Happiness 101:
An Introduction to Positive Psychology
AS 200.222
Fall 2021
Professor: Justin Halberda
Office Hours: TBD
Course Description
This is an introduction to the emerging field of Positive Psychology. The class will focus on the
psychological aspects of a fulfilling and flourishing life. Topics to be covered during the semester include:
the history of Positive Psychology, the basic premises of the field, human potential for change, goal setting,
procrastination, perfectionism, luck, resilience, physical health, mental health, emotional health,
mindfulness, humor, relationships, love, self-esteem, leadership, gratitude, work-life balance, positive
psychology and education, positive psychology in the media, personal strengths, creativity, and optimism.
Required Texts
• Articles as assigned, available via e-reserves on Blackboard (use the shortcuts on the top to get the
readings for each class)
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, students will:
1. Know the basics of positive psychology and have a thorough understanding of the academic study of
human potential.
2. Have a working knowledge of both the prevailing theories and the major studies regarding positive
psychology.
3. Be able to think critically about results in the scientific literature, highlighting important concepts like the
need for replication for any surprising claims.
4. Display the ability to work in teams and develop and present academically sound presentations on
subjects of personal importance.
5. Demonstrate the ability to craft a multi-part cogent argument, within the topics of positive psychology,
fully referenced with citations to the scientific literature, and written in a professional manner.
6. Demonstrate the capacity to learn from and contribute to group discussions in a meaningful and
constructive way.
7. Demonstrate the ability to apply the theories of positive psychology to oneself in academic, professional,
and personal arenas.
8. Understand the scope of positive psychology and how to share information from the course in an
academic setting, as well as in a social setting, with an emphasis on improving the culture of one’s
environment (for example, one’s college campus).
9. Develop new skills by which to become more positive and through which one can cultivate a more
fulfilling and flourishing life.
10. Cultivate a more nuanced understanding of themselves in regard to their own competencies, strengths,
and behaviors, and personal and professional potential.
Attendance Policy
Regular attendance and active participation is both expected and required. Please bring your journal (see
below) to every group meeting. More than three absences from group meetings may jeopardize your ability
to pass the course. Your choosing to be a part of this class requires you to participate in small group
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
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activities. Please help your group by coming and participating. Three late arrivals will be counted as one full
absence.
Out of respect for your classmates and instructor, you should plan to arrive on time for group meetings, and
you should be courteous and participatory in all class interactions. In case of illness or emergency, and you
want an OK to miss class, please contact your TA as soon as possible to notify.
Important Academic Policies and Services
• Academic Integrity and Ethical Conduct
• Disability Services
• Statement of Diversity and Inclusion
• Tutoring and Testing
• ISIS
Students are strongly encouraged to consult the Blackboard course website, the Johns Hopkins website, and
http://ethics.jhu.edu for detailed information regarding the above items.
Evaluations:
Participation and Attendance
This course is designed to be interactive and experiential. Group work is a forum in which to discuss and
apply the various theories and techniques that are presented in lecture. As such, you are expected to come to
group meetings prepared, having read all assigned texts, completed all assignments, and watched all relevant
lectures. Keep up with the lectures. Your grade will be based, in large part, on your active participation and
intellectual contribution to group discussions, group work, and exercises.
Readings etc
In this Syllabus, for each lecture, you will find a list of Required Readings, and some days will also have
Required Media (e.g., podcasts), Bonus Readings, and Bonus Media. Please complete all required items
before the time of the lecture as this will greatly help you understand the material. As for Bonus material,
these are recommended, but they are not required for the course discussions. For some of the Bonus
materials, I may mention info from them during lecture (e.g., I always mention Jefferson’s “Life, Liberty and
the Pursuit of Happiness”) and for these you may want to read over the bonus material to help you remember
these points. If I mention it in lecture, you can use it in your written work. In general though, do the
Required Readings! And do the rest if you are interested.
Weekly Exercises
Weekly response papers and application assignments will be due at the beginning of each group meeting
(typically written in your journal). You will use your journals during your group meeting. You will receive
full credit for handing in all assignments during your journal grading. Your journals will be graded for
progress twice during the semester. Assignments may be sent out via email each week or explained during
lecture, as the related topics and research are presented. In order to maintain focus on each topic, weekly
activities will not be posted in advance. Students are expected to keep up with their JHU email and with
Blackboard to stay current with assignments.
Written Project – Positives/Negatives Assignment (50%)
Project description and guidelines will be posted on Blackboard and discussed in class: Positive and
Negatives in your life here at Hopkins.
Section Activities – Participation, Attendance, and Weekly Exercises (50%):
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Section assignments written in journal, Pearls, printouts of web assessments pasted in journal, attendance at
every group meeting (with a few sickness and travel exceptions) and vocal contributions to your group, at
least one instance of serving as the group leader for your section group and writing up your reflections on
how that group meeting went during each journal-grading period (i.e., at least twice per semester). Doing
multiple instances of being group leader can ensure a better group participation grade during journal grading.
Your journal will be checked twice during the semester with each check worth half of this Section Activities
grade – so definitely keep up with your journal!
A Note On Final Grades
I do not set pre-specified “cut points” for final letter grades (e.g., 80 – 85% = B). Nor do I grade on a strict
curve. Rather, at the end of the semester, I sort all final grades by score, and then I carry out an analysis to
determine regions where there is a significant change in the numerical grades (e.g., where are the gaps in the
distribution of grades). I assign letter grades based on these gaps, and guided by the standard structure of A,
A-, B+, B... This is the fairest way to determine categorical letter grades because it locates the categorical
changes at the most salient gaps in numerical performance. In practice, over many years of teaching, I tend
to have a distribution with a few A+; mostly A, A-, B+ and B; some B-; some C+; a few C and C-; and only
a very few lower than C-. Pass/Fail is also possible in this class.
