Key note lectures

Tuesday June 28^th

4:15 pm to 5:00 pm: James Pawelski, IPPA – What Is Positive Psychology? The Importance of Theory for Research and Practice

Positive psychology has made a remarkable impact on psychological research and practice, yet in many sectors it remains easy to misunderstand. As the field continues to grow, further work is needed to clarify its core concepts and communicate them more effectively. Clearer definitions, broader collaborations, and deeper conceptual roots will help sustain positive psychology in its continued empirical development and evidence-based application. Sound theory, robust research, and effective practice are all vital for the mission of understanding, assessing, and advancing human flourishing.

Dr. James Pawelski is Director of Education and Senior Scholar in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Having earned a doctorate in philosophy, he is leading collaborative efforts to integrate approaches from the humanities and the social sciences for understanding, assessing, and cultivating human flourishing. He is the author of The Dynamic Individualism of William James, editor of the philosophy section of the Oxford Handbook of Happiness, co-editor of The Eudaimonic Turn: Well-Being in Literary Studies, and co-editor of On Human Flourishing: A Poetry Anthology. For more than 10 years, Dr. Pawelski has served as the founding director of Penn’s Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program, where he teaches courses on positive interventions and the humanities and human flourishing. He is the president of the William James Society, the founding executive director of the International Positive Psychology Association, and a member of the steering committee of the International Positive Education Network. An international keynote speaker who has given talks in more than 20 countries on six continents, Dr. Pawelski is the recipient of a Practice Excellence Award from the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, as well as the Humanitarian Innovation Award for the Humanities, Arts, and Culture from the Humanities Innovation Forum at the United Nations.

James O. Pawelski

University of Pennsylvania, USA

Wednesday June 29^th 

9:00 am to 9:45 am: Claudia Senik – Can we use Big Data to Measures Well-Being?

It is tempting to use Big Data as a complement to traditional survey data in order to measure wellbeing. In particular, internet search volumes can be used to measure and understand the well-being of populations, with a high frequency, at a fine geographic level.

To illustrate this idea, I will discuss the construction of an indicator of individual wellbeing based on Google Trends. The indicator is a combination of keyword groups that are endogenously identified to fit with weekly time series of subjective wellbeing measures, collected by Gallup Analytics surveys.

The model successfully predicts the out-of-sample evolution of most subjective wellbeing measures at a one-year horizon.

This new type of data certainly opens new avenues for research in Social Science.

Claudia SENIK is Professor of Economics at the Paris School of Economics and the University Paris-Sorbonne. She is also member of the IZA and of the Institut Universitaire de France. Educated at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, she received her PhD from EHESS. Her main research areas include happiness studies, political attitudes and post-transition economies, with a special interest in the subjective welfare effects of income growth and income distribution. She is also involved in a research program on well-being ats work.

Claudia Senik

School of Economics and the University Paris-Sorbonne, Paris, France

9:45 am to 10:30 am: Willibald Ruch – Character strengths: Unresolved issues, new frontiers

More than 10 years have elapsed since Peterson and Seligman presented their influential “Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification”. In the meantime many studies were published using the instrument and validating strengths in a variety of settings and in different cultures. Yet several assumptions are unresolved or remained untested, and others have not been addressed yet. How do the strengths relate to the perception of a good character? How can strengths be subdivided? What is the relation between strengths and virtues? What is the scientific status of signature strengths? How does character relate to personality? The talk will give an overview of basic and applied studies (e.g., in the school and work setting) conducted by my research group and address the issues that need further scientific scrutiny.

Currently he is working on positive psychology traits (e.g., character strengths and virtues; orientations to happiness, cheerfulness, humor) in adults and children/adolescents and their role in contributing to the good life. He is the founder and current president the Swiss Positive Psychology Association (www.swippa.ch).

Willibald Ruch

University of Zürich, Switzerland

4:30 pm to 5:15 pm: Joan Duda – Promoting optimal functioning in sport and other physical activities: The need for more empowering environments

Professor Duda is internationally known for her expertise on motivational processes and determinants of adherence and optimal functioning in sport, exercise, and dance. She is an experienced mental skills consultant, working with athletes, coaches/instructors, and other performers at all levels.

