading a chapter book. But what does the question have to do with their spiritual development? A lot, it turns out. As children grow, they start to think and do more on their own, including in matters of spirituality and religion. “Religion” typically refers to the beliefs and practices associated ...| Greater Good
When Vivek Murthy was a child, he’d wake every morning filled with a deep sense of dread. He would get out of bed, get dressed, eat breakfast, and feel the tightness in his chest expand through his body as he sat in the backseat of his parents’ car on the way to elementary school. “I didn’t want to be alone on the playground,” Murthy says on the Greater Good Science Center’s Science of Happiness podcast. “Or alone when they asked people to partner up in class on exercises. And I...| Greater Good
In the face of the burnout and disconnection that both students and teachers are experiencing, being able to laugh and smile is essential.| Greater Good
Imagine society as a ladder with 10 rungs. Where would you place yourself? That answer reflects your subjective social status—where you see yourself in society. Importantly, this is not necessarily reflective of where you actually are. Subjective social status matters as it shapes what you believe, how you behave, and, as my new study shows, how much you care about economic inequality. These days, economic inequality is hard to ignore. In the U.K., the richest 10% of households holds nearly...| Greater Good
Psychotherapy often explores family dynamics, unresolved trauma, developmental issues, and the unconscious conflicts that interfere with a client’s ability to optimally cope. Psychotherapy is practiced in many forms with many underlying theories of how change occurs. Self-knowledge and key insights can often unravel unhealthy patterns from the past. Disputing irrational thoughts can help clients reduce their emotional disturbance. And clients can increase their social-emotional IQ through t...| Greater Good
Through breath, compassion, and kind words to yourself, this guided meditation helps you forgive yourself, let go, and move forward with love.| Greater Good
Trust is essential to a functioning society. To get through life, we need to be able to basically trust people we love—our friends and family—as well as our neighbors, colleagues, and even people we don’t know well, like our grocers and mail carriers. A recent study highlights the importance of trust across our lifespan, showing how very critical it is for our well-being. Researchers analyzed results from nearly 500 studies involving over two and a half million participants of all ages ...| Greater Good
It’s a typical scenario. You’re faced with a lingering problem, like an argument with a friend, a looming deadline, or a difficult decision. You think you should try to tackle it, but all you really want to do is, well, anything else. In moments like these, we are often caught between two conflicting types of advice. On the one hand, we know we should “Face stress head on” and “Confront our fears.” On the other hand, aren’t we also often told to “Take some time for yourself”...| Greater Good
Our monthly Happiness Calendar is a day-by-day guide to well-being. This month, we hope it helps you celebrate growth and change. To open the clickable calendar, click on the image below. (Please note: If you are having trouble clicking on calendar links with the Chrome browser, try these tips to fix the issue or try a different browser.) {embed="happiness_calendar/subscribe"} View our other calendars! September 2025 Happiness Calendar for Educators September 2025 Happiness Calendar (Greek)| Greater Good
Our monthly Happiness Calendar for Educators is a day-by-day guide to building kinder, happier schools where everyone belongs. This month, cultivate empathy in yourself and your school community with daily tips from the Greater Good Science Center. Registration is now open for our 2025–2026 Greater Good Educators program! Join a community of educators from around the world who are committed to building kinder, happier schools where everyone belongs. Throughout the year, explore the science ...| Greater Good
When challenging student behavior arises, the instinct in many schools is to turn to discipline: assigning detention, suspension, or removal from class. But John Gasko, chief well-being officer at Uplift Education, has spent his career exploring a different option: What if the key to thriving schools lies not in control, but in connection? His work integrates both social-emotional learning (SEL) and character education, hoping to create the conditions for students and educators to flourish to...| Greater Good
Catastrophes, by definition, are devastating, but they can often be catalysts for lasting, positive change—and if people can adopt that perspective, they may see some real benefits, a Stanford-led study suggests. In a randomized, controlled trial, a one-hour intervention was given to a group of adults designed to shift their mindset, or core beliefs and assumptions, about having lived through a catastrophe like the COVID-19 pandemic, with the goal of seeing growth opportunities in the exper...| Greater Good
Research shows that simple practices such as self-hugs, soothing touch, and hand-to-heart can calm the nervous system, supporting caregivers and the children in their care.| Greater Good
At 7:46 a.m. on November 8, 2018, the Camp Fire jumped the Feather River in Northern California. Driven by 40-mile-an-hour winds and months of desiccating drought, it moved so fast that bulldozers racing to carve a break in the forest never reached the line. Within four hours, the town of Paradise lay in smoking ruin. Eighty-five people were dead, nearly 19,000 structures had vanished, and a century of “no-burn” policy lay exposed as the true arsonist. Three hundred miles north, on a bend...| Greater Good