Extra Credit
You can earn extra credit for participating in psychology experiments in the Dept. of Psychological & Brain
Sciences. Each unit of research participation you complete = 1 percentage point added to your final grade,
up to 4 points maximum (half a letter grade is the maximum extra credit possible). 1 unit of research
participation requires about 30-60 minutes of your time. Consistent with University policy, extra credit can
increase your final grade in the course, with two exceptions:
1. A failing grade based on your exam scores and writing assignments cannot be changed through research
participation.
2. A grade of A+ will only be awarded for truly outstanding performance on exams and written assignments.
As per the policy of the Dept. of Psychological & Brain Sciences, a grade of A will not be changed to an A+
via extra research credit.
Sign up online to participate in experiments in the Dept. of Psych & Brain Sciences. At the end of the
semester, an electronic file of your participation will be delivered to Dr. Halberda. See the Research
Participation Website for instructions and sign-up slots, at https://jhu.sona-systems.com If you wish to
receive extra credit but do not want to participate in any experiments, you may read extra journal articles
and turn in extra writing assignments about these articles instead, but you must make arrangements with Dr.
Halberda in advance. A typical guideline is 1 extra-credit point per 2 pages written and 1 journal article
discussed and responded to in detail (e.g., if you would like to earn 3 point, then this means 3 journal
articles discussed in 6 pages of double spaced writing). Contact Dr. Halberda after class for permission,
questions, and specific instructions. Note, no extra credit papers will be accepted after the last day of class
so please plan in advance.
Academic Ethics
From the JHU Ethics Policy Statement:
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"The strength of the university depends on academic and personal integrity. In this course, you
must be honest and truthful. Ethical violations include cheating on exams, plagiarism, reuse of
assignments, improper use of the Internet and electronic devices, unauthorized collaboration,
alteration of graded assignments, forgery and falsification, lying, facilitating academic dishonesty,
and unfair competition. Violations can lead to failure of an examination, failure of the course, a
notation on the student's transcript, and/or other actions. Report any violations you witness to the
instructor. You may consult the associate dean of students and/or the chairman of the Ethics
Board beforehand. Please consult the Academic Ethics for Undergraduates guide and the Ethics
Board website for more information."
Student Disabilities
Any student with a disability who may need accommodations in this class must obtain an
accommodation letter from Student Disability Services, 385 Garland, (410) 516-4720,
studentdisabilityservices@jhu.edu
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Schedule and Reading Notes
These dates are rough suggestions. You schedule for your group meetings will be set at everyone’s
convenience. You can watch lectures anytime that you like.
Section
Activity
Welcome to class! Please be sure to sign into the class Blackboard page!
Seligman, M.E.P. (2004). Can happiness be taught? Daedalus, 133(2), 8087. Excellent. Must read. Many citations to good other work. Try to
emulate in your own writing how he uses citations peppered throughout.
Know 3 kinds of happiness.
Gable, S.L. & Haidt, J. (2005). What (and why) is positive psychology?
Review of General Psychology, 9, 103-110. A bit long. Decent in voicing
concerns about Pos Psych (though they support it fully). Repetitive with
Seligman – which is a better read. RFK quote good. Nun study and
another one (Harker) cited worth noting. And their argument that
positive institutions is underexplored.
No Section
Intro + History
Tuesday
8/31
Required Reading:
Franklin, B. (1788). Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.
www.ushistory.org (excerpt available on blackboard)
Details Franklin’s experiences around tracking his faults. Notice his
failing at his own task. Consider the potential shortcomings of a method
of self improvement that focuses attention on faults rather than
strengths.
Sheldon, K.M., & King, L. (2001). Why positive psychology is necessary.
American Psychologist, 56, 216-217. Focus on the first page. Gives some
flavor to the ideas highlighted in lecture (e.g., the journal articles show a
“negative bias” towards negative topics).
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
No Section
History
Thursday 9/2
Lanza, R. (2012). The Most Astounding Thing in the Universe. Psychology
Today. March 11. Crazy op-ed. Argues that our perception creates
everything we see. Gives rainbow analogy. Everyone sees a different
rainbow.
Required Reading:
Assignment
• Purchase and Decorate your Composition Book
Readings
• Begin first assignment: Self Talk
(see email)
• Begin writing ‘Pearls’
Topic
Date
The Section Activities are due at your section meeting times. E.g., an assignment listed on a Tuesday is for
your first section meeting that week, while those listed on a Thursday are for your second section meeting
that week (on whichever date/time those are set for your group). Bring your completed work to section on
each day.
5
Bonus Reading: (note, you will not be tested on the bonus readings – though
I may mention specifics in lecture that could show up on the tests. You can
rely on lecture or read these to refresh those points. But, mostly I include
bonus readings because they interested me and may be of interest to some
students who want to explore more about a topic).
Wikipedia. “Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. Wikipedia. 17 Aug.
2015. Web. 23 Aug. 2015.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_Liberty_and_the_pursuit_of_Happines>
. A very good page discussing the origins of the phrase. Discusses
connections to John Locke and his phrase “property”.
