We have evolved to enjoy sleep, sex and sweets – and so we do. But negativity permeates our lives too: we are drawn to murder and violence on the news; we remember the schoolyard bully as if it was yesterday, and we are taught to accept boring education. It is in our genes, but it is also deeply ingrained in our culture. We must pull ourselves together! This is the message from Hans Henrik Knoop, Associate Professor at Aarhus Univesity, President of the European Network for Positive Psychology....
Do you know the author of this book? Maybe not. But you probably trust him anyway. Most Danes do: as many as 78%. Even people who do not know him at all trust him. He is in fact not just anyone; he has solved the riddle of Denmark's success – until now an inexplicable mystery. The answer is simple. It is the Danes' trust in him and everyone else they do not know which is Denmark's most important raw material. It makes the country one of the richest in the world. – his name?...
Love is all around. A romantic cliche? No, a fact of human life. Just ask Anne Marie Pahuus, a Danish philosopher at Aarhus University. Love is essentially the closest, most intense relationships we have, for instance with our partners and children. Its wide range of emotions runs from erotic passion to friendship, from delight to torment. Love can conquer all, and it can bring life-long sorrow. Down through the ages – in a variety of guises – love has been the favourite theme of thinkers and...
Suresh Rattan's birth certificate reads «1955». At his age, signs of decline inevitably creep in, but Suresh doesn't feel that old. In fact, he feels twenty years younger. He can even explain why. No wonder: He does research on age and ageing at Aarhus University. Thanks to evolution, we can't imagine ourselves any older than 45. Biologically, we should just give up the ghost once we've raised a few carbon copies of ourselves. But for those of us who want to stick around a...