Scientists have a problem studying self-love. Research abounds on self-compassion, self-esteem, self-care, and even unconditional positive self-regard. Scholars have published definitions of these concepts, established scales for measuring them, and explored their practice and impact on people’s well-being. But self-love, on its own, not so much. One of the few scholars who published a definition of self-love, Swiss psychologist Eva Henschke, was shocked when her initial literature review t...| Greater Good
Once considered a mental disorder, today kink is having a moment. Recent movies like Babygirl tell tales of a high-powered woman exploring the world of dominance and submission. In the FX/Hulu series Dying for Sex, based on a true story, a woman who has terminal cancer is introduced to kink with different men. And then, of course, we have 2011’s hugely popular romance trilogy and movie franchise Fifty Shades of Grey. As a result, the once-fringe practice is slowly becoming normalized. Enter...| Greater Good
President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) into law on July 4, 2025. Among other provisions, the bill raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion annually and also makes a 15% cut to Medicaid spending, according to KFF. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Medicaid is a “joint federal and state program that helps cover medical costs for some people with limited income and resources. The federal government has general rules that all state Medicai...| Greater Good
It’s back-to-school season, and if you have a teen or even know one, they’re probably feeling a little anxious. New class schedule, new classmates, new expectations. These days, when anxious teens turn to us as parents, teachers, and coaches for help, we might encourage “mindfulness,” or paying attention to the present moment with openness and without judgment. But the truth is, developmentally, this inner development method might not always be the healthiest approach. While mindful...| Greater Good
In this guided meditation with poet and teacher Henry Shukman, learn how allowing discomfort, rather than resisting it, can open the door to greater calm and self-compassion.| Greater Good
My earliest childhood memory is of a train ride. Standing in the aisle, barely able to reach the worn armrests on either side, I lift myself, swinging back and forth to the rhythm of the moving train. The air is hot and musty. My brother Kiyoshi is curled asleep, his head across my mother’s lap. The man beside her is a stranger to me. My mother has told me to call him Otō-chan, Daddy. When I cry, he says to me softly, “Shikkari shina-sai. Nakanai de.” Be strong. Don’t cry. I was born...| Greater Good
On July 31, the Washington Post ran a story noting that the National Museum of American History, a branch of the Smithsonian, took down a portion of an exhibit about presidential impeachment concerning Trump’s two impeachments. The piece quoted an unnamed source: “A person familiar with the exhibit plans, who was not authorized to discuss them publicly, said the change came about as part of a content review that the Smithsonian agreed to undertake following pressure from the White House t...| Greater Good
If you are an education professional, or a psychologist, or you’ve been a student in the last several decades, you may have heard of Howard Gardner. People who know his name are familiar with his groundbreaking book Frames of Mind, where he proposed multiple intelligences (MI) theory—an alternative, expansive conception of intelligence that challenged educators to think more broadly about the different ways we learn. However, you may not be aware of over 30 other books he’s published th...| Greater Good
Love Is Blind UK returns to Netflix on August 13. For those who haven’t seen it, the show describes itself as a “social experiment” in which single men and women look for love and some get engaged—all before meeting each other in person. Participants spend the first 10 days of the experiment entering various “pods”: small individual rooms containing a sofa and a shared wall with another pod, through which they talk to—but cannot see—their potential matches. If they feel after ...| Greater Good
There’s a tapping practice shown to ease stress, balance emotions, and support healing. We explore the science behind Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT.| Greater Good
The term “lonely parent” may seem like a contradiction in terms. Parents, by definition, are inextricably linked to at least one other human, after all—their child. And parents are constantly interacting with other humans: teachers, doctors, coaches, caregivers, and other parents, including, for many, the co-parent. Thus, it’s no wonder that so much of the research on loneliness has focused on groups like the elderly and college students, instead of parents. And yet, according to an O...| Greater Good
For decades, researchers have developed and tested adolescent depression prevention programs that show strong results. But a new study reveals a major flaw in the evidence base: These programs, largely tested on white youth, may not work equally well for everyone. The peer-reviewed study examined the effects of a culturally adapted school-based depression prevention program called LARS&LISA. The results were stark: While the program led to a measurable decrease in depressive symptoms for whit...| Greater Good
