Kennon Marshall Sheldon is a professor of psychological sciences at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded ...

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

. His research is in the areas of

well-being Well-being, or wellbeing, also known as wellness, prudential value or quality of life, refers to what is intrinsically valuable relative ''to'' someone. So the well-being of a person is what is ultimately good ''for'' this person, what is in t ...

motivation Motivation is the reason for which humans and other animals initiate, continue, or terminate a behavior at a given time. Motivational states are commonly understood as forces acting within the agent that create a disposition to engage in goal-dire ...

self-determination theory Self-determination theory (SDT) is a macro theory of human motivation and personality that concerns people's innate growth tendencies and innate psychological needs. It pertains to the motivation behind people's choices in the absence of extern ...

personality Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, mos ...

, and positive psychology. In 2002 he was a recipient of a

Templeton Foundation The John Templeton Foundation (Templeton Foundation) is a philanthropic organization that reflects the ideas of its founder, John Templeton, who became wealthy via a career as a contrarian investor, and wanted to support progress in religious an ...

"Positive Psychology" prize and in 2014 received the Ed and Carol Diener award for mid-career achievement in

personality psychology Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that examines personality and its variation among individuals. It aims to show how people are individually different due to psychological forces. Its areas of focus include: * construction of a ...

. He is the author of ''Optimal Human Being: An Integrated Multi-level Perspective'', ''Self-determination Theory in the Clinic: Motivating physical and mental health'', and has written and edited several other academic books, as well as more than 200 academic articles and book chapters.

References

External links

Kennon M. Sheldon, Ph.D.
Faculty page at the University of Missouri Interview on Hidden Brain podcast https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/what-do-you-want-to-be/ Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American psychologists University of Missouri faculty {{US-psychologist-stub