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Gossip: bad habit or good for the group?

Go Ahead and Gossip

Reading gossip magazines is the highlight of many visits to the doctor’s office or hair salon. The private lives of others compel us. But we are often embarrassed to admit we subscribe to InTouch or visit PerezHilton.com daily. Society largely views gossip as a negative and immoral pastime. Colonial America punished gossips by forcing them to wear helmets that resembled iron cages with metal prods that jutted into the tongue. And in Jewish tradition, gossip (lashon hara) is considered a serious sin. But new research reveals that gossip can sometimes be a good thing. And it may be an integral part of how we cooperate. For the good of the group Economists and social scientists study why people work together in groups and pool resources even when they might benefit more if they acted selfishly. They have discovered that the possibility of being the target of gossip and consequently shunned from the group may motivate people to act in a more selfless, prosocial way. A team of Stanford University researchers, including Matthew Feinberg, Ph.D., who is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto,tested the theory by asking students to play an online game where different players contributed to a community pot. The students were given the opportunity to gossip about other players, and could even choose to shun a player based on the gossip reports. If a player was stingy in one round of the game and her fellow players gossiped about her and shunned her, she became much more generous in subsequent rounds. She cooperated. No one wants to be the pariah “When people were ostracized, they learned their lesson,” Feinberg said. The ability to kick people out of the next rounds of the game had the largest effect, spurring the most generosity. When kicking a player out of the game was a possibility, players gave much more freely. In some cases, Feinberg says, it seems that gossiping is a good thing for the group. “Sometimes we gossip out of real concern for our friends. We want to warn them of bad actors and immoral characters so they won’t be victimized.” Gossip is good? Sharing this kind of information promotes the good of the community around us. So at least in this case, gossip is considered prosocial. It’s a good thing. Prosocial gossip has a potential added bonus. It not only serves to report the facts of an event, but it also conveys what the gossiper thinks is morally correct. It communicates her moral code. If my coworker tells me that the boss takes his wife out every Friday on the company credit card, she’s not only telling me what happened, but she also implies that she disagrees with it. She believes that to be crossing an ethical line in the workplace. Feinberg and his colleagues are working on studies documenting gossip’s role in communicating morality. The darker side But, as we all know, there is another side to gossip. Tabloid magazines don’t add much to the collective morality of our communities. “If we’re spreading information within a moral domain, that’s one thing. But if we’re talking about looks or something a person can’t control that’s really a form of bullying,” Feinberg said. According to Feinberg, his study is not a permission to speak ill of others. He warns, even if we gossip for the right, prosocial reasons, it’s highly likely the target of that gossip might not like it. “Gossip is probably in the eye of the beholder.” Do you gossip among friends? Let us know what you think in the comments section, below! Meredith Knight is a science journalist based in Austin, Texas.

