ABSTRACT
“Other people matter.” The late Christopher Peterson would say that in every positive psychology lecture he gave and in every positive psychology workshop he conducted (Donaldson & Donaldson, 2018). He would emphasize that good relationships with other people may be a necessary condition for our own happiness, even in a markedly individualist culture like the contemporary United States. The mounting evidence from positive psychological science research over the past two decades strongly supports Chris Peterson’s mantra “Other people matter” in terms of our health, well-being, and optimal positive functioning (see Donaldson & Donaldson, 2018). For example, numerous empirical studies on well-being and life satisfaction emanating from Professor Edward Diener’s subjective well-being lab at the University of Illinois support his claim that the quality of our social relationships most often emerges as the strongest predictor of our well-being (Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2011). That is, the quality of our relationships with significant others, family, friends, co-workers, and work supervisors among others “matters” in terms of our well-being over time and on a daily basis (see Oravecz et al., 2020). Dutton, Roberts, and Bednar (this volume) and Warren, Donaldson, and Luthans (2017) described and summarized research showing that high-quality relationships and high-quality connections at work are central to employee well-being, team flourishing, and optimal functioning at work.
