​USER/CONSUMER EXPERIENCE
  • How can the consumer’s overall experience and satisfaction with a product be improved and lead to the most joy and delight?
  • How do changes in features or products effect the user’s overall experience and enjoyment with a product?
  • Which changes should be made to ensure that the product, app, or website is as intuitive and delightful as possible?

POSITIVE INTERVENTIONS IN APPLIED SETTINGS
  • Extending the generalizability of positive interventions (practicing gratitude, kindness, savoring) to applied settings, such as workplaces and schools.
  • Exploring the impact of positive interventions on work/school-related outcomes, including grades, health, job performance, and job/school satisfaction.
  • Understanding the effect of happiness on job satisfaction, empowerment, and organizational citizenship behaviors.
  • Exploring cultural differences in the success of positive interventions with employees in France, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Hungary, Taiwan, and Africa.

POSITIVE ACTIVITIES AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT
  • Exploring the relationship between positive activities and self-improvement efforts. Can expressing gratitude help bolster people’s efforts towards self-improvement?
  • How and why might different positive activities (e.g., expressing gratitude, committing kind acts) lead to greater or worse self-improvement?

GRATITUDE
  • Investigating the mixed emotional experience of expressing gratitude.
  • Exploring whether gratitude can motivate individuals to become more productive, healthier, and more generous.
  • What types of gratitude, or ways of expressing gratitude, are most effective in motivating positive behaviors?

HEDONIC ADAPTATION
  • Do some people adapt to positive or negative experiences faster than others?
  • What are the mechanisms by which people adapt to life experiences?

MONEY AND HAPPINESS
  • Exploring the relationship between money and happiness.
  • The role of materialism. How and why might rising aspirations affect well-being? Are there any cultural differences?
  • Thrift and happiness. Do thrifty decisions make people happier? How can people spend money to maximize happiness and thrift?