I just finished Week 9 of The science of happiness MOOC! Wow! I found great readings in this course. And I will try to make some changes in my life due to some ideas I found in it! This last week covered some of the new frontiers of this science while also providing opportunities for reflection and synthesis.
The final exam contains 40 questions that span the entire nine weeks of course material, though they focus more on material from the second half of the course (post-midterm). I haven't done the midterm exam neither. I hope I can sit and do both next weekend! It will be 70 questions and I need to have 31 correctly answered if I want to get the certificate. I need a score of 60% or higher in order to receive a certificate of completion. I have 29% so far obtained by answering questions weekly. I found it demanding maybe because it's a new area of knowledge to me.
Instructors extended the deadline for the final exam, along with all other graded material from the course, by one week. It is now all due on November 25 but I don't want to delay it. It has been a great learning experience. In many ways it surprised me much more than Design 101 MOOC did. I really hope I do well on exams because I want to have the certificate. I collected texts and video transcripts, it's 600 pages. This is the minimum you have to read. I did not have much time to dedicate to this MOOC so I skipped interaction with fellow students. I'm very pleased to have finish the readings and weekly problem sets already!
This is a summary I made of Week 1. I stopped doing it because I had no time. But it can give you an idea of what this MOOC is about.
Video 1. Some great thinkers thought about happiness but science is only starting!
4. Greek philosopher 2500 years ago, Aristotle. In his book Nicomachean Ethics was kind of one of his treatments for the ethical life - the Principle of Moderation. We have to accept all emotions cos they all have their place and function when cultivated in the right way.
5. European philosophy - an hedonistic viewpoint of happiness. Happiness is found in pleasure and sensation, the sum of all the sensory pleasures and the absences of pain. It's called the Epicurean philosophy.
7. Judeo-Christian ways of thinking about happiness - Darren McMann, a Florida State philosopher and historian.
Question: What concrete evidence would convince you that happiness is worth pursuing-that it could lead to a more successful career, a more satisfying marriage, a longer life? What other evidence would you need?
"There are two core truths about these positive emotions. One is that they open us. They literally change the boundaries of our minds and our hearts and change our outlook on our environments. The warmth of positivity changes how open our visual perspective is at a really basic level is and our ability to see our common humanity with others. We do know that positive emotions open our awareness they increase the expanse of our peripheral vision we see more. And there are a lot of places where this matters, because we see more possibilities. People come up with more ideas of what they might do next when they're experiencing a positive emotion relative to when they're experiencing neutral states or negative emotions. People are more creative. People are more likely to be resilient. I have a whole line of research on resilience where we've shown that people are able to bounce back quicker from adversity when they're experiencing positive emotions."
"Positive emotions transform us for the better.One of the things I think is exciting is that the latest science suggests that the pace of cell renewal and the form of cellrenewal doesn't just follow some predetermined DNA script, that our emotions affect that level of cellular change. If we increase our daily diet of positive emotions maybe we change who we are. We change our ways of being inthe world in important ways. Now one of the things that I've come to realize
is that changing people's trait or characteralogical positive emotions can be done but it's not easy.
Question- consider how your own emotional experiences-positive and negative-have helped to shape your identity and well-being.
"Is it possible to become happier? And if it is possible to become happier, is it possible to sustain it?
Some of the reasons that maybe we should believe that it's not possible for us to sort of, sustain a higher level of happiness. So, three reasons to be pessimistic:
Video7- Lyubomirsky and her colleagues are also finding that there are intentional activities we can pursue to counteract our set points and hedonic adaptation.
Question: Do you think we have the power to influence our own level of happiness, that it's not all determined by our genes?
What feels like it's missing--or what felt surprising--from this analysis of happiness? For instance, would you assume that there are additional reasons to be pessimistic? Are there certain situations during which you think happiness might be more or less under our control?
Some misconceptions about happiness:
1.Hedonic adaptation is essentially a fancy word for getting used to things. When we think about happiness as pleasure or always having our needs met or trying to feel pleasure over and over again when our needs are met, we’re bound to an endless pursuit. If you think about happiness in the context of people pursuing material goods; Going up in happiness, but then adapting. We need to pursue happiness in a more meaningful way.
"The first is the idea that if we’re not happy now, then we will become happy when x, y, and z happens. The problem is that those events do make us happy—but they don’t make us as happy as we hope or for as long as we think they will.
I do think media and the culture propagate these myths.
The second myth is that a lot of things would make us really unhappy, maybe forever. So if we got a divorce, we would be unhappy forever—if our spouse died, if we got ill, if our dreams don’t become fulfilled, then we would die unhappy.H edonic adaptation takes place in response to negative experiences as well, which contributes to our resilience. We are really good at adapting to negative changes.