Olwell, Robert. "Episode 14: Early Drafts of the Declaration of
Independence." 15 Minute History. UT Austin, 27 Feb. 2013. Web. 23 Aug.
2015. <http://15minutehistory.org/2013/02/27/episode-14-early-drafts-ofthe-declaration-of-independence/>. A nice brief entry on Jefferson’s drafts
and his cut paragraph arguing against slavery. Discusses possible
connection between removing the word “property” (John Locke’s
word), replacing it with “the pursuit of Happiness” and Jefferson’s
desires to end slavery.
Fredrickson, B.L. (2003). The value of positive emotions. American
Scientist, 91, 330-335. Great reading on both the “downward spiral” of
negative emotions and the “upward spiral” of broadmindedness and
positivity. Also good discussion of Nun study, and possible reasons for
the “negative bias” in the literature (e.g., negative core emotions, the
positives less discernable – faces, autonomic)
McGinn, L. K. (2000). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy of Depression:
Theory,Treatment,and Empirical Status. American Journal of
Psychotherapy, 54, 257-262. A good shorter reading on downward
“negative” spiral, and setting up a positive spiral with CBT. Read
beginning and middle and just skim future directions.
Bonus Reading:
Reivich, K, Gillham, J.E., Chaplin, T.M. & Seligman, M.E.P. (2013). From
Helplessness to Optimism: The Role of Resilience in Treating and
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
• Continue writing ‘Pearls’ in journal for each class
• Continue reflecting on your Self Talk in journal entries
Depression
Tuesday 9/7
Rosen, G.M. (1987). Self-help treatment books and the commercialization of
psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 42, 46-51. Critical of Self-Help.
Says dangerous, publishes books without verifying claims. Readers
don’t finish the interventions. Can be harmful. (read only beginning to
get the idea and feel)
Personal Introductions
Meet/Greet & Begin Discussion of Self Talk
Wikipedia. “Cato, A Tragedy”. Wikipedia. 5 Dec. 2014. Web. 23 Aug. 2015.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato,_a_Tragedy> . A surprising connection
from the play (Cato) to a number of the more famous quotes spoken by
American patriots during the war of Independence.
Required Reading:
6
• Continue Pearls for each class
• Complete entries reflecting on
your Self Talk and be ready to
discuss in Section
Bower, J. E., Low, C. A., Moskowitz, J. T., Sepah, S. & Epel, E. (2007).
Benefit Finding and Physical Health: Positive Psychological Changes and
Enhanced Allostasis. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 223-244.
• Continue Pearls
• Complete Optimism/Pessimism exercise before class
Carver, C.S. & Scheier, M.F. (2014). Dispositional optimism. Trends in
Cognitive Sciences, 18(6), 293-299. An excellent overview of the benefits
of optimism and the mechanisms supporting optimism.
Personal Introductions & discuss
Self Talk in Group
Optimism
Thursday 9/9
Required Reading:
Discuss Optimism/Pessimism answers about next week events
Preventing Depression in Youth. Chapter 12 In S. Goldstein and R.B. Brooks
(eds.), Handbook of Resilience in Children. Springer Science+Business
Media, New York. A nicely written somewhat recent piece on the
foundations of CBT for addressing depression and anxiety in
adolescence, and specifically the success of their CBT approach (Penn),
growing out of the ideas of Marty Seligman.
Change
Tuesday 9/14
Required Reading:
Gilbert, D. T., Pinel, E. C., Wilson, T. D., Blumberg, S. J., & Wheatley, T. P.
(1998). Immune Neglect: A Source of Durability Bias in Affective
Forecasting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 617-638. A
really nicely written and engaging paper. A good example of how
scientific research can approach analysis in positive psych. Notice the 6
different mechanisms that are proposed; how each may contribute to a
durability bias. Read beginning, and then from the section heading
“Immune Neglect” onward think of the paper as a worked example of
research: i.e., you do not have to become convinced that only immune
neglect causes the durability bias, it might still involve all 6 factors; but
do take note of how the authors build their empirical argument – this is
a good example of this kind of science. (NB, to increase your reading
speed in the studies, read the beginning of each study to understand the
set up, then in the results sections, look for the sentences beginning “In
short,” and use the tables to solidify the results in your mind. These
authors wrote their paper with a very consistent structure where each
study has this kind of sentence.)
Miller, W. R. (2004). The Phenomenon of Quantum Change. Journal of
Clinical Psychology, 60 (5), 453-460. A fantastic article on sudden
“quantum” change. Know what quantum change is and some of the
commonalities that folks experienced, and some of the history of
thinking about this phenomenon.
Seligman, M. E., Steen, T. A., Park, N. & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive
Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions. American
Psychologist, 60, 410- 421. Pay attention to the interventions experiment.
Also know the 6 virtues covered in the CSV. Skim experiment if you feel
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fatigued, but make sure to get the main idea. Use this work as a model
to inspire thoughts about how to develop an intervention that works.
Success
Thursday
9/16
Eden, D. & Aviram, A. (1993). Self-efficacy training to speed
reemployment: Helping people to help themselves. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 78(3) 352-360. I feel this paper is opaque in many places,
making it hard to read. The result is interesting and worth knowing
(and connects to our later topic on careers and work). Read the abstract
and the first page+ up to “Boosting Self-Efficacy”. This gives an idea of
the study results and theory. Then skip and read the first 1.5
paragraphs of “Design and Sample” to get an understanding of the
group. Then skim enough of measures, workshop and first paragraph of
results to understand the result they give in Figure 1. Lastly, read first
paragraph of “Conclusions”.
