Sonja Lyubomirsky (russian: Соня Любомирская, born December 14, 1966) is a Russian-born American professor in the Department of Psychology at the
University of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...
and author of the ''The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want''.
Education
Lyubomirsky received her B.A. from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
and her Ph.D. in
Social
Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not.
Etymology
The word "social" derives from ...
/
Personality Psychology
Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that examines personality and its variation among individuals. It aims to show how people are individually different due to psychological forces. Its areas of focus include:
* construction of a c ...
from
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
.
Awards
Lyubomirsky has received a
John Templeton Foundation
The John Templeton Foundation (Templeton Foundation) is a philanthropic organization that reflects the ideas of its founder, John Templeton, who became wealthy via a career as a contrarian investor, and wanted to support progress in religious an ...
grant, a Science of Generosity grant, a Templeton Positive Psychology Prize, and a million-dollar grant (with Ken Sheldon) from the
National Institute of Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH, in turn, is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the prima ...
.
In 2021, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Basel.
''The How of Happiness''
![LyubomirskyHappiness](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/LyubomirskyHappiness.jpg)
''The How of Happiness'' was published in 2008 by
Penguin Press
Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initial ...
. The book has been translated into 22 languages.
The premise of ''The How of Happiness'' is that 50 percent of a given human's long-term happiness level is genetically determined, 10 percent is affected by life circumstances and situation, and a remaining 40 percent of happiness is subject to
self control
Self-control, an aspect of inhibitory control, is the ability to regulate one's emotions, thoughts, and behavior in the face of temptations and impulses. As an executive function, it is a cognitive process that is necessary for regulating one's b ...
.
''The'' ''How of Happiness'' led to an
iPhone application called Live Happy, produced by
Signal Patterns
In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...
. Lyubomirsky is on the company's scientific advisory board.
''The'' ''How of Happiness'' has also led to a song, ''The How of Happiness'' Book Tune, a
mnemonic
A mnemonic ( ) device, or memory device, is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval (remembering) in the human memory for better understanding.
Mnemonics make use of elaborative encoding, retrieval cues, and imag ...
to remember the content within the book.
''The Myths of Happiness''
''The Myths of Happiness'', published by Penguin Press, claims why major life events that should make a person happy don’t, and that what shouldn’t make us happy often does.
References
External links
* Lyubomirsky'
webpageabout ''The How of Happiness''
20/20 video segmentcovering Lyubomirsky and ''The How of Happiness''
* Video o
Good Morning America interviewwith Lyubomirsky about ''The How of Happiness''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lyubomirsky, Sonja
Living people
1966 births
University of California, Riverside faculty
Positive psychologists
21st-century American women writers
American psychologists
Harvard University alumni
Stanford University alumni
Academic journal editors