Video 9 - the relationship between money and happiness
David Myers - "The American Paradox" and studies by Ed Diener at the University of Illinois about the relationship between money and happiness.
Think about how people rearrange their lives in fundamental ways in the pursuit of materialism and money. So they’ll do longer commutes for that better job when we know scientifically long commutes deteriorate not only your happiness but your health and your cardiovascular profile. They might leave a community for a higher paying job. They might have long distance
relationships or what we’ve seen well-documented in many parts of the world is working extremely long hours to make more money.
If you’re from an extremely impoverished culture, you will have less happiness, EdDiener, Dave Meyers, and others have shown. Money matters at the cultural level. If you insert money into poor countries, happiness rises precipitously because of changes in the conditions of their physical living, their health goes up and so forth.But in the kind of industrialized cultures, in general there is a small relationship.It’s significant, but small, between how much wealth you have and your level of well being or happiness. A wealthier society didn’t guarantee more happiness.
Question-Do you think money can buy happiness at all? At what point do you think a lack of money would negatively impact your happiness?
The most basic issues are exercise, sleep, and having a sense
of achievement, right? Knowing that something that you’ve done has been successful.
These are important elements to happiness, but not ones we are necessarily going to focuson for the rest of this course. We are really going to focus on this overwhelming body of research suggesting that social connection and kindness and what researchers are calling prosocial behavior are key to the pursuit of happiness.
Closing question of Week 1- From the material we covered in Week 1, what felt like it had the greatest practical implications for your life? How might you start to change your daily routines, thought patterns, or ways of relating to others based on something you learned in this first week of the course? What material had this effect on you?
Instructors extended the deadline for the final exam, along with all other graded material from the course, by one week. It is now all due on November 25 but I don't want to delay it. It has been a great learning experience. In many ways it surprised me much more than Design 101 MOOC did. I really hope I do well on exams because I want to have the certificate. I collected texts and video transcripts, it's 600 pages. This is the minimum you have to read. I did not have much time to dedicate to this MOOC so I skipped interaction with fellow students. I'm very pleased to have finish the readings and weekly problem sets already!
This is a summary I made of Week 1. I stopped doing it because I had no time. But it can give you an idea of what this MOOC is about.
Video 1. Some great thinkers thought about happiness but science is only starting!
1. "Chinese philosopher, Confucius, about 2500 years ago writes about this concept of jen. J-E-N. It's about dignity. It's about conveying your senseof or humanity towards others.
2. Buddhism, a line of thinking that traces back 2500 years. The pathway to the state of happiness or nirvana really starts from the recognition, the first noble truth, that there are a lot of difficulties in life, there is a lot of suffering. The second noble truth is that we suffer because of illusions, because of grasping for things that might not bring us happiness because of certain
types of ignorance, that we find nirvana and happiness and peacefulness when we detach from these clinging tendencies and grasping. Things like
practicing equanimity and calmness or things like kind speech, or compassion or karuna of being really concerned with the welfare of others and being kind.
types of ignorance, that we find nirvana and happiness and peacefulness when we detach from these clinging tendencies and grasping. Things like
practicing equanimity and calmness or things like kind speech, or compassion or karuna of being really concerned with the welfare of others and being kind.
3. Taoism. Lao Tzu, the great Chinese philosopher,and his influential book, Tao Te Ching. Happiness is often paradoxical. The meaning of life may not be necessarily grasped by your rational mind, you have to experience it, let it unfold.
4. Greek philosopher 2500 years ago, Aristotle. In his book Nicomachean Ethics was kind of one of his treatments for the ethical life - the Principle of Moderation. We have to accept all emotions cos they all have their place and function when cultivated in the right way.
5. European philosophy - an hedonistic viewpoint of happiness. Happiness is found in pleasure and sensation, the sum of all the sensory pleasures and the absences of pain. It's called the Epicurean philosophy.
6. The enlightenment era philosophers of the 18th and 19th century, which is called utilitarianism. This is the notion that is articulated by John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham and others and its such a useful idea, which is that happiness is found in your actions that bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Thomas Jefferson wrote that we really have to guarantee the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If you allow societies to pursuethis utilitarian notion of happiness of lifting up the welfare of others, societies will do pretty well.
7. Judeo-Christian ways of thinking about happiness - Darren McMann, a Florida State philosopher and historian.
8.Scientists are starting to look:
- Uchida and colleagues and Oishi and others have started to document that the Western mindset and things of happiness is all about freedom and achievement, kind of self-gratification.