Wegner, D. M. (1997). When the Antidote is the Poison: Ironic Mental
Control Processes. Psychological Science, 8 (3), 148-150. A nice
overview/position piece suggesting that “ironic mental processes” may
be good to consider in psychotherapy and self-help situations. That is,
they may lead to ironic failures of control. A potential pitfall to enacting
change in your own mind.
Doskoch, P. (2005). The Winning Edge. Psychology Today. A jam-packed
article with studies and theory summarized. Worth reading twice
because it is so full in information and fun to read – about Grit.
Learnhardt, D. (2008). Chance and Circumstance. The New York Times,
November 28. A good review of ‘being in the right place at the right
time’ idea. Review of a popular book, Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers.
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
Discuss Optimism Test
Required Reading:
• Register on Authentic Happiness, Complete Optimism Test and Print and
Staple into journal before class • Please reflect on your Optimism Test before
class, how it felt to take it, what you thought about your results, etc
• Continue Pearls
Bonus Reading:
Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K. M. & Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing
Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change. Review of General
Psychology, 9, 111-131.
Abbott, A. (2013). Disputed results a fresh blow for social psychology.
Nature. 30 April 2013. An informative short piece about what appears to
be failures to replicate Dijksterhuis’ Professors/Hooligans and Bargh’s
OldPeopleWalker studies. This point is important to know about as it
highlights the value of always questioning results in order to discover
what stands up under scrutiny.
8
Day Off!
Tuesday 9/28
Kim, K.H. (2011). The creativity crisis: The decrease in creative thinking
scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking. Creativity Research
Journal, 20(4), 285-295. An excellent paper on a very unique and large
dataset demonstrating falling creativity levels since the 1980’s.
Creativity
Breen, B. (2004) The Six Myths of Creativity.
http://www.fastcompany.com/51559/6-myths-creativity
Sort of a position piece or business report explanation of the
relationships observed in a study of creativity in the workplace.
Colzato, L.S., Ozturk, A., & Hommel, B. (2012). Meditate to create: the
impact of focused-attention and open-monitoring training on convergent and
divergent thinking. Frontiers in Psychology, 3(116),
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00116. An excellent and clear empirical paper
testing the effects of 2 forms of meditations (Open-Monitoring) and
(Focused-Attention) as well as straightforward visualization on a
person’s immediate performance on 2 cognitive tasks that may require
“divergent thinking” (e.g., new ideas) or ‘convergent thinking’ (e.g., one
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
Discuss Mindfulness Activities
Required Reading:
• Complete VIA Survey of Character Strengths
(on Authentic Happiness), save your results,
reflect, and Cut and Paste into your journal.
• Continue Pearls
Use this time to work on your
Pos/Neg Essay!
No Class
Thursday 9/23
Dalai Lama. (2003). The Monk in the Lab. The New York Times, April 26.
A heartfelt plea from the Dalai Lama for a role for mindfulness in
increasing peace and helping with negative emotion.
• Continue Pearls
• Complete 2 or more Mindfulness activities
and write response in journal before section
• Turn in Essay 1 for Pos/Neg Written Project on
Blackboard
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2003). Mindfulness-Based Interventions in Context: Past,
Present, and Future. Clinical Psychology, 10 (2), 144-156. A world leader
in testing mindfulness-based interventions in medical settings.
Discuss VIA Strengths Survey
Brown, K.W. & Ryan, R.M. (2003). The Benefits of Being Present:
Mindfulness and Its Role in Psychological Well-Being. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 84 (4), 822-848. A good introduction
to mindfulness – from a more psychological/clinical point of view of
enhancing our lives.
No Section on the end of this
week. YES section at beginning
of the week.
Mindfulness
Tuesday 9/21
Required Reading:
9
right answer). I suggest reading the whole thing, but don’t worry about
the discussion section too much – that section becomes confusing and a
bit jumbled. Focus instead on the design and motivation of the paper
and the result that OM improves divergent thinking.
• Continue Pearls
• Complete mindfulness-creativity interventions and
staple into journal before class
• Continue Pearls
• Written reflection on Luck Activities
Wiseman, R. (2003). The Luck Factor. The Skeptical Inquirer, 27 (3), 1-5. A
fun read about how “lucky” people and “unlucky” people, in general,
may be making their own luck. This is important for how to enhance an
upward spiral and how to return towards positivity from setbacks.
Discuss Creativity-Mindfulness
Csikszentmihalyi, M. & Rathunde, K. (1993) The measurement of flow in
everyday life: Toward a theory of emergent motivation. In Nebraska
Symposium on Motivation 1992 is Volume 40, in the series CURRENT
THEORY AND RESEARCH IN MOTIVATION, Eds. Dienstbier, Richard &
Jacobs, Janis, E.. the University of Nebraska Press. A beautifully argued
case for Flow as playing an important role in intrinsically rewarding,
positive activity. It is a little bit long. But, do read the whole paper in
order to appreciate how many levels of analysis are discussed including
behavior, social, personality, endorphins, animal brain analysis,
evolution, motivation, Dante, Aristotle etc. This is a very good case of a
scientist using many areas of evidence to build a unified case.
Discuss Luck Activities
Flow & Luck
Thursday
9/30
Required Reading:
Grit & Growth Mindset
Tuesday 10/5
Required Reading:
Duckworth, A. L. et al (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term
goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087-1101. A
brilliant article summarizing many studies showing the surprisingly
strong importance of grit above and beyond intelligence and other
factors for predicting success in many circumstances that require
sustained effort.