relationships

Life Is More Fun When Shared with a Friend

Somewhere between the time our bus left the school yard and when we reached the museum, I knew I’d found my best friend.We were in fifth grade when Marcy and I were assigned to share a bus seat on a school field trip. We were designated “buddies” for the day but quickly became friends for life. I can’t recall what we had in common in those early years, but whatever it was, it grew over time. I spent endless hours at her house, which had cool things like an aquarium and little brothers and even, for a time, a pet raccoon. Her mom treated me like her own; she taught us how to make pretzels, and we kneaded enough dough to bring Mrs. Baird to her knees. (A few years ago, her mom confessed that it was the only way she could think of to keep us busy for three hours at a time.)Growing up togetherBy the time we reached seventh grade, we discovered rock music and boys and all of the other things that make parents pace the floor at night. We spent countless hours in Marcy’s room, dreaming of our futures and imagining what we would do with them. Our plans were big, our dreams ambitious, and we had every certainty that we could make all of them come true – and that we would always be there for each other.Back then, it seemed like we were just killing time, waiting to grow up so our “real lives” could begin. What we didn’t know was that each moment was an investment in our friendship, the deepening of a bond so strong that it couldn’t be broken when high school arrived and our strengths and talents pulled us in different directions. It couldn’t be broken by the hundreds of miles that separated us during college, and when she landed her first post-college job in Texas, I was more than happy to quit my job at a community newspaper and relocate to the Lone Star State. Different paths, yet still togetherBy then, our differences were more defined. She was settled and logical; I was wilder and more impetuous. She was the yang to my yin and the calm to my storm. “Boring,” she would have called it, but to me, it was stability. She soon married and started a family, and while she rocked babies, I covered rock concerts. She was diapers and crayons; I was deadlines and coffee. But all the things we didn’t have in common could not overshadow the past that we shared, and sometimes it seemed our differences only made our friendship stronger. Maybe we worked harder to find common ground, or maybe we just lived vicariously through one another. Staying in touchWhen she and her family moved back to our home state of Nebraska more than a decade ago, our time together became more valuable, and we’ve worked hard to do more than merely “keep in touch.” Sometimes we’re better at it than others, but we always know that when we really need that one person who understands us, that contact is only a phone call away.We shared each other’s joy when her dad won his battle with cancer and cried together when my mom lost hers. Through the years we have mourned losses, cheered milestones and, perhaps most importantly, never forgot that being able to share either with each other was a gift.Sharing the journey of lifeWhen we first slid onto that cracked green vinyl bus seat some four decades ago, we had no idea of the journey that lay before us. I didn’t know how rough the road would become at some points, or how it would twist and turn in unexpected ways. Most of all, I had no idea of how grateful I’d be to have Marcy in that seat beside me every mile of the way.Read more about the lifelong benefits of friendship.

People

The Heroes Among Us

Author Brad Meltzer knows what makes a hero or superhero tick. He’s written best-selling books about espionage in the nation’s capital in books including The Inner Circleand The President's Shadow, scripted conversations among the members of the Justice League of America for DC Comics, and uncovered secrets that only top FBI agents and international spies may know on his History Channel shows Decoded and the new Lost History.New series on down-to-earth heroesHowever, it is in his recent series of family-friendly books, such as the popular Heroes for My Sonand Heroes for My Daughterand his series collectively called Ordinary People Change the World that Brad has been perhaps most able to define and depict heroism and how it can be achieved and accepted by all of us.“There’s one [strength] that repeats over and over—and defines a hero: You have to help someone,” Brad says. “You may help people directly, like Abraham Lincoln, or maybe you inspire us like Amelia Earhart. But to be a hero, you have to help someone. In these books, these aren’t just the stories of famous people. They’re what we're all capable of on our very best days.”American mythologyWhile Superman and Wonder Woman amaze with their super-human powers, for many, it is their humanity and our ability to connect with them that makes them so super. This is all the more true of everyday heroes like Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks and Meltzer’s latest subjects, Albert Einstein and Jackie Robinson. These people could not leap over buildings or bend steel bars with their bare hands, but they did even more to overcome obstacles, bend rules and change hearts, minds and points of view.With this in mind, Brad suggests that there is really not much difference between a female flier like Earhart and Wonder Woman. “They are all part of the American mythology,” he observes, “and the reason these stories still persist so strongly for all these decades isn't just because they tell the stories about other people. It’s because their stories also tell us about ourselves.”Giving backBrad’s helpful definition of a hero has also directed his own life. As each new best-seller is released and more people come to know his name, he does even more to reach out and help out. Proceeds from his sales go to such organizations as City Year, Alex’s Lemonade Stand and Sharsheret, a Jewish community response to breast cancer. While many of the heroes he writes about are his own (including his parents, grandparents, and eighth-grade English teacher), Brad’s Son and Daughter books also feature many of his family’s favorites.“My daughter…loves Lucille Ball,” he says, offering an example from “her” book and noting that his daughter is so enamored with the pioneering and famously charitable comedienne that she is probably “the only girl in America watching black and white TV!”Leave room for your own heroesAnd while all of his books depict and discuss the helpful and heroic lives of such people as Gandhi, Ben Franklin, Golda Meir and “Superman” himself (i.e., Christopher Reeve), Brad says that he always saves the best for last by including members of his own family toward the end of each collection. In both books, there is also a set of blank pages where readers can add their own chapters and pay their own tributes to the people who have helped them and been their heroes as well.“If you take a picture of your mom or grandparent or teacher, and you paste it in the book and write one sentence on what that person means to you,” he pledges, “it will be the most beautiful page [and] the best present we can give our children: the reminder that it is ordinary people who change the world.”Who are the everyday superheroes in your own life? Let us know in the comments section, below.Matt Robinson is a freelance writer living in Boston.

