Happiness is an incredible topic, isn’t it? Everyone wants to be happier, to know more about happiness, to spread happiness around the world… It makes sense that such an important theme is mentioned so often—at the corner bar, in politics, in movies, in advertisements, and in science. There’s no shortage of people trying to show how happy they are, talking about the secrets to happiness, and even giving step-by-step guides to becoming happier. Well, that’s not what this repository of my work is about. I don’t think you need one more person telling you how to be happier. There are already plenty of people doing that. My goal is to contribute to the conversation about happiness in a slightly different way: asking questions (and sharing my research).

Episodes/Podcast

 

Article – History of the word happiness (or on why we say well-being) – The Underside of Happiness

This is an episode about another article I wrote (also with my good friend Gustavo Massola). This one, published in 2022, is called “Against Well-Being: a critical analysis of the approximation between happiness and well-being promoted by Positive Psychology”. Yes! Once again, a very long title.Overall, the idea of this article was to investigate the Historical and Linguistic Roots of Happiness to examine a couple of things: first, what caused the contemporary use of the word to shift toward meaning more of a feeling-sensation; second, how have we referred to very different ideas throughout history, presented in various languages and words, as being part of the "history of happiness"? And finally, is it rigorous to substitute the word happiness, considered too loose and superficial, with well-being in scientific practice?To make a long story short, there are some translations of documents throughout history that help connect different languages, forming a kind of historical thread for certain words.If you want more information on this work, you can find the link below. I hope you like it.Sewaybricker, L. E., & Massola, G. M. (2023). Against well-being: A critique of positive psychology. History of the Human Sciences, 36(1), 131-148.https://doi.org/10.1177/09526951221114733Musical Credits:Opening:"Flutey Funk" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/music.htmlEnding: "Protofunk" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/music.html
  1. Article – History of the word happiness (or on why we say well-being)
  2. Why do we talk so much about happiness? Part II of IV: selling happiness
  3. Unhappy women?
  4. Article – What is Subjective Well-Being?
  5. Why do we talk so much about happiness? Part I of IV: Lack of happiness
  6. Happiness is a mess
  7. Pilot

 

https://youtu.be/v7Y_nT7y-HQ
https://youtu.be/VAMtFxsIIi4