AVERAGE HAPPINESS

Happiness is one of the most important life’s components. Our life’s quality relies on how much we are happy. Are all people equally happy? Obviously not. That was proved by Ruut Veenhoven’s current research how much people enjoy their life-as-a-whole.


Ruut Veenhoven studied sociology. Also is teaching work in social psychology raised his interest in individual differences in happiness and in the possibilities of increasing individual happiness through training and advises. His World Database of Happiness is an ongoing register of scientific research on the subjective enjoyment of life. It brings together findings that are scattered throughout many studies and provides a basis for synthetic work.


An average happiness calculation was made in 95 nations 1995-2005. How much people enjoy their life-as-a-whole was evaluate on scale 0 to 10. In the top of all 95 nations is Denmark! It was evaluated even 8.2 points. Others the happiest nations are Switzerland, Austria, Iceland and Finland. I think that these results were influenced by good political and economical situation in these countries. However, this list shows us, which nations are the unhappiest. In the bottom of the list we can find Armenia, Ukraine, Moldova, Zimbabwe and the rearmost is Tanzania. It was evaluated on 3.2 points. And what evaluation gets Lithuania? Only 4.6 and it is 85 of 95 nations. Sad to see these results, but this is fact. I think, that apart economical and political situations people’s happiness is affected by climate, temperament, nature and other different facts.

To sum up, nobody else can make us happy than we. People should take pleasure in simple, small things and luck will come by itself. So, don’t worry, be happy ;)



References: http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl/hap_nat/nat_fp.php
http://www2.eur.nl/fsw/research/veenhoven/Pub2000s/2007c-full.pdf
Pictures: http://www1.eur.nl/fsw/happiness/people.htm
http://fc54.deviantart.com/fs35/f/2008/239/f/8/Taste_of_happiness_by_uploathe.jpg
http://blogs.psychologytoday.com/files/u15/Happiness_2.jpg

About Richard Wiseman

Profesor Richard Wiseman is a very popular psychologist and has established an international reputation for his research into unusual areas of psychology. His research has been shown on many popular television programes and articles about his work have regularly appeared in many different news papers. Also his work has been supported by grants from several prestigious organisations. His work is reported in over 40 academic journal articles, eight books, 10 book chapters and over 30 national and international conference papers.

Prof Richard Wiseman has carried out research into several unusual and quirky areas of psychology, including luck, deception, humour, and the paranormal. He do his researches in:
*what is quirky
*psychology of magic, deception and trickery
*paranormal phenomena
*psychology of humor

For me was very interresting to read about profersor‘s researches of paranormal, about work which examines the formation, maintenance, and impact of belief in the paranormal and magical thinking. The most interesting fact was that many of the experiences when people say that they see ghosts have a psychological explanation. This may results in mild psychosomatic and hallucinatory phenomena.

Furthermore I was very interested in Richard Wiseman‘s study examining the psychology of superstition and luck. The most interesting fact for me was that lucky people tend to carry out superstitious behaviours that are designed to bring them good luck – such as touching wood, crossing their fingers and carrying a lucky charm. In contrast, unlucky people believe in superstitions that bring bad luck – such as breaking a mirror, walking under a ladder or having anything to do with the number 13.


To conclusion I think that such researchers, like Wiseman, are very important in our life, and people who are interesting in this areas can change their outlook on many things and events. So, I truly invite those, who was at least interested in this profesors researches, to visit his blog http://www.richardwiseman.com and to read more.



References: http://www.richardwiseman.com
Pictures: http://blog.escapefromcorporate.com/wp-content/uploads/image/luck-clover.jpg
http://www.richardwiseman.com/media/photographs.html

LEARNING LANGUAGES

You live a new life for every new language you speak.

If you know only one language, you live only once.

[Czech proverb]

The Biblical story about The Tower of Babel speaks about how so many different languages in the world appeared. Learning a foreign language takes time and dedication, but there are many reasons to learn a foreign language, from working, studying in another country to traveling, linguistic interest and many others.

If you have decided to learn a language, you may be quite sure which language to choose. To some extent, your choice depends on your reasons for learning a language. For example, if you'd like to communicate with as many people as possible, learn such languages as English (480 million speakers), Spanish (320mln), French (265mln), Russian (285mln) or German (109mln) would enable you to do so. (http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm)

In my opinion, the most important thing in learning languages is learning vocabulary. Also if you want to speak a language well - pay particular attention to the pronunciation and review it regularly. Familiarity with the grammar of a language enables you to understand it, and also to construct your own phrases and sentences.

There's a wide range of materials and tools available to help you with your language studies, including language courses, dictionaries, grammar books, phrasebooks, online lessons, mp3 players and electronic translators.

Eventually, I think that it depends only on person how long he learns language, how many languages he can learn and how good he is in learning. And if person has a passion for it… he could to move heaven ;)

Pictures: http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/flags.jpg
http://www.masternewmedia.org/images/future-of-learning_id2728501_size390.jpg