12-item Grit Scale from: Duckworth, A.L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M.D., &
Kelly, D.R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1087-1101. Print out and
complete the Duckworth Grit Survey, staple into journal, and compute
your number to use in class lecture (and next section).
Dweck, C.S. (2012). Mindsets and human nature: Promoting change in the
middle east, the schoolyard, the racial divide, and willpower. American
Psychologist, 67(8), 614–622. A nicely written position piece and review
article where Dweck argues that growth mindset interventions can help
change our attitudes and openness to growth.
Required Media
Duckworth, Angela (2013). TED talk on Grit.
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
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https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_lee_duckworth_grit_the_power_of_passio
n_and_perseverance#t-8495 This is a fantastic talk. Time permitting I
also show this one during lecture.
Bonus Media:
Men In Blazers talk with Arsene Wenger
http://meninblazers.com/2016/09/28/arsenewengepodspecial/
If you like sports – and especially soccer – listen to this podcast interview
with Arsene Wenger (coach for Arsenal). Especially listen to the end
about “tenacity”.
Bonus Reading:
Leonard, J.A., Lee, Y. & Schulz, L.E. (2017). Infants make more attempts to
achieve a goal when they see adults persist. Science, 357, 1290-1294. An
article showing the earliest known foundations for Grit – babies have
Grit and observing an adult strive/persevere leads babies to be grittier.
Myers, D. G. (1992). The Secrets of Happiness. Psychology Today. A
popular press review of the traits that help us stay positive and healthy.
These are habits of mind we can build, so think of this piece as
highlighting interventions we run on ourselves and ways of increasing
our own happiness and resilience.
Bonus Reading:
Dittrich, L. (2019). Primal fear: Can monkeys help unlock the secrets of
trauma. The New York Times. This article talks about a monkey research
island off the coast of Puerto Rico that was severely damaged in
Hurricane Maria. Look at the description of the island in the beginning,
the story of the families trauma in the middle (he cries only once he
meets a friend and starts telling his story). The descriptions of
psychological research on trauma in the middle. This sentence at the
turn back to Maria, “ Which meant that if Maria affected individual
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
Discuss Grit Survey scores
Marano, H.E. (2003) The Art of Resilience. Psychology Today. A nice short
piece reviewing lessons drawn from research about how to cultivate
resilience.
Resilience
Thursday 10/7
Werner, E. (1990). Protective factors and individual resilience. In Eds.
Samuel J. Meisels & Jack P. Shonkoff, Handbook of Early Childhood
Interventions, Cambridge University Press.
A very nice, and very packed full of citations, review and discussion of
infants and children growing up in at-risk environments. Covers the
Hawaiian study discussed in class, among much much more.
• Continue Pearls
• Complete the Grit Survey
• Written essay on Grit in past event
• Turn in Journals in Section for Midterm Grading
Required Reading:
11
monkeys differently, it was very likely that these monkeys were
differently equipped — socially or psychologically or genetically — to
process the blow.” Read the two paragraphs that begins “In October
2018, Lauren Brent…”
PTG writing assignment
Get Journals back in Section
Burns, D. (1980). Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy. Definitions of
Cognitive Distortions - http://www.atlantapsychiatry.com/forms/CBTdistortions.pdf
A simple handout guide for recognizing cognitive distortions.
• Continue Pearls
• Work on essay 2 for Positives/Negative
Rendon, J. (2012). Post-Traumatic Stress’s Surprisingly Positive Flip Side.
The New York Times, March 22. A very nice article reviewing what has
been seen in some positive cases of PTG in the military. Covers the
UPenn study discussed in lecture.
Discuss your essay on a past challenge
Jayawickreme, E., & Blackie, L.E.R. (2014). Post-traumatic growth as
positive personality change: evidence, controversies
and future directions. European Journal of Personality, 28, 312–331. A
fantastic article (at the beginning) reviewing the increased interest in
PTG. It also brings an important, somewhat, critical eye – highlighting
the need to understand PTG within the context of the scientific study of
Personality and Personality Change. (in the middle) it gets a little slow
to read, but everything it covers is worth going over (e.g., how studies
have been structured, recommendations for future designs).
Discuss Positive Negatives essay, how it is
going.
Post-Traumatic Growth
Tuesday 10/12
Required Reading:
Required Reading:
Physical Health
Thursday 10/14
Callaghan, P. (2004). Exercise: a neglected intervention in mental health
care? Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, 11, 476-483. A
nice review article. Notice the section on depression and serotonin and
endorphins (discussed in lecture). Also worth reading the whole article.
Kelly, W.E. (2004). Sleep-Length and Life Satisfaction in College Student
Sample. College Student Journal, 38 (3) 428-430. For this reading you can
just read the Abstract and remember the result. Glance at or read the
remainder of the (short) paper if you like.
Kelly, W. E., Kelly, K. E., & Clanton, R. C. (2001). The relationship
between sleep length and grade-point average among college students.
College Student Journal, 35(1), 84-86. For this paper, I’d like you to know
the result. You can read just the Abstract and understand what they
found – but, if you like you can also skim the rest of the (short) paper.
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
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Bonus Reading:
Brant, J. (2015). Is it possible to be fat and fit? At 250 pounds, distance
runner Mirna Valerio provides an inspiring example. Runner’s World.
http://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/ultra. A fantastic story
discussed in class. Worth reading the whole article. Terrific to know
about.
