LSE: Public lectures and events

Speaker(s): Professor Paul Dolan | Loneliness is one of the giant issues we are facing as a society today. Our relationships with other people are fundamental to our wellbeing, but what kinds of relationships make us happy or miserable? How should individuals decide when to ‘make or break’ a relationship? Why is the term love often misunderstood and misconstrued? How do social policies influence people’s relationships, such as by encouraging marriage and discouraging divorce – and how should they, if at all? Paul Dolan (@profpauldolan) is Professor of Behavioural Science at LSE, Director of Executive MSc Behavioural Science and Head of the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science. There are two main themes to Paul’s work: Developing measures of happiness and subjective wellbeing that can be used in policy and by individuals looking to be happier; and considering ways in which the lessons from the behavioural sciences can be used to understand and change individual behaviour, and to add to the evidence base in this regard. He uses a range of data and methods to address these issues, and to better integrate them e.g. surveys, big data, lab studies, and field experiments. He is author of the Sunday Times best-selling book, Happiness by Design and the forthcoming The Narrative Trap, in which he talks about how the stories we tell about how we ought to live our lives harm us. Suzi Godson (@suzigodson) is a psychologist and journalist. She has been The Times sex and relationships columnist for fifteen years and is the author of several award winning books. She is currently conducting a longitudinal PhD study exploring the impact of midlife divorce on women with adult children. Last September she launched the multi award winning MeeTwo app, a safe, scalable, early intervention solution to the growing problem of adolescent anxiety. MeeTwo helps teenagers to talk about difficult things and encourages young people to help themselves, by helping each other. MeeTwo is free to use and is available on the App Store and Google Play