Change your life in 3 easy steps! Lose weight in 10 minutes a day! This kind of ‘cruel optimism’ suggests that socially-created issues can be solved by individual effort, and quickly. It’s a kind of magical misdirection that leaves us feeling worse, when we don’t manage to drive change. So what’s a better way? (Read on for more! Complete with real-world success stories! No, really, that’s true.)

New Year’s resolutions have been around for about 2000 years, but do they really help us to live more fulfilling lives? Or do we need to switch up our focus, in order to uncover more of the gold in our lives?

For some reason, us humans like to think that we are independent, and that others only influence us when we let them. But social scientists know that the moods and behaviours of other people are highly contagious. So what are you catching from your colleagues - and what are you spreading?