Joan Duda

Professor of Sports Psychology in the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at The University of Birmingham, UK

5:15 pm to 6:00 pm: Robert J. Vallerand – It’s about Time: The Role of Passion in Adaptive Self-Processes

Vallerand and his colleagues (2003; Vallerand, 2015) have proposed the Dualistic Model of Passion wherein passion is defined as a strong inclination for a self-defining activity that the person loves, values, and spends a considerable amount of energy and time on. Two types of passion are proposed: harmonious and obsessive. Harmonious passion results from an autonomous internalization of the activity in identity and self that provides access to adaptive self-processes. Thus, the person can fully partake in the passionate activity with a flexibility and an openness to experience the world in a non-defensive (Hodgins & Knee, 2002), mindful manner (Brown & Ryan, 2003). Such adaptive processes are conducive to positive experiences. On the other hand, Obsessive Passion is involved when people feel that they have to surrender to their desire to engage in the passionate activity that they love. Obsessive passion results from a controlled internalization (Deci & Ryan, 2000) of the activity, preventing access to adaptive self-processes. Research so far (see Vallerand, 2015 for a review) has mainly looked at a variety of outcomes without focusing on self-processes per se. In this presentation, I review research that takes the passion concept in unchartered areas and novel directions with respect to a number of self-processes, including mindfulness, resilience, and optimal functioning that provide support for the Dualistic Model of Passion. Implications for a psychology of passion and for self-processes are highlighted.

Vallerand, R.J. (2015). The Psychology of Passion. New York: Oxford University Press.

Professor Robert J. Vallerand is currently Full Professor of Psychology at the Université du Québec à Montréal, where he holds a Canada Research Chair in Motivational Processes and Optimal Functioning, and Fellow of the Institute of Positive Psychology and Education at the Australian Catholic University. He has taught at both the University of Guelph and McGill University. Professor Vallerand is recognized as a leading international expert on motivational processes where he has developed theories dealing with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and passion for activities. He has published 7 books and over 300 scientific articles and book chapters and has received over 7 millions ($CAN) in research grants. Over 20 of his former students are university professors. Professor Vallerand has served as President of the Quebec Society for Research in Psychology, the Canadian Psychological Association, and the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA). He has also serves as Consulting Editor for the top journals in the field. Professor Vallerand has received numerous awards and honors from over a dozen learned societies, including being elected a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (as well as Fellow of Divisions 8, 9, 20, 47), the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the Royal Society of Canada, and many others. He has also received the Adrien Pinard Career Award from the Quebec Society for Research in Psychology, the Donald O. Hebb Career Award from the Canadian Psychological Association (the highest research awards in psychology in Quebec and Canada, respectively), and the Sport Science Award from the International Olympic Committee. His latest book is The Psychology of Passion (2015) with Oxford University Press.

Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada

Thursday June 30^th

9:00 am to 9:45 am: Barbara Fredrickson – Why Prioritize Positivity?

Evidence for the benefits of positive emotions continues to grow. Even so, people’s deliberate efforts to cultivate positivity can backfire. Successfully regulating positive emotions appears to be a delicate art, one that is perhaps best supported by situation selection and other antecedent-focused forms of emotion regulation. Prioritizing positivity is one such approach to up-regulating positive emotions. In this talk, Professor Barbara Fredrickson shares recent evidence from the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory (PEP Lab) that reveals various ways that prioritizing positivity improves people’s emotional well-being and their health-related behavioral engagement. Moreover, prioritizing positivity within favorite activities and wellness behaviors is associated with increases over time in nonconscious motives for those activities, as indexed by the positivity of spontaneous thoughts about them. The positivity of activity-related spontaneous thoughts, in turn, predicts subsequent activity engagement. In this manner, prioritizing positivity can trigger upward spirals of lifestyle change and the development of harmonious passions.

Kenan Distinguished Professor; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Director, Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory; President, International Positive Psychology Association. Among the most highly cited scholars in psychology, she is most known for her “broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions,” foundational within Positive Psychology for providing a blueprint for how pleasant emotional states, as fleeting as they are, contribute to resilience, wellbeing, and health.

Barbara Fredrickson

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA

9:45 am to 10:30 am: Mohsen Fatemi – Positive psychology and psychology of possibility

This keynote speech argues that deep down the underlying components of positive psychology, there lies the psychology of possibility. Psychology of possibility redefines possibility in view of Langerian mindfulness and posits that infinite possibilities unfold themselves in emergent modes of mindfulness. Possibility may be contained, distorted, limited and frozen because of the past stricken schema on possibility. The presentation discusses the components of Langerian mindfulness and their implications for creative modes of possibilities. The cognitive,  emotional and behavioral  aspects of possibilities are reexamined by virtue of Langerian mindfulness with an in-depth look  into the observer- actor relationship in creating novel modalities of possibilities. The keynote speech explicates how a premature cognitive commitment towards a democratization of possibility may block the emergence of expansive modes of possibilities.

