Wellbeing Explained

Kelsey J. O’Connor is a Senior Researcher in the Economics of Well-Being with STATEC Research (part of the national statistics office of Luxembourg). He serves as Associate Editor (economics) for the Journal of Happiness Studies, and on the Executive Board of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS).

This is a fantastic conversation with Kelsey, we cover a range of topics:

• How to measure progress as nations and individuals
• The surprising role of social safety nets for national wellbeing
• Kelsey's experiences working with the late Professor Easterlin
• Cultural perspectives of happiness
• And the place for meaning and purpose

Read Kelsey's latest book, co-authored with Prof Easterlin available FREE here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/happiness-revolution-in-europe/3D454C1B35A7B654B7BC73056BEB0BAA

Dr Matthew Iasiello's live presentation from the 2025 Society for Personality and Social Psychology

We agree mental health is more than the absence of mental illness... but what is it?

It was an honour to give an invited talk at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Annual Convention in Denver last week. I spoke about our efforts at Be Well Co to develop a taxonomy of positive mental health, across a series of three studies. .

There was lots of positive feedback for the work, with senior academics acknowledging the 'messiness' but importance of this endeavour. And as always, it was great to meet like-minded people doing important work from around the world .

Welcome to Episode 44 of Researching Happy. 

This is a special episode of the show, as we celebrate the launch of Be Well Co’s Face of Languishing Campaign. 

Dr Matthew Iasiello is joined by Amy Smith and returning guest Dr Joep van Agteren, as they discuss the marketing problem that so many people in mental wellbeing promotion will recognise - that wellbeing is still seen as a ‘nice to have’ rather than being valuable in its own right. 

That’s why Be Well Co has launched this campaign, to shine a light on the issue of languishing, which often flys under the radar despite the real costs that it presents to individuals, workplaces, communities and societies. 

Find out more about the campaign here: https://www.bewellco.io/languishing/

Watch the YouTube series here: https://youtu.be/9uHoZT71eNo?feature=shared

Subscribe to Researching Happy at www.researchinghappy.com 

Welcome to Episode 43, Matt walks through the dual-continua model of mental health, which suggests that mental illness and mental wellbeing are separate, yet related, concepts.

Starting with a clip from the Bad Friends podcast, Matt discusses the controversy around the relationship between mental health and mental illness - and what this means for our mental health care system.

Show notes:

- Keyes 2005

- Pawelski 2016

- Caccioppo and Berentson 1994

- Iasiello et al. 2020

- Zhoa and Tay 2024

- Iasiello et al. 2024

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Listen to Dr Naomi Kakoschke from CSIRO on Researching Happy talking us through reliable ways to set consistent habits for achievable goal setting.

We discuss the common pitfalls that let us down when it comes to goal setting and New Year's resolutions.

Show notes: Find paper and app-based habit trackers as well as a Healthy Habits quiz CSIRO developed and Naomi’s CSIRO profile 

Why is wellbeing science like cage fighting? Find out here!

Dr Matthew Iasiello reflects on the passing on some wellbeing science leaders in 2024, the differences and similarities between wellbeing science and the UFC, and considers the criteria for future leaders for the field.

Link to Todd's substack article: https://toddkashdan.substack.com/p/why-do-smart-adults-downplay-hedonism

Sign up for updates at www.researchinghappy.com or follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/researching-happy/

Welcome to Episode 40. We are fortunate to have the very impressive Dr Lucy Grummit from the University of Sydney. We recorded this on just one of those days, nothing was going right, but fortunately Lucy carried us through with grace. 

Lucy is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use. Her research focuses on the prevention of mental health and substance use problems among adolescents and young adults, with a particular focus on populations that suffer disproportionate rates of mental illness, such as those exposed to childhood adversity and trauma.

As it turns out, we walk through two of Lucy’s papers… It was supposed to be one but turns out I got some of her work mixed up, but all’s well that ends well because the two papers told a very compelling story about the public health emergency that is childhood maltreatment. For mental health  issues, but for basically everything else. 

So a huge thank you to Lucy, who was basically the host of this episode - check out researchinghappy.com and sign up for free to hear about upcoming episodes and submit your questions to future guests. 

Links to Lucy's work:

Burden of Mental Disorders and Suicide Attributable to Childhood Maltreatment

Association of Childhood Adversity With Morbidity and Mortality in US Adults: A Systematic Review

Episode 39 of Researching happy. I’m Matthew Iasiello,

Dr Xavier SIMMONS is a Director of the Plunkett Centre

This is a conversation that jumps between two papers

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381830157_Flourishing_at_the_end_of_life

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-024-00723-0

It is fascinating work, and the biggest take away,

We talk about the ‘risks’ of defining wellbeing as

Thank you again to Xavier for his time, and make sure you share this episode. Check out ResearchingHappy.com to learn more about our upcoming guests and get the chance to submit your own questions for future episodes.

This episode is our first step into Neuroscience with Assistant Professor Sanne van Rooij from the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University, and investigator and Associate Director of Scientific Outreach at the Grady Trauma Project. 

Her research aims to identify neurobiological predictors for PTSD development and treatment response, and the investigation of novel neuromodulation treatments in a low resourced, civilian population.

We explore the neurobiological mechanisms that drive Resilience in people who have experienced Trauma. The work is fascinating and challenging - but Sonne does a great job of walking us through the challenges and implications of the work. Watch out for a few times where I say ‘Gotcha” like I understood but I’m not sure it was as convincing as it should have been!