Crum, A. J. & Langer, E. J. (2007). Mindset Matters: Exercise and the
Placebo Effect. Psychological Science, 18(2), 165-171. This is the
provocative article discussed in lecture where Crum and Langer discuss
exercise and hotel attendants’ work. Know this study from lecture and
read more here if you like to.
Babyak, M., Blumenthal, J. A., Herman, S., Khatri, P., Doraiswamy, M.,
Moore, K., & ... Krishnan, K. R. (2000). Exercise treatment for major
depression: Maintenance of therapeutic benefit at 10 months. Psychosomatic
Medicine, 62(5), 633-638. A really nice study. Read if you want more –
also, you should know the lecture slides that go with this study.
Diekelmann, S., & Born, J. (2010). The memory function of sleep. Nature
Reviews Neuroscience, 11(2), 114-126. A beautiful review paper of the
neuroscience connecting sleep with the reactivation of things learned
during the day, and enhanced memory for reactivated information.
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
Use this time to work on your
Pos/Neg Essay!
Day Off!
No Section in the beginning of
this week. YES section at the
End of the week.
No Class
Tuesday 10/19
Goldstein, A. N., & Walker, M. P. (2014). The role of sleep in emotional
brain function. Annual Review Of Clinical Psychology, 10, 679-708. This is
a very good review article (long) focused on the brain. It covers
emotion, mental health, learning, and other topics. Read if you want to
learn more.
13
Goal Setting
Thursday 10/21
Locke, E.A. & Latham, G.P. (2002). Building a practically used theory of
goal setting and task motivation: a 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist,
57 (9), 705-717. An Industrial-Organization Psychology look at goal
setting. Do not worry to remember each of the different theories and
their distinctions. Instead, know the effects that they review. Know the
big ideas about goal setting (e.g., be specific in the goal, don’t just say
“do your best”). etc.
Zimmerman, B.J., Bandura, A., & Martinez-Pons, M. (1992). Selfmotivation for academic attainment: The role of self-efficacy beliefs and
personal goal setting. American Educational Research Journal, 29 (3), 663676. A good research paper. The abstract is, unfortunately, overlycomplicated. The Intro is better. The paper is thankfully short. You
don’t need to memorize the exact interactions across the measures. Do
read the paper and get a sense for the measures and outcomes, and do
know the main ideas (e.g., “parents expectations were higher than their
children’s: parents rely on their children's prior grade accomplishments
when they set goals for their children; however, their children rely on
their self-efficacy beliefs as well as their parents' aspirations for them
when setting their goals”, etc).
Farber, J. (2011). Dominoes vs Rainbows. Psychology Today, December 8,
2011. A nice short piece about the importance of thinking about the
process, the journey, and the sub-goals we attain along the way to an
end goal.
Bonus Reading:
Morisano, D., Hirsh, J. B., Peterson, J. B., Pihl, R. O., & Shore, B. M.
(2010). Setting, elaborating, and reflecting on personal goals improves
academic performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(2), 255. A nice
empirical paper showing that writing about future self can improve
school GPA. This is the relevant article for thinking about our section
exercise for this week.
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
Discuss results of your Approaches to Happiness Test
Wilson, T. D., & Gilbert, D. T. (2003). Affective forecasting. In M. Zanna (Ed.),
Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 35 (pp. 345-411). New York:
Elsevier. A reminder of affective forecasting that we studied earlier in the
semester. Reminder of Durability Bias, and an expansion of this work.
Read the beginning until page 354. Then skim (if you like). Then do read
pages 386-9 (“Keeping one’s options open” and “Minor insults, lasting
pains”). Then skip or skim until end of chapter. Then read summary
starting on page 401. The points to pick up on here are that people rely on
predicting how they will feel (e.g., how happy, for how long) when
evaluating goals or choices for the future. And we are not always accurate
in these predictions (e.g., there are biases that sometimes lead us astray).
Know something of these biases.
• Continue Pearls
• Complete Approaches to Happiness Test and print and tape/staple into journal before class
• Turn in Essay 2 for Pos/Neg Written Project
Required Reading:
14
Pychyl, A.T. (2012). Perfectionism, Procrastination, and Distress: A study
that examines traits that predict psychological distress. Psychology Today.
Reviews a recent study showing that perfectionism and procrastination
are not necessarily causally related; rather, they are two important
factors for academic performance.
• Continue Pearls
• Complete “self authoring” ideal future exercise
Marano, H. E. (2003). Ending Procrastination. Psychology Today. A short
piece on tips to end procrastination.
• Continue Pearls
• Complete Perfectionism exercise
Psychology Today Staff. (1995). The Impossible Dream. Psychology Today.
A nice super short piece on perfectionism in the workplace.
Discuss Goal Setting and Ideal Future
Perfectionism and Failure
Tuesday 10/26
Basco, M.R. (1999). The Perfect Trap. Psychology Today. A nice short
piece about perfectionism including example people who are either
inwardly- or outwardly-focused perfectionists.
Discuss Perfectionism
Required Reading:
Required Reading:
Self-Esteem
Thursday 10/28
Leary, M. R. (1999). Making sense of self-esteem. Current Directions In
Psychological Science, 8(1), 32-35. A nice review article. Worth reading
the whole thing. Covers from the history of studying self esteem, to
various theories – particularly focused on the social theories discussed in
lecture.
Chung, J. M., Robins, R. W., Trzesniewski, K. H., Noftle, E. E., Roberts, B.
