About Dr. Pelin Kesebir
Pelin Kesebir, Ph.D.
Dr. Kesebir works as a scientist at the Center for Healthy Minds, specializing in the psychology of happiness. Studying various elements of happiness (e.g., a heathy mind, healthy relationships, a healthy sense of self), Dr. Kesebir aims to arrive at an integrated understanding of what happiness is and how it can be cultivated. Her research has particularly focused on character strengths and virtues (e.g., humility, resilience, optimism) and their relation to well-being. Dr. Kesebir is also an expert in existential psychology, having examined how inescapable realities of life, such as our mortality, impact our psychological dynamics and how we should approach these realities to live happy lives. Dr. Kesebir received her doctoral degree in Social Psychology and Personality Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009, and is originally from Istanbul, Turkey.
Sample talk titles include:
What Is Happiness? What Is It Not?
What Is a Healthy Mind and How Can We Cultivate It?
A Healthy Sense of Self: The Soil From Which Happiness Grows
Cultivating Healthier Relationships for Happiness
Where Happiness Starts: Seeing and Loving Life for What It Is
How to Create A Happy Life: The Science of Change
Articles and Publications
Dr. Kesebir has published dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.
In Pursuit of Happiness: Empirical Answers to Philosophical Questions
Emotional Style Questionnaire: A Multidimensional Measure of Healthy Emotionality
A Quiet Ego Quiets Death Anxiety: Humility as an Existential Anxiety Buffer
The Cultural Salience of Moral Character and Virtue Declined in Twentieth Century America
The Role of Death in Life: Existential Aspects of Human Motivation
Media
How Does Hope Work? – Wisconsin Public Radio
Integrating Wellness Into Everything We Do – Madison Magazine
When Did Pop Culture and Nature Part Ways? – Outside Magazine
What Our Words Tell Us – The New York Times