Ph.D., University of British Columbia, 2003, Post Doctorate, Harvard University, 2009-2013) is a Fellow in the department of psychology at Harvard University and works on mindfulness and its psychological implications for cross cultural, clinical and social psychology. He is a frequently published author and has been the keynote speaker of numerous international conferences. He brings mindfulness in his psychological and therapeutic interventions and has run training and coaching programs for clinicians, practitioners and corporate people in North America, Europe and overseas. His publications appear in Springer, Wiley, Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press and Journals such as APA’s Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. In addition to teaching at Harvard, he has also taught for the department of psychology at the University of British Columbia, Western Washington University, University of Massachusetts in Boston and University of Toronto. He is presently working on the clinical implications of mindfulness for anxiety and stress management.

Sayyed Mohsen Fatemi

Harvard University, USA

4:30 pm to 5:15 pm: Chiara Ruini – When clinical psychology contributes to advances in positive psychology, and vice-versa

The lecture will provide a review of the literature on positive and clinical psychology, and will highlight the several points of convergence between the disciplines. Clinical psychology has a long tradition and several theoretical contributions that have addressed issues such has happiness, resilience and optimal functioning. However, the medical model that conditioned clinical practice has overshadowed these contributions and given privileged attention to distress and negativity in human existence. On the other hand, the emerging field of Positive Psychology has devoted attention and resources to the investigation of positivity and criticized the clinical approach in its unbalanced focus on negativity. However, it referred to psychopathology in the definitions of flourishing and other positive characteristics, as well as in using similar therapeutic ingredients when implementing interventions. On the same vein, a large body of clinical psychology and psychotherapy research (CBT and third way psychotherapies in particular) has extensively addressed the promotion of positive dimensions in clinical practice. The main theoretical and technical similarities between positive psychology and clinical psychology will be highlighted, emphasizing the fact that the boundaries between these fields of investigation have been artificially formulated, rather than being really applied. Positive psychology research would improve by integrating insightful perspectives derived from the historical and theoretical background of clinical psychology. These contributions indeed calls for a whole consideration of individuals’ characteristics and specificities, and may provide suggestions for overcoming the “one size fits all approach” often criticized inside the Positive Psychology research. On the other hand, positive psychology may contribute to advances in clinical domains by providing valid instruments for the evaluation of patients’ strengths and resources, and by enlarging therapeutic goals to the restoration and maintenance of wellbeing, using specific positive interventions. In conclusion, the integration of research deriving from these two disciplines seems highly feasible, and beneficial for both.

Chiara Ruini is currently Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of the Laboratory of Positive Psychology – PoPsyLab- at the Department of Psychology, University of Bologna. Since 2006 she has been teaching the courses “Clinical Applications of Positive Psychology” and the course “Intervention Methods for treating Distress in the Elderly”. She devoted all her career in studying the complex relationship between well-being and distress, particularly in the clinical settings. Almost 10 years ago she was involved in a long term research that provided first scientific evidence on the protective role of well-being in the face of affective disorders. Further international investigations confirmed these results. Chiara Ruini provided seminal work in implementing integrative psychotherapeutic approaches (Well-being therapy) for the promotion of psychological well-being in clinical populations. She has further extended this field of research by applying well-being therapy to the prevention of psychological distress in vulnerable populations (adolescents, young adults and aging individuals). These randomized controlled trials received international attention. Chiara Ruini has authored more than 60 articles published in peer-reviewed international journals, has edited a book entitled “Increasing Psychological well-being across cultures” for the Springer series Positive Psychology across Cultures and serves the Editorial Boards for international Journals such as Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, the Psychology of Well-being, Theories Research and Practice, The Journal of Happiness and wellbeing.

Chiara Ruini

University of Bologna, Italy

5:15 pm to 6:00 pm: Neil Garrett – How the Human Brain forms Optimistic Beliefs

We are constantly flooded with information (via the Web, advertising, colleagues, friends etc.) that helps us form predictions about the future and make decisions. One of the most salient attributes of information is valence: whether a piece of news is good or bad. Classic theories in psychology, economics and machine learning all implicitly assume that beliefs are adjusted in a similar manner in response to desirable and undesirable information. In this talk I will provide evidence challenging these assumptions. I will show that while people incorporate good news into their existing beliefs in a normative manner, they discount bad news leading to optimistically biased beliefs.  The asymmetry, however, is not set in stone, but fluctuates in response to changes in the environment in a way that may be adaptive. Using a combination of fMRI, TMS and DTI we characterize the neural system supporting this asymmetry and show that variation in this circuit is related to individual differences in behaviour and mental health, with more balanced incorporation of information observed in depression and middle age.

Neil Garrett is a cognitive neuroscientist at the Affective Brain Lab in the Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London. His research investigates the mechanisms by which individuals learn information about the world and the factors that influence learning processes such as valence (does information represent good or bad news?), clinical disorders (such as Major Depression Disorder) and threat in the environment. His papers have been published in a number of scientific journals including Trends in Cognitive Science, Nature Neuroscience and PLOSone.

