Introducing John Zelenski

John Zelenski is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada where he has lived and worked for the last 12 years. He completed psychology degrees at Northwestern University (B.A.), the University of Michigan (M.A.), and Washington University in St. Louis (Ph.D.).

As a researcher and director of the Carleton University Happiness Laboratory (CUHL), he studies individual differences in happiness, and how personality manifests itself ‘in the moment’ as emotional and cognitive processes. Recent work has focused on the causes and consequences of social behaviour (e.g., in relation to the personality trait of introversion-extraversion), and the links among nature, people’s sense of connection to nature, happiness, and sustainable behaviour.

His research is supported by SSHRC, ORF, and CFI, and is published in journals such as Psychological Science, Emotion, Environment and Behavior, and Journal of Happiness Studies. His expertise in the science of happiness makes him a regular source for media.

As an educator, he has taught university courses on personality, happiness, abnormal and positive psychology at Carleton and ‘around the world’ as part of the University of Virginia’s Semester at Sea program, consistently earning exceptional student evaluations. More information available at his web page: http://carleton.ca/~jzelensk