Happiness Education Course Ideas
From PsychWiki - A Collaborative Psychology Wiki
Revision as of 18:11, 12 February 2007 by Ravi (Talk | contribs)
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.
Contents |
General vision
- Avoid preaching
- Keep it real and grounded
- Include alternate ideas of the good life
Topics we could cover
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....
Basic Psychological Needs & the Hedonic Treadmill
- Relative vs. Absolute goods (ie. money vs. vacation)
- Self Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan) - Competence, Relatedness, Autonomy
- Meaning as a basic psychological need? (Kashdan ??)
Gratitude & Focus
- Explore the idea of shifting a person's focus.
- Explore ancient ideas about the world being a product of one's opinions.
- Detachment and meditation
- Talk about Amygdala and ancient structures which make us focus on negative too much.
Relationships & Emotional Intelligence
- Maximizers vs. Satisficers
- one of the few things that does cause lasting happiness
Self Regulation, Habits vs. Discipline
- Radish/chocolate experiement...depletion
- Tal Ben Shahar's examples (ie. 4 minute mile)
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
Sex, Drugs, and Brain Chemistry
- Dopamine system
Multimedia we could use
Experiential Excercises
Books to buy/check out
- Signature Strengths book?
- Flow
- Authentic Happiness - Seligman
- The Social Psychology of Altruism - Dovidio
- Evil? - Baumeister
- Mind Wide Open - Steven Johnson
- Happiness Hypothesis - Haidt
- The Question of Happiness - Tal Ben Shahar
- Happier - Tal Ben Shahar