Practice

33 Ideas on Leadership

1. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” —John Quincy Adams2. ReadThe 5 Levels of Leadershipby John C. Maxwell.3. WatchLincoln.4. Become a Big Brother or Big Sister (bbbs.org).5. WatchLean On Me.6. ReadThe Virgin Way: Everything I Know About Leadershipby Richard Branson.Read about the trajectory of media mogul Arianna Huffington.7. WatchTheIron Lady.8. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” —Steve Jobs9. Start aJimRohnLeadership Journal.10. Download theMind Toolsapp.11. WatchSaving Private Ryan.12. Read The7 Habits of Highly Effective Peopleby Stephen R. Covey.13. Volunteer as a mentor in your area of professional expertise.Read more about the benefits of mentoring.14. Listen to“Centerfield”by JohnFogerty.15. ReadThe Last Lionby William Manchester.16. WatchCoach Carter.17. “The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.” —Tony Blair18. Follow your favorite entrepreneurs onLinkedIn.19. Listen to“GonnaFly Now (Theme to ‘Rocky’)” by BillContievery morning.20. ReadLean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Leadby Sheryl Sandberg.21. WatchRemember the Titans.22. “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” —C.S. Lewis23. Participate in a project to improve your community.Read more about how you can improve connectedness in your community.24. Listen to “On Top of the World” by Imagine Dragons.25. ReadHow to Win Friends and Influence Peopleby Dale Carnegie.26. Watch Drew Dudley’s “Everyday Leadership” TED Talk.27. “You cannot be anything you want to be—but you can be a whole lot more of who you already are.” —TomRath28. Set regular self-improvement goals.29. “The speed of the leader determines the speed of the gang.” – Mary Kay Ash30. ReadDriveby Daniel Pink.Watch our interview with best-selling author Daniel Pink.31. “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” —WarrenBennis32. Watch SimonSinek’s“How Great Leaders Inspire Action” TED Talk.33. Check out the next issue ofLive Happyfor 33 Ideas for Happy Travels.Let us know your ideas of what makes a strong leader by leaving a comment, below!

