(a slightly abbreviated version of this blog post is downloadable as both a Word doc & a PDF file)  

Yesterday, Catero and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary with a ceilidh.  This is Auld Lang Syne at the end of the party.  I'm the loudmouth (on one glass of wine), with dear Catero on my left (to the right in the picture).  Laura, precious stepdaughter, is three places to my left and Kieran, precious son, only half shown four places to my right.  Celebration and gratitude ... and very relevant to this month's blog post themes of relationships and social networks.

I wrote last week on "Barbara Fredrickson 'How positive emotions work, and why' (fifth post)" and the initial two key points she made in her talk - 1.) Positivity opens us, and 2.) Positivity transforms us.  Today's post discusses the second half of her talk and her three further key points.

Yesterday was the first full day of the conference.  I've already written about the first evening.  The full day started fairly bright and early at 8.30am.  First off was a talk by Corey Keyes, a sociologist from Emory University, Atlanta.  I've liked his work, but at first glance at this conference he looked a bit too like Johnny Depp for me to take him seriously (prejudice or what!).  The talk this morning soon put that right.  Passionate, informed, insightful.  Great stuff.

I flew into Copenhagen yesterday afternoon.  I have a low key good feeling about the place.  Nice.  Clean.  Small enough not to feel overwhelmed.  Friendly.  How appropriate that Denmark, the hosts of this "5th European conference on positive psychology", have so often been ranked top in the world on life satisfaction.  See for example Christensen et al's paper "Why Danes are smug: comparative study of life satisfaction in the European Union."  I walked from Central Station to register at the conference and then on to the little hotel I'm staying in to dum