People talk of the new economy and of reinventing themselves in the workplace, and in that sense most of us are less secure.

When you look at the books about well-being, you see one word - it's happiness. People do not distinguish.

Alternative descriptions of the same reality evoke different emotions and different associations.

It is only a slight exaggeration to say that happiness is the experience of spending time with people you love and who love you.

Optimism is normal, but some fortunate people are more optimistic than the rest of us. If you are genetically endowed with an optimistic bias, you hardly need to be told that you are a lucky person - you already feel fortunate.

Negotiations over a shrinking pie are especially difficult because they require an allocation of losses. People tend to be much more easygoing when they bargain over an expanding pie.

Divorced women, compared to married women, are less satisfied with their lives, which is not surprising. But they're actually more cheerful, when you look at the average mood they're in in the course of the day.