B Corps are changing the way we do business

News & Trends

B the Change

Do you know the saying “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”? Well, a growing number of businesses are doing just that.Business as a force for goodBusinesses have a tremendous impact on our lives, as owners, employees, consumers and community members, and now B Corps are using that power to solve social and environmental problems.The B Corp designation is to business what Fair Trade certification is to coffee or USDA Organic certification is to milk. Today, 1,281 Certified B Corps from 41 countries and over 121 industries are working together toward a single unifying goal: to redefine success in business.Getting the B grade to redefine successA business interested in becoming a B Corp goes through an assessment process that measures the social and environmental performance of everything it does, including accountability and transparency. If the company scores well, then it’s eligible to obtain the B Corp certification from B Lab, the supporting nonprofit organization.All shapes and sizesB corps come in all shapes in sizes, from small firms with sole proprietors to global brands like Ben & Jerry’s. Rob Michalak, Ben & Jerry’s global director of social mission, led the company’s effort to obtain its B Corp certification. “At first, the whole idea of assessment can be intimidating, but then people realize the benefit of the tool,” he says.The certification process has helped the company affirm what it’s doing well and provided insight into opportunities for improvement. So far, Ben & Jerry’s management has benefited the most from the guidance provided by the assessment process. With its deep social mission, the company is committed to supporting the B Corp movement. “There is true power in movements—much stronger than any individual company,” Rob says.Aligned ValuesMany companies join because there is strong alignment between a company’s established values and that of the B Corp movement. That was the case for Founding B Corp member King Arthur Flour, an employee-owned business. King Arthur Flour Chief of Staff Carey Underwood says the existing employee engagement, management transparency and employee-owned culture all contributed to the company’s high social scores during the assessment.Sustainable, Inside and outFor Patagonia, taking care of the planet has always been a driving value, so the B Corp designation was a natural fit, says Elissa Loughman, the company’s manager of corporate responsibility.The company knows that examining its own business practices and the way it uses resources are essential to being a responsible company. The outdoor clothing company uses organic cotton, makes fleece jackets from recycled plastic bottles and traces all the down used in their products back to the geese farms to ensure humane animal practices. Patagonia also uses wool from sheep raised sustainably in the Patagonia region of South America.Patagonia is also a founding member of 1% for the Planet, through which companies donate 1 percent of sales to environmental nonprofits.What Members AppreciateBeing part of a community and movement with shared goals has its benefits. Because B Corp certification is so rigorous, it validates and values the good work member companies do and helps them identify opportunities to improve. Members benefit from a culture of collaboration and exchange that even includes the signing of a “Declaration of Interdependence.”Additionally, for companies like Cabot Creamery, the first dairy farmer cooperative to become a B Corp, building brand awareness has been very helpful. Cabot Creamery Director of Marketing Amy Levine says “being a member has helped educate and communicate to consumers how a co-op is a beneficial business model” for the broader community and their high-quality products. The company appreciates that the assessment recognizes its acts of gratitude and volunteerism.Just Getting StartedThough it’s growing quickly, the B Corp movement is just getting started. B Corps range across all types of businesses and industries, from food to finance, from clothes to consulting and from consumer products to waste management.“All these companies are united by one common goal: to be best for the world,” says Katie Kerr, B Lab’s director of communications. Certification helps companies differentiate themselves and improve, helps consumers align their purchases with their values and helps people find good places to work. Building the brand and movement go hand in hand—both increase well-being for all.Are you ready (consumers and businesses) to “B the change”? If so, check out bcorporation.net, watch the “We Have a Dream” short video, begin an assessment and find a B Corp to do business with.Contributor Brian Kaminer is the founder of Talgra, a certified B Corp and consulting firm, and the creator of Invest With Values, an education website for people looking to align their money and values.

News & Trends

Theater of the Mind

Now in its second year, the Illuminate Film Festival held in Sedona, Arizona sets out to explore the conscious mind through the cinematic eye starting today through Sunday. More than 3,000 filmgoers from 23 states and six countries attended last year’s inaugural event, which featured four world premieres and seven U.S. premieres, including Death Makes Life Possible by executive producers Deepak Chopra and Marilyn Schlitz, Ph.D. and the best film winner Awake: The Life of Yogananda directed by Paola di Florio and Lisa Leeman. Expanding consciousness through cinema “Our mission is to expand consciousness through cinema," says Illuminate’s Executive Director and Founder Danette Wolpert. “Conscious cinema can teach us to live kinder, wiser, more enlightened lives and happier lives.” This year, 22 mindful and inspiring films were selected for their thought-provoking stories, such as On Meditation 2, which features hip-hop artist Russell Simmons and author and mindfulness expert Sharon Salzberg; the South by Southwest 2015 favorite A Brave Heart: the Lizzie Velasquez Story; and Dying to Know, a documentary following the lives of Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (who later became known as the spiritual teacher Ram Dass). A few more of this year’s notable selections include: • Sold, based on the best-selling book by Patricia McKormick, tells the real-life story and struggles of a young girl from Nepal who has been sold into prostitution. Produced by actress Emma Thompson, this film also stars David Arquette and Gillian Anderson (who will hold a Q&A after the screening). • An official selection of the Cannes Film Festival, this animated feature of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet was written and directed by Roger Allers (The Lion King), and stars Liam Neeson, Salma Hayek, Frank Langella and John Rhys-Davies. • The long-awaited documentary Landfill Harmonic tells the inspirational story of what can happen when you have no place to go but up. With instruments made from recycled trash, a garbage picker, a teacher and a band of students from Paraguay take what the world throws away and turns it into beautiful music. (For more on the Recycled Orchestra, click here.) For a complete lineup of films, go to https://illuminatefilmfestival.com/. Chris Libby is the Section Editor at Live Happy magazine.

