Happiness Education Course Ideas

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This page was created for Ravi Iyer and Brian Lickel to brainstorm over ideas for a new course on "Happiness" aimed at undergraduates at USC.

This page may be a bit outdated...check out the USC happiness course lab page for more

Contents

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General vision

  • Avoid preaching
  • Keep it real and grounded
  • Include alternate ideas of the good life
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Topics we could cover

  • First section covers the basics of how we talk about/measure happiness
  • Second section covers ways we can train our minds
  • Third section covers alternative ideas of happiness (Morality & Flow)
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What is happiness? How is it measured?

  • Talk about Seligman's 3 ideas (Affect, Flow/Engagement, Spiritual/part of something larget).
  • Eudamonia vs. Hedonism - Growth vs. Pleasure
  • Diener's national surveys
  • Remembered Happiness vs. Experienced Happiness (Show Kahneman's studies)...experience sampling..peak/end rule.
  • Is morality important? introduce Altruism and Evil....


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the Hedonic Treadmill

  • What do we adjust to and what do we not adjust to?
  • Lottery and paraplegic study
  • Money and Happiness
  • Study of Calcutta Prostitutes vs. Graduate Students
  • Things that are not subject to hedonic treadmill/adaptation (ie. noise)
  • Importance of disposition, personality, and genes
  • READING: Ch 2,5 of Happiness Hypothesis
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Wanting vs. Liking

  • Relative vs. Absolute goods (ie. money vs. vacation)
  • Dopamine system
  • Heroine users
  • Money
  • Power/Status
  • Space
  • READING: See Nettle book chapter on Wanting vs. Liking
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Basic Psychological Needs

  • Self Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan) - Competence, Relatedness, Autonomy
  • Meaning as a basic psychological need? (Kashdan ??)
  • Self Esteem? Security?
  • EXERCISE: Have students take the basic psychological needs surveys for domains and correlate with domain satisfaction -> http://www.psych.rochester.edu/SDT/measures/word/needsful.doc
  • Elderly as a control group
  • MEDIA: Show pioneer network video re: loneliness, helplessness, and boredom in the elderly. relate to stats on elderly depression and suicide
  • Talk about experiment with elderly and plants
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Training one's focus (ie. Gratitude, Altruism)

  • Explore the idea of shifting a person's focus.
  • Talk about Amygdala and ancient structures which make us focus on negative too much.
  • Luck (Wiseman)
  • LAB: Try classroom exercise of trying not to think of an elephant.
  • The mind is like an animal that must be trained rather than a car that must be driven (Haidt).
  • READING: Ch. 1 of Happiness Hypothesis
  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
  • Applying signature strengths
  • EXERCISE: Find your signature strengths and apply them
  • LAB: Talk about application of strengths?
  • EXERCISE: Keep gratitude journal
  • EXERCISE: Do something altruistic and report on it
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Meditation

  • Maximizers vs. Satisficers
  • Meditation exercise
  • Explore ancient ideas about the world being a product of one's opinions.
  • Detachment
  • EXERCISE: Take the scale
  • LAB: Try meditation, report on results


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Relationships & Emotional Intelligence

  • Altruism and Gratitude in relationships (SPSP presentation research)
  • one of the few things that does cause lasting happiness
  • Maximizing and satisficing in relationships
  • Companion vs. passionate love
  • EXERCISE: Take emotional intelligence test -> Brackett, M. A., & Mayer, J. D. (2003). Convergent, discriminant, and incremental validity of competing measures of emotional intelligence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 9, 1147-1158.
  • EXERCISE: Do Iowa Gambling Task
  • Relate emotional intelligence to Phineas Gage & neuroanatomy
  • READING: ch. 6 of Happiness Hypothesis
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The relationship between physical and emotional health

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Self Regulation, Habits vs. Discipline, Belief

  • Radish/chocolate experiement...depletion
  • Tal Ben Shahar's examples (ie. 4 minute mile)
  • Belief and self esteem as self fulfilling prophecies
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Adversity and Resilience

  • READING: ch.7 of Happiness Hypothesis
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Experiencing Flow

  • Challenge vs. Ability
  • Intrinsic motivation
  • Music, Sports
  • Quotes from people who are in flow
  • A different kind of happiness
  • READING: Nakamura, J., & Csikszentmiyalyi, M. (2002). The concept of flow. In C. R Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of Positive Psychology, 89-105.
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Morality and Evil

  • Talk about theoretical moral foundations and values (Schwartz, Shweder, and Haidt)
  • Talk about how opposing groups view other people's morals
  • How self serving biases lead to the idea of "pure evil" (Baumeister, Haidt)
  • Morality's relation to happiness see Happiness and Values
  • Have students visit YourMorals.org?
  • Use moral dilemmas such as....
    • Killing 5 vs. 1 person using a switch or pushing a man
    • Smothering your baby to save everyone from enemy soldiers
    • Brother and sister in France incest
    • Outcome influencing intentionality evaluations of CEO decisions
  • Moral elevation
  • READING: Ch.8 of Happiness Hypothesis, something on Myth of pure evil?
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Wrap-up

  • Class project on self improvement graded on thoughtfulness and effort rather than content...any kind of happiness is ok...
  • READING: Ch. 10 of Happiness Hypothesis
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Multimedia we could use

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Experiential Excercises

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Books to buy/check out

  • Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman
  • Happiness - Nettle
  • Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (Masterminds Series) by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
  • Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Authentic happiness. New York: Free Press.
  • The Social Psychology of Altruism - Dovidio
  • The Myth of Evil - Phillip Cole
  • Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty by Roy F. Baumeister
  • Mind Wide Open - Steven Johnson
  • Happiness Hypothesis - Jonathan Haidt
  • The Question of Happiness: On Finding Meaning, Pleasure, and the Ultimate Currency by Tal Ben-Shahar (Paperback - Aug 2002)
  • Happier - Tal Ben Shahar (pre-order for May 2007)
  • The Luck Factor - Richard Wiseman
  • Keyes, C. L. M., & Haidt, J. (Eds.). (2003). Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life well lived. Washington DC: American Psychological Association.
  • Buddha (1993). Dhammapada. Thomas Byrom (trans.) Boston: Shambhala (Other editions acceptable, but not as beautiful)
  • Handbook of Positive Psychology
  • Paradox of choice- Schwartz, Barry
  • Stumbling on happiness, Gilbert
  • Emotional Intelligence, Goleman, Daniel
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Other thoughts/ideas

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