Overview

Investigations at the Quality of Life Laboratory are focused on empowering people to live the lives they find most fulfilling and meaningful by enabling them to:

1. Develop and actualize their capabilities
2. Integrate them into an identity
3. Channel their personal uniqueness to create works of lasting value

This involves studying human performance (creativity), the interpersonal relationships that promote personal development (mentoring), cognitive enablers of high performance (flow, trance), and the context in which people create (workplace culture).

Current Projects

How people can develop and exhibit their best selves through positive experiences

• Microflow: Is it possible to have optimal experiences even under suboptimal conditions?
• Short Positive Experiences: Can you have a good time when you don’t have time?
• Street Hypnosis: If you met a hypnotist on the street, would you want to try it?
• Hypnotic Phenomenology: What are hypnotizable people capable of doing? (Collaboration with John Mohl)
• Solitude: Is spending time alone necessarily a bad thing? (Collaboration with Thuy-Vy Nguyen)
• Self-Insight: How do we come to understand ourselves? (Collaboration with Thuy-Vy Nguyen)
• Positive Living: What is the best life you can live? (Collaboration with Xuan Gao)
• Enhancing Student Creativity: How do we train teachers to encourage creativity in their students?
  (Collaboration with Jen Katz-Buonincontro)

Making the workplace a great place to work

• Creativity at Work: To what extent are we able to be creative at our workplaces and in our jobs?
• Creativity Tools: Is there a better way to brainstorm? (Collaboration with KILN)
• Team Flow: How do teams get into flow? (Collaboration with Jef van den Hout)
• Emotion and Leadership: How do leaders enable good following? (Collaboration with Jen Katz-Buonincontro)