- The Eastern mindset, that you might find in China for example or Japan, is a little oriented more towards happiness as relational as connection, community, or duty.
Conclusion: there are many different perspectives on this question of what happiness is."
Question - How do you define happiness? On what do you base that definition? Does it stem from your first-hand experience of what makes you happy, or from your general observations about what you think constitutes happiness for most people?
Video 2. Sonja Lyubomirsky on the benefits of happiness
Are their tangible benefits to happiness, or does it just feel good? Sonja says, yes.
"People who are happier,and people who experience more positive emotions, make more money, and are more productive at work, and are more creative at work, they are better leaders and negotiators; they are more likely to get married... They give more to charity, are better copers, more resilient, and they are healthier; they have strong immune systems. There is evidence they actually live longer."
3. Practical exercise - The three good things By giving you the space to focus on the positive, this practice teaches you to notice, remember, and savor the better things in life.
1.I found indian spice in the supermarket and this will allow me to cook a special meal for my sister and nephew next weekend.
2.I was asked to create a logo for an animal shelter. It will be unpaid work that I will love to do.
3.I had a nice talk with my nephew about his first day at the very same highschool I attended years ago
Video 3 - Psychologist Barbara Fredrickson, the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a leading researcher of positive emotions.
Question: What words or images come to mind when you hear the term “positive emotions”? Jot some of them down. How does Professor Fredrickson’s research on positive emotions support or challenge your opinions about positive emotions?
Video 4- your mind and body are always changing, and positive emotions might play a crucial role in that evolution.
is that changing people's trait or characteralogical positive emotions can be done but it's not easy.
I was very much inspired by some of the newest research on meditation to look at how people might use meditation to elevate trait or characterological
positive emotion(loving kindness meditation, sometimes called meta, and what it does is it asks people to cultivate that warm, tender feeling that you already have towards a loved one or even a pet and really learn to self generate that emotion and direct it towards yourself and direct it towards people you normally wouldn't feel that toward, a neutral person or people you have difficulties with and eventually to direct it to all people and sentient beings on earth.) If we increase our daily diet of positive emotions we come out three months later being better strong more resilient more socially connected versions of ourselves. And what I've, where I'm going in my future work is to look at how that is happening just at a level that we recognize in our behaviors that we can self report on questionnaires but also how it's changing us at a cellular level, how these increases in positive emotions cascade forward and literally change the way our genes are transcribed and shape who we are at a really fundamental basic level. "
positive emotion(loving kindness meditation, sometimes called meta, and what it does is it asks people to cultivate that warm, tender feeling that you already have towards a loved one or even a pet and really learn to self generate that emotion and direct it towards yourself and direct it towards people you normally wouldn't feel that toward, a neutral person or people you have difficulties with and eventually to direct it to all people and sentient beings on earth.) If we increase our daily diet of positive emotions we come out three months later being better strong more resilient more socially connected versions of ourselves. And what I've, where I'm going in my future work is to look at how that is happening just at a level that we recognize in our behaviors that we can self report on questionnaires but also how it's changing us at a cellular level, how these increases in positive emotions cascade forward and literally change the way our genes are transcribed and shape who we are at a really fundamental basic level. "
Video 5/6- The pursuit of happiness- Is itpossible to become happier over time? Professor Sonja considers some evidence suggesting that it's just not possible to make lasting changes to our happiness level.
Some of the reasons that maybe we should believe that it's not possible for us to sort of, sustain a higher level of happiness. So, three reasons to be pessimistic:
- we are all born with what's called a, a "set point" for
happiness, that part of happiness is genetically determined, it is passed down through our families, and so, a large portion, about fifty percent
(50%) of happiness is genetically determined.
happiness, that part of happiness is genetically determined, it is passed down through our families, and so, a large portion, about fifty percent
(50%) of happiness is genetically determined.
-A second reason to be pessimistic is that happiness has been shown to be a trait-it's an intrinsic part of our personality. And we know that personality does not change much over time. Happiness is especially, very highly related to two core aspects of personality which are extroversion, being a sociable extroverted person, and neuroticism, being neurotic and emotionally unstable person.
- Third reason is"hedonic adaptation", human beings are remarkably adept at getting used to any positive changes in their lives. We get a boost in happiness , but over time we get used to that and no matter what kinds of ups or downs in life we have, we sort of, tend to go back to our baseline."
What are the most important determinants of happiness? approximately fifty percent (50%) of the variance in happiness is due to our genes. About ten percent (10%) lies in our life circumstances; forty percent (40%) of happiness, is under our control, under our power to change. My book, and my work, is really about: How do we harness that forty percent (40%)? What
is it that we can do by the ways that we think, the ways that we behave in our daily lives that can affect our happiness level?