Positive Psychology

Positive Psychology Fans Gather for Conference

Positive psychology scholars, students and practitioners will review the field's latest research and science-based applications at the Fourth World Congress of the International Positive Psychology Association on June 25-28, in Florida. Biggest names in the field Martin Seligman, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania professor known as the father of positive psychology, and Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph.D., Harvard University happiness professor, will open the conference at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort, Lake Buena Vista, with talks about the cutting edge in research and teaching. Other featured presenters among dozens invited include Rollin McCraty, Ph.D., research director at the HeartMath Institute in Boulder Creek, California, on heart-brain dynamics, and Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., University of North Carolina professor and author of Love 2.0, on "Positivity Resonates." A range of discussions Conference session topics range from eudaimonic well‐being to the effects and global reach of positive psychology. "You will be able to tap into the intellectual energy of a thriving global community," says congress chair Kim Cameron, Ph.D., a University of Michigan professor. The conference offers networking events such as special-interest group lunches and receptions, he says. You can click here to peruse the programor register online. The conference fee is $800 for professionals, $325 for students. Discounts are available for International Positive Psychology Association members. Live Happy in action If you come, look for Live Happy COO Deborah Heisz and Science Editor Paula Felps; they will be speaking on two separate panels. We will also have a Happiness Wall and a Live Happy Booth. See you there! Jim Gold is a veteran journalist who splits his time between Seattle and the Bay Area.

Giving

Cool to be KIND

When Daniel Lubetzky founded KIND Snacks in 2004 he wanted to create a profitable company that sold good-for-you snack bars made with whole foods and no preservatives. He also wanted to help build a more compassionate world. He’s been successful on both fronts. The company has sold more than a billion snack bars and clusters while the KIND Movement has inspired kind acts that have touched more than a million people. Today, the movement donates $10,000 every month to a community cause, like the Women’s Debate Institute in Baltimore, which is dedicated to closing the gender gap in competitive debating; a New York program that rescues leftover food from restaurants and catering companies and redistributes it to people in need; and Sweet Cases, a California-based project that wants to provide duffel bags or suitcases to kids in foster care so they don’t need to carry their belongings, such as a treasured stuffed animal, in plastic trash bags when they move from home to home. Now Daniel is sharing his principles in a new book, Do the Kind Thing: Think Boundlessly, Work Purposefully, Live Passionately.Whether you’re founding a company or working for one, Daniel offers ways to find meaning in your work. We asked Daniel if he could give Live Happy readers a snack-sized summary of his advice. Here’s what he told us. You need to know what gives you purpose before you can translate it into business practice. Your purpose could be to make others happy. To take care of others. To keep this planet clean. It could be a big global problem, or one that affects your community. You may not have identified what force within drives you. This is why introspection is key. Talking with yourself often and deeply is not always an easy task but there are no shortcuts to understanding what makes you tick. You must take the time to ask yourself questions. Your answer most likely will not come overnight. And it may evolve as you gain other experiences. But that is why it is so important that you consciously invest the time to listen to your inner self along the way. Knowing what makes you happy is the first step to actually being happy. Shelley Levitt is a freelance journalist based in Los Angeles, and editor-at-large for Live Happy magazine.

Positive Psychology

Does Reading Fiction Make Us Nicer?