W., & Widaman, K. F. (2014). Continuity and change in self-esteem during
emerging adulthood. Journal Of Personality And Social Psychology, 106(3),
469-483. An empirical article about how self-esteem may change during
the college years. Read the Abstract for sure and understand the
results. Then skim the Intro and for the rest you can simply read more
if you are interested (the paper is a little long with some technical
regression statistics, so I don’t want you to stress about that. Mostly just
the Abstract).
Bonus Readings:
Baumeister, R. F., Smart, L. & Boden, J. M. (1996). Relation of threatened
egotism to violence and aggression: The dark side of high self-esteem.
Psychological Review, 103 (1), 5-33. A very interesting article about how
violence may result from threatened feelings of superiority (rather than
from low self esteem). This article is worth knowing the result and
mechanism (understood from the Abstract), and considering the result
in the context of e.g., sad events like shootings in schools – might these
be the result of threatened egotism rather than low self esteem.
Dobbs, D. (2014). The Fault in Our DNA ‘A Troublesome Inheritance’ and
‘Inheritance’. The New York Times, July 10, 2014. A strong book review
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
15
(and critique of ideas) for a book that tried to argue for genetic and
behavioral differences among the “races”. This highlights the view that
there is currently no good genetic evidence for separating one “race”
from another.
Use this time to work on your
Pos/Neg Essay!
Discuss Self-Esteem sentence exercise
• Continue Pearls
• Complete Self-Esteem sentence completions exercise
• Turn in Essay 3 for Pos/Neg Written Project
Day Off!
No Section in the beginning of
this week. YES section at the End
of the week.
No Class
Tuesday 11/2
Yudell, M., Roberts, D., DeSalle, R., & Tishkoff, S. (2016). Taking race out
of human genetics. Science, Vol. 351, Issue 6273, pp. 564-565. A clear and
short discussion of what it means to say that race is not genetic. And a
bit of the history of this topic.
Gratitude
Thursday
11/4
Required Reading:
Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus
burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective wellbeing in daily life. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 88, 377-389.
An empirical paper showing that being grateful is good for the grateful
person. Used a journaling intervention (e.g., “counting blessings”) and
found benefits on several measures. Read Intro and then Study 1 so that
you have a feel for how the research was done. The rest you could skim.
Grant, A.M. & F. Gino. (2010) A Little Thanks Goes a Long Way:
Explaining Why Gratitude Expressions Motivate Prosocial Behavior.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98 (6), 946-955. An
empirical paper with 4 experiments and a good Introduction. Read
Intro, then just know the set-up and basic results of the experiments
(e.g., thanking a caller leads the caller to call more). I suggest not
reading the experiments themselves. Instead, after the Intro, read the
General Discussion. Notice that they suggest that their results support
the communal mechanism over the agentive mechanism. That is, being
shown gratitude leads you to continue doing even more because you feel
accepted and supported as part of a member of a group.
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
16
Lyubomirsky, S. (2008) The practice of gratitude, excerpt from The How Of
Happiness, Penguin Press, New York, NY. A nice short piece describing
the various Gratitude interventions discussed in class.
Meaning & Purpose
Tuesday 11/9
Burton, C. M. & King, L. A. (2008). Effects of (very) brief writing on
health: The two-minute miracle. British Journal of Health Psychology, 13,
pg. 9–14. A surprisingly super brief intervention. Also important is how
this paper highlights that both positive writing and trauma writing have
positive benefits later on.
Spiritual Engagement and Meaning. (2015, January 1). Retrieved April 15,
2015, from http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/science-ofhappiness/spiritual-engagement/ A very short web article about religion,
spirituality and life satisfaction. If you have some interest in this topic
then it would be very good to visit the page and explore some of the
supporting materials they list there (e.g., annotated bibliography).
Van Cappellen P, Toth-Gauthier M, Saroglou V, Fredrickson B. (2014).
Religion and well-being: The mediating role of positive emotions. Journal
Of Happiness Studies [serial online]. December 18, 2014. A nicely written
current piece. Read the abstract and the Introduction. Skim the studies
too if you are interested. In the Intro, note their argument that while
social support and cognitive resources may be important benefits of
religion and spirituality, the positive emotions that are promoted by
religion and spirituality may play an important causal role for the
benefits on happiness. I particularly like the possible importance of
awe. Notice the kinds of positive emotions that work (e.g., noted in the
Abstract).
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
Discuss Gratitude phone call experiences
Baddeley, Jenna L.; Pennebaker, James W. (2011). The
expressive writing method. In: Research on writing approaches in mental
health. L'Abate, Luciano (Ed); Sweeney, Laura G. (Ed); Emerald Group
Publishing, pp. 85-92. A nice review piece highlighting the technique of
expressive writing and some of the results from this method.
• Continue Pearls
• Complete Gratitude Letter in Journal and make “Gratitude Phone Call”
Required Reading:
17
• Continue Pearls
• Complete “Meaning in Life” Questionnaire on AuthenticHappiness.org, Print
and add to Journal
• Complete “Close Relationships” Questionnaire on
AuthenticHappiness.org, Cut and Paste into Journal
Gable, S. L., Gonzaga, G., & Strachman, A. (2006). Will you be there for me
when things go right? Social Support for Positive Events. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 904-917. An interesting paper
looking at a brief assessment of the health of relationships. Asking
couples to talk about positive and negative events. The surprising result
is that the listeners responses to positive events (e.g., “that is so great”)
did a better job predicting relationship satisfaction than did responses to
negative events (e.g., “I’m so sorry”). Reasons for this effect are
discussed. Worth reading the whole article.
