In this episode of Sero Boost, host Sarah Stancombe is joined by guest Mohsen Joshanloo to discover how the fear of happiness is present in every society, and it is more normalized in some than others. Thanks to Mohsen Joshanloo’s culture-based research, we are able to identify the reasons for this fear, and how deeply they are connected to culture.

Mohsen Joshanloo is a personality and cross-cultural psychologist. His research focuses on mental well-being, optimal aging, and culture. He contributes to the internationalization of psychological science by collaborating with researchers worldwide, and incorporating data from countries across six continents - his research on this topic has been published in over 150 articles and book chapters. He obtained his PhD in 2013 from Victoria University of Wellington. He is currently an Associate Professor at Keimyoung University and holds honorary positions at the University of Melbourne and the University of Pretoria. 

Mohsen Joshanloo explains that many religions have a fear of happiness built into them, for example, beliefs that sadness will naturally come after happiness, that happiness is sinful if it involved forgetting the deity of the religion, or that others will be jealous of your happiness and try to make life worse for you out of envy. In these cases, upbringing and religion, so heavily built into culture, are the main causes for a normalized fear of happiness in a society.

Together, Sarah and Mohsen Joshanloo discuss a step by step guide to recognizing and tackling a fear of happiness (if that is what is desired by the person suffering from it). From recognizing the problem, to remembering it is normal, and seeking help or resources if needed, there are ways to discover more about the fear of happiness and uncover how it may affect you and your life. 

Find out more about Mohsen Joshanloo’s work via the following links:

Website: https://mohsenjoshanloo.weebly.com/ 

UniMelb: https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/855444-mohsen-joshanloo

Research: https://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/10.1027/1015-5759/a000834 

Connect with Mohsen Joshanloo via the following links:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohsen-joshanloo-61068349/ 

Twitter: https://x.com/MohsenJoshanloo

Email: mjoshanloo@gmail.com 

Produced by the Happiness Science Labs, a division of LMSL, the Life Management Science Labs. 

Explore LMSL at https://lifemanagementsciencelabs.com/ and visit http://ha.lmsl.net/ for additional information about Happiness Science Labs.

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