For lovers of fiction, reading is often an escape. It’s a chance to get outside of our own heads and move into someone else’s personal experience. We don’t just follow Scarlett O’Hara as she takes down her drapes to create a new dress and the façade of wealth, we identify with her pride and feel her determination in the pits of our stomachs. We empathize with her character.The empathetic leapThat heightened emotional connection moves beyond the page and into our real lives, according to social scientists at the New School in New York City. People who read literary fiction before a test to identify emotions in other people’s faces did better than subjects who read non-fiction or popular fiction, the researchers stated in a study published in the scientific journal Science.David Comer Kidd, who did the research, said this was likely because people reading literary fiction had to fill in gaps about the emotional content of characters in the stories.Theory of MindFiction is an exercise in what psychologists call Theory of Mind. This is our ability to understand other people’s emotions and reasoning and realize that they are different from our own. When we read fiction we understand what the characters know, how they are feeling at various points in the story, and what about their experiences are causing them to feel that way.“When you tell people to pay attention to other people’s subjective experiences, they do better at identifying emotions in other people,” Kidd said. Fiction is a shortcut to getting people to pay attention.Putting yourself in someone else’s shoesEmpathy is another way to think about Theory of Mind, but instead of just identifying emotions in others, we also feel a little bit of that emotion or a related one.Although one might think we use Theory of Mind constantly in our daily interactions, Kidd said that many of our social experiences are basically scripted by manners and social norms. We don’t need to recruit our knowledge of other people’s emotions to buy a jug of milk at the store, for example, or respond to most professional email.But in some circumstances it’s very important to consider what other people are thinking and feeling, especially when making decisions about morality and our deep personal relationships.“Theory of Mind plays a big role when we’re trying to decide if an action is going to hurt someone else’s feelings or if we’re trying to figure out why someone has hurt our feelings,” Kidd said. “Was that person trying to be a jerk, or was something else going on with them?”Fiction increases emotional intelligenceLiterary fiction probably increases people’s capacity for understanding what other people are thinking because there are gaps both in the story’s narrative and in the characters' emotional lives compared to non-fiction or some popular fiction, which is more explicit in laying out characters emotional life. You have to work harder to fill in those gaps yourself.Story lines force us to be active in our empathyKidd and his colleagues are working to home in on the specific qualities of a story, play or film that forces us to use our Theory of Mind and boosts our empathetic capabilities.“It seems like what really matters is an active versus passive approach,” Kidd said.Other research has shown that people who read fiction feel more socially connected and have larger social support systems than those who don’t, challenging the idea of the lonely bookworm. Increased empathy may be a cognitive and emotional link between fiction and social interactions.Read more about the social importance of book clubs.But, Kidd cautions, this does not mean that people who don’t read literary fiction have little empathy or are interpersonally deficient. Rather, that reading fiction can nudge one’s empathetic capability to be more active.So the next time you find yourself in a tricky interpersonal situation, it might be worth thinking through the point of view of others as if they were characters in your favorite novel before deciding on a course of action.What would Elizabeth Bennet do?Meredith Knight is a freelance science writer based in Austin, Texas.

Sharing

How Do You Live Happy?

Happiness is contagious, and if your goal is to create a world with more compassion, less strife and a greater sense of purpose and meaning—you need to get your message out there!Here are just a few ideas to share your joy with family, friends and your community.Chalk the walksChalk the Walks is one of many projects spearheaded by The Joy Team. Started in 2011 by Michele McKeag Larsen, the Joy Team has spread positive messages far and wide, beginning with a series of signs and billboards all over her native Pacific Northwest.“We had been doing the billboards for about a year,” says Michele, “But I wanted something more people could engage with. All you have to do is buy chalk. It’s accessible to everyone, and you can do it anywhere.”People around the country have come up with similar ideas for spreading positivity. There is an annual Chalk the Walk in Cleveland, Chalk the Block in El Paso, and a group called Chalk for Thought posts new messages frequently on Instagram and Twitter.Post your happyIn the 21st century, we face a near-constant bombardment of negative messages. Some groups have launched a counter-movement by posting DIY inspirational messages on sticky notes in public places. These handwritten happy hits have been popping up around the country: in buses, on the subway, painted on billboards ... it has become a positively contagious meme.Live Happy has its own Happy Notes (sticky notes printed with positive messages), and the folks at a small organization calledOperation Beautiful came up with a similar idea.There are so many acts of kindness, large and small, that we do on an everyday basis. How will you spread your happiness? So get out there: Do some good and notice when someone does something nice for you. One small step at a time, we will make the world a happier place.Post your messages on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook with the hashtag#livehappy and tag us @livehappy, and your positivity will spread even further!