Imagine waking up to the news that a deadly new strain of flu has emerged in your city. Health officials are downplaying it, but social media is flooded with contradictory claims from “medical experts” debating its origin and severity. Hospitals are filled with patients showing flu-like symptoms, preventing other patients from accessing care and ultimately leading to deaths. It gradually emerges that a foreign adversary orchestrated this panic by planting false information—such as the s...| Greater Good
Employees who usually get along well are blowing up at each other. Managers are reporting that employees are having emotional outbursts in meetings and they’re not sure how to respond. That was the start of my call with a chief human resources officer (CHRO) at a reputable nonprofit recently. They reached out looking for resources to support what seemed like a rapidly declining workplace culture. Teams weren’t working together as well as they used to, employees weren’t performing at the...| Greater Good
Witnessing the suffering of others can be deeply painful. In this guided meditation, Anushka Fernandopulle helps you cultivate both compassion and the ability to soothe yourself in the face of that pain.| Greater Good
Of all the policy changes that could help parents and caregivers, none is as morally intuitive, politically feasible, structurally possible, and economically smart as a paid family leave. Morally: People should not have to go without income during those times when they need intense care, or have to give intense care to others. Politically: The vast majority of voters support the establishment of a policy. Structurally: Paid leave programs in various cities and states have demonstrated how to ...| Greater Good
Back in the day when I used to run triathlons, I discovered something powerful that helped me get through in the face of physical challenge. It wasn’t just my training but the encouragement from the spectators and the other racers that helped me find the stamina to keep on going. The energy from those around me gave me the strength to do something that would otherwise have seemed nearly daunting. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that this is true for emotional challenges, as well. M...| Greater Good
Intellectually humble people are able to recognize and admit to the limitations of their knowledge. They tend to be more open-minded, discerning, and respectful of others, which is helpful when communicating across polarized groups who can’t seem to talk to one another in any productive way. This suggests that intellectual humility could be a virtue worth cultivating, especially in children—who, after all, will grow up to be the citizens of tomorrow. But how do we teach them to recognize ...| Greater Good
Our monthly Happiness Calendar is a day-by-day guide to well-being. This month, we hope it helps you put in the work for your relationships. To open the clickable calendar, click on the image below. (Please note: If you are having trouble clicking on calendar links with the Chrome browser, try these tips to fix the issue or try a different browser.) {embed="happiness_calendar/subscribe"}| Greater Good
Our monthly Happiness Calendar for Educators is a day-by-day guide to building kinder, happier schools where everyone belongs. This month, connect to your sense of purpose with daily tips from the Greater Good Science Center. Registration is now open for our 2025–2026 Greater Good Educators program! Join a community of educators from around the world who are committed to building kinder, happier schools where everyone belongs. Throughout the year, explore the science of well-being through f...| Greater Good
The actor Meryl Streep once said: “One day you wake up and realize that your youth is gone, but along with it, so go insecurity, haste, and the need to please. . . . You learn to walk more slowly, but with greater certainty. You say goodbye without fear, and you cherish those who stay. Aging means letting go, it means accepting, it means discovering that beauty was never in our skin . . . but in the story we carry inside us.” That quote captures the two sides of getting older—and points...| Greater Good
Music helped former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne come out of his shell and connect with others—and research shows he's not alone. We explore the science behind how music shapes our social lives.| Greater Good
While becoming unemployed can be a huge mental health challenge, many of us assume that retirement—which also involves stopping or at least reducing work—will be the opposite. It’s pictured as a well-deserved time of leisure and relaxation, when we’ll get to do all the things we always wished we had time for. But is retirement as blissful as it might seem? A paper published this year reviewed 15 other reviews of past retirement research to provide the “most updated and comprehensive...| Greater Good
If employees are feeling overworked and stressed and anxious, what is the solution? Many discussions about burnout inevitably turn to ideas like mindfulness and self-compassion: skills that can be taught to workers to improve their mental health and—particularly in health care—enhance patient care. But that puts the burden on the employee. What about the responsibility of the organization? While we ask people to be compassionate with themselves, we must also encourage organizations to be ...| Greater Good
What if burnout isn’t a breaking point, but an invitation to slow down, tune in, and hear the intuition you have been trying to say all along?| Greater Good
Parenting is full of questions, and people online purport to have all the answers for raising perfect kids. The reality is much more complicated.| Greater Good
Need some motivation for practicing gratitude this Thanksgiving? Robert Emmons, the world's leading scientific expert on gratitude, reveals why gratitude is good for our bodies, our minds, and our relationships.| Greater Good