People who are successful at being happy, they all really have really stable, fulfilling relationships, partnerships, friends, even with their pets they have good relationships. Okay, so, happy people are more grateful, happy people are more helpful and philanthropic, happy people tend to be more optimistic about the future; they are more likely to live in the present. So, again, this is sort of, studying people who are already happy; how do they behave; what do they think? They tend to savour pleasures in their life, they make physical
activity a habit, they are often spiritual, or religious. And happier people are deeply committed to goals; they have significant meaningful life goals that they are pursuing...
"Interventions." - So, it's basically just another word for an experiment, in which people are instructed to change themselves in some way that has a positive outcome. So, it's basically like a clinical trial, but instead of studying
a drug, or a medical treatment, you are studying a happiness activity.
activity a habit, they are often spiritual, or religious. And happier people are deeply committed to goals; they have significant meaningful life goals that they are pursuing...
"Interventions." - So, it's basically just another word for an experiment, in which people are instructed to change themselves in some way that has a positive outcome. So, it's basically like a clinical trial, but instead of studying
a drug, or a medical treatment, you are studying a happiness activity.
What feels like it's missing--or what felt surprising--from this analysis of happiness? For instance, would you assume that there are additional reasons to be pessimistic? Are there certain situations during which you think happiness might be more or less under our control?
Video 8 - What makes it harder for us to be happy?
- happiness equals feeling pleasure all the time in every place.
- striving for happiness or expecting pleasure and happiness all the
time can be counterproductive. (happiness
has a lot more to do with meaning, engagement with other people, and contributing to something outside of yourself and what we might call the greater good.)
time can be counterproductive. (happiness
has a lot more to do with meaning, engagement with other people, and contributing to something outside of yourself and what we might call the greater good.)
Some bad mental habits in the pursuit of happiness.
1.Hedonic adaptation is essentially a fancy word for getting used to things. When we think about happiness as pleasure or always having our needs met or trying to feel pleasure over and over again when our needs are met, we’re bound to an endless pursuit. If you think about happiness in the context of people pursuing material goods; Going up in happiness, but then adapting. We need to pursue happiness in a more meaningful way.
2. sometimes we’re not really great judges of what’s going to make us happy
or how long things will make up happy. This comes from work that’s been done by Dan Gilbert at Harvard University. Dan Gilbert has something which he calls affective forecasting. And what that means is predicting how much a life event is likely to impact you. What happens is generally on average, people think that really good events are going to make them happy and keep them happy for a very long time and that really bad events are going to crush them and crush them for the unforeseeable future. But given a psychological immune system,
which is what Dan Gilbert calls it, we actually tend to get over things that are heartbreaking quicker than we predict. And things that we think are going to be the answer, that are going to make us happy for the long run, we adapt to those also. So understanding this habit, this idea, that we’re inclined toward making predictions about what make us happy that aren’t necessarily true is important.
or how long things will make up happy. This comes from work that’s been done by Dan Gilbert at Harvard University. Dan Gilbert has something which he calls affective forecasting. And what that means is predicting how much a life event is likely to impact you. What happens is generally on average, people think that really good events are going to make them happy and keep them happy for a very long time and that really bad events are going to crush them and crush them for the unforeseeable future. But given a psychological immune system,
which is what Dan Gilbert calls it, we actually tend to get over things that are heartbreaking quicker than we predict. And things that we think are going to be the answer, that are going to make us happy for the long run, we adapt to those also. So understanding this habit, this idea, that we’re inclined toward making predictions about what make us happy that aren’t necessarily true is important.
3.Another challenge or obstacle to happiness is relating it to the accumulation of things.
Tom Gilovich (Cornell professor) does studies that look at the differences in happiness that are related to material possessions versus experiences and what he does is ask people to look back at a time when they spent a bunch of money on a thing or spent a bunch of money on an experience and asked them how happy you are. It turns out that satisfaction goes down a lot when looking at people who spent their money on material possessions and satisfaction sort of persists in the upward direction, it goes up and it increases when people invest in experiences.
Tom Gilovich (Cornell professor) does studies that look at the differences in happiness that are related to material possessions versus experiences and what he does is ask people to look back at a time when they spent a bunch of money on a thing or spent a bunch of money on an experience and asked them how happy you are. It turns out that satisfaction goes down a lot when looking at people who spent their money on material possessions and satisfaction sort of persists in the upward direction, it goes up and it increases when people invest in experiences.
