Author: sheilapontis
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Can imagination bring The Smile back?
My short answer is YES – but first let’s explain what “Smile” I’m referring to. In the 2000s, David Blanchflower’s research indicated a correlation between age and happiness: teens and 20s were some of the happiest and most enjoyable times of life, followed by a decline through the 30s and 40s, hitting the lowest point…
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When Savoring meets Co-Imagination
This week the focus in the personal well-being course was on emotions — particularly on cultivating positive emotions. Savoring is a common technique, developed by psychologists Bryant and Veroff (2007), used in positive psychology to consciously (re)experience, appreciate, intensify, and extend the feelings we get from positive emotions and experiences. Building on the Savoring technique, I…
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Imagination + Well-Being in Action: An Interdisciplinary Curriculum
This semester I’m teaching a new elective course on personal well-being with a twist. Rather than following traditional emotional well-being approaches from positive psychology or cognitive behavioral therapy, I’m piloting an interdisciplinary curriculum which integrates mindfulness, metacognition, and positive psychology with imagination (and creativity). Positive Psychology: An important goal of the course is to encourage…
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Re-Learn to Imagine Challenge!
The Dot and The Line activity was created by Parnes, Noller & Biondi (1977) as part of their Creative Problem Solving programs. Since 2021, I have been inviting students, colleagues, and clients to complete this activity to help them better understand their thought patterns and uncover internal barriers that hinder their imagination and creative potential. Imagination…
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Imagination Lights People Up
Imagination is fun and magical! Just think Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory or any of Pixar movies – such as Finding Nemo. The good news is that everyone can imagine; this is our capacity to construct mental representations of concepts, things, people, or situations that do not exist. We are engaging with our imagination…
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Nurture Imagination in Your Back Yard (or balcony!)
Nature is powerful. Research (e.g., here and here) has shown the benefits for emotional and physical well-being resulting from living near green areas, spending time in nature, and even looking at images of nature. Nature can also boost imagination – for instance, through gardening. This was my experience this Summer, as we explored the joys,…
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AI Reveals a Gap on Imagination for Well-Being Research
I’m not a huge user of AI – probably I have used it twice in my life (yes, really), but this week I was playing around with Perplexity, the free AI-powered answer engine which claims to provide “accurate, trusted, and real-time answers to any question.” So I decided to explore who was working on the…
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New Chapter: Imagination for Emotional Well-being
For almost 25 years, my career has exclusively centered in the design space. Through my work, I have led design higher education, brought social science and anthropology research closer to design practice and academia, and contributed with a more expansive way to approach information design. The three books I have authored and co-authored and multiple…
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The Vicious Cycle of Well-Being, Creativity & AI
Last week, I came across a recent MIT study designed to investigate the impact of AI in learning environments. Based on the assigned problem-solving approach, 54 adults were divided into three groups to complete multiple creative tasks in four sessions. In the last session, participants were placed on the opposite group – so those who…
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New Challenges to Teaching Imagination for Well-Being
Teaching my Imagination, Well-Being, & Happiness elective course left me with many learnings. On the one hand, it was beneficial for a few students. One of them realized “how valuable imagination can be” — not just for design work, but for navigating life with a little more softness and flexibility.” Their evolution was documented in…
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Applied Imagination Behaviors: From the Classroom to Society
Teaching people how to re-learn to imagine and engage in creative thinking has been a learning experience in many ways. Particularly, I have learned how to pay attention to people’s attitudes and behaviors when given a creative task. Similarly, from my college experiences, I have identified three main types of students, based on their motivation…
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Why AI is not Creative
Conversations about whether artificial intelligence (AI) will replace people’s creativity and related jobs have intensified and become a concern among art and design students. This is why as part of my Imagination, Well-Being & Happiness course, students grapple with these ideas: Is AI creative? Could it replace designers’ imagination and creativity? As an experiment, I…
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