George Ward, London School of Economics and Political Science
While Conservative pundits wonder why high scores for economic competence aren’t boosting poll numbers, some clues might lie away from financial measures.
Last week, the 0.1% met at World Economic Forum annual gathering in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos. While the official excuse to go there is to discuss and shape the global agenda – the theme dominating…
Apocryphal depictions of an unprecedented crisis in young people’s mental ill-health and their general vulnerability have been accompanied by increasingly alarmist claims that only schools can address…
How good are you at caring for your houseplants? Come to that, how good are you at caring for yourself? Symbio, a new app still currently in development, will connect your well-being to that of your plants…
Children’s character and well-being looks set to be a central education issue going into the 2015 general election. Getting out of the starting blocks in mid-December, Nicky Morgan, the secretary of state…
In setting out our resolutions, we should first step back and take stock of what it is that we really want, what we consider the good life to be, and then think about how best we might achieve it.
According to Atul Gawande medicine lies at “the messy intersection of science and human fallibility”. Named as one of the world’s most influential thinkers by Time in 2010, Gawande is a world renowned…
When you look out of your window in the morning, how many trees do you see? Your answer might depend on what suburb you live in. As you go further from the city centre, the amount of tree cover in a suburb…
It’s no secret that the global population is ageing. We’re living longer than ever and are healthier until much later in life. But we’re still struggling to adapt to this changing demographic – and some…
The United Nations Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) recently conducted an assessment of the wellbeing of people around the world. The results indicate that Canberra is a world…
Foundation essay: This article is part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the US. Our foundation essays are longer than our usual comment and analysis articles and take a wider look…
Despite enormous economic growth over the past 200 years, developed and developing countries alike are failing to tackle crime and environmental problems, a major report from the OECD has concluded. The…
Taxpayers in Britain spend more than £1 billion a year providing free bus travel. Mostly used by pensioners, some disabled people qualify for this concessionary travel, and there are fears that an austerity-driven…
We must all now be very familiar with complaints about how the hours we spend glued to our devices eat into family time and other meaningful relationships. Stories range from children who’d rather play…
As the Commonwealth Games enters its last days, Australian sprinter John Steffenson announced he’s hanging up the spikes after the tournament is over, and diver Matthew Mitcham hinted at retiring too…
Police and border officials have been running a campaign at airports across the UK to intercept families who could have taken their children abroad for female genital mutilation (FGM). Now the Metropolitan…
How important, if at all, is having more money for our happiness and well-being? Unsurprisingly this question stimulates a lot of opinion and debate. But are people accurate in their predictions about…
Information overload has become an everyday experience for anyone who works with computers, owns a smartphone or waits at a bus stop with minute-by-minute updates about arrival times. And this information…
Has evolution wired you to pursue happiness? Some researchers think so. The granddaddy of positive psychology Martin Seligman draws on evolutionary theory – or at least its bastard offspring, evolutionary…