4. happiness and money. the more money there is, the happier I’m
going to be. Danny Kahneman from Princeton University has discovered by looking at the relationship between money and life satisfaction or happiness is that there is indeed an increase in happiness when you think about the income levels that allow people to have their basic needs met. But once you get to a certain threshold, which in his study was about $75,000 a year, once
you hit that threshold, the line plateaus. Happiness doesn’t continue to go up.
Part of what makes it hard to find happiness is that we're often misled by certain myths about what will or won't make us happy. Sonja Lyubomirsky debunks many of these myths in her most recent book, The Myths of Happiness.going to be. Danny Kahneman from Princeton University has discovered by looking at the relationship between money and life satisfaction or happiness is that there is indeed an increase in happiness when you think about the income levels that allow people to have their basic needs met. But once you get to a certain threshold, which in his study was about $75,000 a year, once
you hit that threshold, the line plateaus. Happiness doesn’t continue to go up.
"The first is the idea that if we’re not happy now, then we will become happy when x, y, and z happens. The problem is that those events do make us happy—but they don’t make us as happy as we hope or for as long as we think they will.
I do think media and the culture propagate these myths.
The second myth is that a lot of things would make us really unhappy, maybe forever. So if we got a divorce, we would be unhappy forever—if our spouse died, if we got ill, if our dreams don’t become fulfilled, then we would die unhappy.H edonic adaptation takes place in response to negative experiences as well, which contributes to our resilience. We are really good at adapting to negative changes.
Video 9 - the relationship between money and happiness
Think about how people rearrange their lives in fundamental ways in the pursuit of materialism and money. So they’ll do longer commutes for that better job when we know scientifically long commutes deteriorate not only your happiness but your health and your cardiovascular profile. They might leave a community for a higher paying job. They might have long distance
relationships or what we’ve seen well-documented in many parts of the world is working extremely long hours to make more money.
If you’re from an extremely impoverished culture, you will have less happiness, EdDiener, Dave Meyers, and others have shown. Money matters at the cultural level. If you insert money into poor countries, happiness rises precipitously because of changes in the conditions of their physical living, their health goes up and so forth.But in the kind of industrialized cultures, in general there is a small relationship.It’s significant, but small, between how much wealth you have and your level of well being or happiness. A wealthier society didn’t guarantee more happiness.
Video 10 - So what can make us happy?
of achievement, right? Knowing that something that you’ve done has been successful.
These are important elements to happiness, but not ones we are necessarily going to focuson for the rest of this course. We are really going to focus on this overwhelming body of research suggesting that social connection and kindness and what researchers are calling prosocial behavior are key to the pursuit of happiness.
Before: focusing on the negative, trying to figure out ways to go from the unpleasant or the ill states to neutral
Now :shifting that dialogue to be more about how can we optimize? How can we figure out ways to be happier than just neutral? How can we flourish? We have to look to social connections, community,and our ability to be kind.
I just finished watching and reading the materials. I am surprised by the contents of the course in a good way. I never gave happiness a lot of thinking in my life. I don't even know for sure why I enrolled. I guess it was pure curiosity. I like to learn new things all the time. I did not know until this course that there was a scientific aproach to happiness! Psychology isn't my area and never had real interest in it.I am not a spiritual or religious person. I am not also a materialistic person. I cared for people more some years ago than I do today. I have to admit it, I prefer to be by myself but I'm not anti-social.Nevertheless I like to help people who need me and often do it. I don't know if I want to boost my level of happiness. Most days I don't feel happy or unhappy. I like my unperfect life. It has good and bad and I accept it as it is.I am not changing anything in my life for now. But I can say that I am looking forward to read more and know more about this course's universe. It's new and exciting.Professor Lyubomirsky’s videos were awesome.
Problem set - "Some of the challenges we might face in trying to increase our happiness levels: a genetic predisposition toward vigilance to threat and social distrust; a fixed level of happiness from which we don't deviate for very long; a tendency to adapt to new pleasures or experiences; and the expectation that pleasures and pains in life will impact our happiness more than they actually do. According to research, rationalizing prior negative experiences to realize a positive, meaningful insight about them is a skill that can strengthen happiness."
Problem set - "Some of the challenges we might face in trying to increase our happiness levels: a genetic predisposition toward vigilance to threat and social distrust; a fixed level of happiness from which we don't deviate for very long; a tendency to adapt to new pleasures or experiences; and the expectation that pleasures and pains in life will impact our happiness more than they actually do. According to research, rationalizing prior negative experiences to realize a positive, meaningful insight about them is a skill that can strengthen happiness."
No comments:
Post a Comment