Neil Garrett

Affective Brain Lab, University College London, UK

Friday July 1^st

9:00 am to 9:45 am: Felicia Huppert – What Makes People Flourish?

Flourishing, or a high level of well-being, is about the experience of life going well. It is a combination of feeling good and functioning effectively. There is evidence that a high level of well-being is associated with positive health and good relationships, with learning and capability. However, the instrumental benefits of well-being are not the main reason why well-being is important. They are merely a by-product or bonus of a high level of well-being. The real reason well-being matters is that well-being is an end in itself – an ultimate good.

In this presentation I will describe a recent approach to measuring flourishing, and new data on the drivers of flourishing across Europe. There is also great interest in how to increase flourishing, and there are many good programs designed to do this. It could be argued that underlying them all are the skills of attention, emotion regulation, and self-compassion. One technique which explicitly develops these seminal skills is mindfulness. Evidence for the well-being benefits of mindfulness programs will be presented, along with supporting data from neuroscience.

Professor Huppert is internationally renowned for her work on the science of well-being and the promotion of human flourishing. Her research examines the causes and consequences of well-being across the life course, using data from large population samples, longitudinal cohorts, and intervention programs such as the Mindfulness in Schools Project. Felicia spends part of the year in the UK, where she is Director of the Well-being Institute at the University of Cambridge, and Emeritus Professor of Psychology. She advises the UK Government and international bodies on the measurement of well-being, and on policies to enhance well-being. In addition to a large body of peer-reviewed journal articles, her book publications include the seminal book “The Science of Well-being”, a four-volume set “Major Works in Happiness and Well-being”, and a recent volume “Interventions and Policies to Enhance Well-Being”.

Felicia Huppert

Director of the Well-being institute, University of Cambridge, UK

9:45 am to 10:30 am: Neil Thin – Aspirational social planning: beyond social problems and living standards

Psychologists understand that mental flourishing is utterly dependent on positive social qualities. Good minds need good societies, and we need to know what positive social qualities we cherish in order to foster them. Yet the positive psychology movement has a weak track record in fostering recognition of the social transformations required to support individual flourishing. Social research, social planning, and social entrepreneurship, for their part, do address the social embeddedness of individuals. But despite the current fashion for talking about ‘wellbeing’, the ‘good society’ and ‘empathy’ these disciplines remain mired in a swamp of pathologism and remedialism, and lack any coherent  aspirational visions of social progress. In an era when positive psychology and self-help movements inspire people worldwide to try living really excellent lives, why is it that so much social planning remains stuck in nonaspirational mode? Why do sociologists, social planners, social innovators, and proponents of corporate social responsibility find it so hard to articulate visions of really good social qualities? This presentation will look for more inspiring examples where people are promoting wellbeing and positive social qualities together, in such domains as school improvement, nonremedial social entrepreneurship, and workplace wellbeing interventions.

Neil Thin is a senior lecturer in Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. He specialises in crossdisciplinary happiness research, and in ‘appreciative and aspirational social planning’, i.e. engaging multidisciplinary happiness and wellbeing scholarship in public policy and practice. To this end, he is currently a part-time Parliamentary Fellow in the Scottish Parliament. He also has over 20 years of practical and policy experience working towards the reduction of poverty and promotion of justice and wellbeing in poorer countries, working at all levels from grassroots to governmental and international official agencies. He has frequently served as a social development adviser and trainer for international development agencies such as the UK Department for International Development, UN Agencies, the World Bank, and international NGOs. He is currently a trustee of Befriending Network UK, and for over 10 years he served as a Director/Trustee of Practical Action and also as Chair of Practical Action Publications (formerly ITDG Publications, now incorporating Oxfam Publications). He was also a Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Tropical Forests, Adviser to the Scottish Executive International Development Programme, and to NIDOS, BOND, and the UK National Lottery Charities Board’s International Grants Programme, and the Diana Princes of Wales Fund.

Neil Thin

University of Edinburgh, UK

1:00 pm to 1:45 pm:

Ilona Boniwell – Positive Education: Making Positive Psychology Tangible

Dr Ilona Boniwell heads the International MSc in Applied Positive Psychology (I-MAPP) at Anglia Ruskin University and consults businesses and educational institutions around the globe as a Director of Positran. She wrote or edited seven books, delivered over 150 keynotes/invited presentations, founded the European Network of Positive Psychology, and was the first vice-chair of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA).

Ilona Boniwell

Director – Positran, Anglia Ruskin University, Uk and Associate Professor – Ecole Centrale Paris, France