Discuss Meaning In Life Questionnaire
Relationships I
Thursday 11/11
Gottman, J.M. & Silver, N. (1994). What Makes Marriages Work.
Psychology Today. A totally excellent piece highlighting a huge part of
what we discuss in lecture. Some highlights include: 1) Validating,
Volatile, and Conflict-Avoiding can all be healthy relationship styles, 2)
healthy relationships seem to share a 5:1 ratio of positive to negative
interactions, 3) the downward trajectory of relationships in trouble
through the 4 horsemen (Criticism -> Contempt -> Defensiveness ->
Stonewalling). Nicely written and worth reading in detail to help you
internalize this material.
Discuss Close Relationships Questionnaire
Required Reading:
Romantic Relationships
Tuesday 11/16
Bonus Reading:
DeVita-Raeburn, E. (2006). Lust for the Long Haul, Psychology Today. An
easy read that describes one sex therapist’s approach to marriages that
begin to have difficulty with sexual intimacy. Worth reading, but
perhaps is most applicable to your life only once you have been in a very
long-term relationship – simply because the issues being discussed tend
not to arise until after years. The sidebars in this article are good and
help broaden the material to good effect.
No Readings
Guest Lecture, Dr. Jeff Bowen (JHU Department of Psychological and Brain
Sciences)
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
18
Relationships II
No Class
No Class
Thanksgiving Break
Hazan, C. & Shaver, P.R. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an
attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 511524. A terrific paper chocked full of interesting results. I love the
newspaper quiz method they used and then combined it with assessing
undergraduates. The results are personally interesting about
attachment styles both to lovers and to our parents. Read the whole
paper if you are enjoying it. Don’t need to know every result (there are
a ton); do know the 3 attachment styles and the factors that might lead
to them forming during childhood (e.g., know how the primary care
giver might have behaved) and know how people of these styles think
about romance (e.g., lengths of relationships, do they think real love is
easy to find, do they fall in love easily).
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
• Continue Pearls
Thursday 11/18
Tuesday 12/23
Thanksgiving Break
Thursday 11/25
Algoe, S., Gable, S. L., & Maisel, N. C. (2010). It's the Little Things:
Everyday Gratitude as a Booster Shot for Romantic Relationships. Personal
Relationships, 17, 217-233. A nice empirical paper on the difference
between “gratitude” and “indebtedness” in romantic couples who live
together. It is a fairly easy read and worth reading the whole thing.
Discuss Positives and Negatives project, how it is
going
Required Reading:
19
Careers
Tuesday 11/30
Wrzesniewski, A., McCauley, C.R., Rozin, P., & Schwartz, B. (1997). Jobs,
careers, and callings: People’s relations to their work. Journal of Research in
Personality, 31, 21-33. Explores a useful distinction between “job, career,
or calling” for how we understand our relationship to our work. Know
the distinctions among these.
Myers, D.G., & Diener, E. (1995). Who is happy? Psychological Science, 6,
10-19. Chocked full of interesting effects and good information. A lot
related to countries and social structure and happiness. Sort of a
position piece debunking common beliefs about who is happy and who is
not (e.g., rich people are happy). Worth reading it all to get the effects
in your mind, but then probably don’t need to study every single result
in order to remember it. For our topic on “Careers” make sure to
notice the section on ‘does money buy happiness’ and the section on
work under ‘Flow’. Also, there is a nice reminder of our discussion on
religion worth reading.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1999). If we are so rich, why aren’t we happy?
American Psychology, 54, 821-827. A very intelligently written piece
covering some of the same material on money and happiness that is
covered in Myers. A pleasure to read.
Brienza JP, Grossmann I. (2017). Social class and wise reasoning about
interpersonal conflicts across regions, persons and situations. Proc. R. Soc. B
20171870. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.1870. A great result
showing that poorer=wiser (lower middle class individuals consider
multiple perspectives more readily than higher middle class individuals
when reasoning about interpersonal conflict. Read this one if you want
to see the original science, or read just the sciencenews article in bonus
and learn the graphs etc from lecture – either way you are good.
Discuss Personal Wellbeing Score from beginning and end of semester
Diener, E., & Seligman, M.E.P. (2004). Beyond Money: Toward and
economy of well-being. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5, 131. A very big review paper looking at income, national wealth, mental
disorders, and cross-cultural data for subjective well-being and
happiness. Read all of this only if you are very interested in these
effects. I suggest reading the abstract, and then looking closely at each
figure and graph and reading enough of the surrounding material so
you understand what the figures show.
• Continue Pearls
• Complete Personal Wellbeing Score from previous lecture and add reflections to your journal
• Turn in Essay 4 for Pos/Neg Written Project
• Turn in journal in Section for grading
Required Reading:
Required Online: Read about the Big Five.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
The Big Five are used to predict job performance and satisfaction.
Getting a match between personality type and job
activities/responsibilities is a way of understanding how work can give
rise to flow and happiness.
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
20
Open Q&A. Please come prepared with questions from all topics covered in
class. Even the toughest, most skeptical questions are encouraged (e.g.,
“Why should I believe X”). Professor Halberda will answer (NB to the best
of his ability).
Positive Psychology Fall 2021
• Get Journal in Section
In Person / Virtual Depending
Thursday 12/2
Bonus Reading:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/lower-your-social-class-wiseryou-are-suggests-new-study
A science news summary of the poorer=wiser result
21