MGMT 298D-26 – APPLYING THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS TO LIFE
DESIGN
Spring 2023 – 4 Units
Course Syllabus
Instructor Information
Faculty of Record:
Email:
Office location:
Office hours:
Professor Cassie Holmes
cassie.holmes@anderson.ucla.edu
B5-15 or via Zoom
by appointment only
Teaching Assistant
Email:
Rebecca Kim
rebecca.kim.2023@anderson.ucla.edu
Course meeting times and location
Course Day & Time:
Course Location:
Course Site:
This class meets on Thursdays from 1:00-3:50 PM. Please see the
schedule on the course site for specific dates.
B313
https://bruinlearn.ucla.edu/courses/163148
Course Description
Business School teaches students how to optimize all aspects of a business from financial returns, to
operations, to employee output, to customer relationships, etc. Rather than looking to optimize the business
itself, this course focuses on optimizing the current and future lives of the individuals who will be entering,
building, and leading those businesses. The focus of this course is on growing each student’s capacity as a
future business leader, which starts with developing the individual as a whole and happy person.
This goal of increasing happiness won’t just benefit the individual; it can carry through to advance business
and society at large. Increased happiness has proven benefits in the workplace—boosting performance, and
reducing burnout and turnover. Additionally, by understanding the principles of
happiness, business leaders can then go on to inspire happiness in their
employees and customers, which translates into an improved bottom-line.
This course starts by illuminating how we are often misdirected in our
pursuit of happiness. Science has shown that many of the things we
think will bring lasting happiness don’t. There are some annoying
psychological tendencies that lead us astray. The course will share the
relevant research to uncover these tendencies, such that students
can learn how to think and behave in ways to offset their undermining
impact. The content is then structured around optimally designing three aspects of life: the day-to-day, work
life, and one’s overall life span.
Part I – Designing Your Day-to-Day Life – will present research findings that have implications for optimally
designing one’s day-to-day life. In this portion of the course, students will learn what science has identified
as actually being able to increase happiness. Students will be exposed to the benefits of focusing on time
(rather than money); being fully engaged in their activities; creating space in their schedules for rest, deep
thinking, and exercise; and perhaps most importantly, cultivating interpersonal connection. This section
culminates in students designing their own “Life Hack” to optimize their personal daily well-being. After
putting their Life Hack into practice for the subsequent 3 weeks, students will then tweak its design as
necessary before sharing it with the class on the final day (in hopes that others can benefit from its
implementation too).
Part II – Designing Your Work Life – will explore the potential of aligning personal and professional
happiness and integrating happiness to build inspired businesses. In this module, students will be
introduced to the concept of Job Crafting. After hearing a case that tells the story of an employee who
crafted her job to better align with her personal strengths and motives, students will undergo an exercise to
help redesign their own jobs to be more engaging and fulfilling. Students will also identify practices that
organizations have implemented to improve their employees’ well-being. Inspired by these existing practices
and informed by their learnings in the course thus far, students will be equipped to design a practice that
could be implemented to improve employees’ well-being.
Part III – Designing Your Life Span – will present findings that have implications for optimally designing a life
that has purpose and meaning. This portion of the course pushes students to grapple with what it means to
live a successful life, as well as what legacies they hope to leave. To help inform this pursuit, students will
reach out to learn from someone whom they admire, asking this person to reflect on their sources of
fulfillment and regret. In an effort to integrate personal and professional pursuits, this portion of the course
culminates in students designing their own 5-year life plan. This is not intended to be a plan that is set in
stone, but rather a blueprint for one’s next five years that draws on the insights students have gained about
what makes them happy, as well as their overarching work and life views.
Throughout the course, an eclectic set of materials will be used to introduce the insights from the relevant
empirical work—including lectures, readings, and videos that have been carefully selected to expose
students to the principal findings from the researchers themselves. To most effectively bridge theory and
practice, the course assignments require students to implement (and for the Life Hack Project, also design)
behaviors that science suggests will improve their personal happiness. This course takes an experiential
approach to learning, and through applying these evidence-based practices, students have the potential to
experience greater happiness in their days and satisfaction with their lives.
MGMT 298D | Syllabus | 2
Course Objectives
The objective of this course is (seemingly) simple: help students thrive in their personal and professional
lives. To this end, the professor will share insights from research in psychology and behavioral decisionmaking, as well as some of her own research, for students to apply to improve their day-to-day living and the
design of their career and lives overall.
Course Materials
Required:
•
All required materials are available on the course site.
Recommended:
•
Links and references to the recommended optional readings will be posted on the course site.
If you are curious and want to learn even more:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
For the most up-to-date research, I highly recommend this free online handbook with the chapters
written by the lead academic researchers in the field:
o Handbook of Well-Being edited by Diener, Oishi, and Tay
Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness
Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness
Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis
Martin E. P. Seligman, Flourish
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein, Nudge
MGMT 298D | Syllabus | 3
Course Outline
Week
1
2
3
4
Date
Weekly Title & Key Topics
In-Class Activities
Recommended
Readings/Media
Assignments Due
• Course & Self Intro
• Our Misdirected Pursuit of
Happiness
• Meet your Conversation
Cohort and share your
Positive Intro
• WATCH Martin Seligman’s TED
Talk: The new era of positive
psychology
• SUBMIT Positive Introduction
Assignment (and be ready to
read it in class)
• COMPLETE Online Surveys to
assess your baseline happiness
• Why We Are Misdirected
• How to Get Over Ourselves
• Design an intervention to help
get over ourselves and
redirect towards happiness
• WATCH Dan Gilbert’s TED
Talk: The surprising science of
happiness
• SUBMIT Digital Detox
Assignment
• Time vs. Money
• How to Spend Your Time Better
• Time Crafting Exercise
• SUBMIT Time Tracking
Assignment
• Some Things That Really Do Make
Us Happy
o Social Connection
o Gratitude
• Make a Friend Exercise
• Guided Meditation with
Guest: Sara Tucker
• READ “What Should You
Choose: Time or Money?”
• READ “It’s Time for Happiness”
• READ “Want to Feel Less TimeStressed?”
• READ “A Theory of Human
Motivation”
• WATCH Robert Emmons’s
video on the Power of
Gratitude
• READ “Why Gratitude Is Good”
• READ “What Makes Marriages
Work?”
• WATCH John Gottman’s videos
on How Relationships Work
o Part 1
o Part 2
o Part 3
• SUBMIT Gratitude Letter
Assignment
• SUBMIT Random Acts of
Kindness Assignment
MGMT 298D | Syllabus | 4
Week
5
6
Date
Weekly Title & Key Topics
In-Class Activities
Recommended
Readings/Media
• More Things That Really Do Make
Us Happy
o Time Affluence
o Flow
o Mindfulness
o Exercise
o Sleep
• Guest Speaker
Dr. Alon Y. Avidan, Director of
UCLA’s Sleep Disorders
Center
• READ “You’re Too Busy. You
Need a ‘Shultz Hour’”
• WATCH Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi’s TED Talk Flow, the secret to happiness
• WATCH Matthew
Killingsworth's TED Talk - Want
to be happier? Stay in the
moment
• WATCH Hedy Kober's TEDx
Talk - How can mindfulness
help us
• In-Class Midterm
• Midterm
• Happiness at Work
• With your Conversation
Cohort, design an
organizational practice that
would contribute to employee
well-being
• Job Crafting Exercise:
www.jobcrafting.org
• Share what we learned from
our elders
• Eulogy readings
7
• Finding Meaning
8
• Designing Your Life
9
• With your Conversation
Cohort, your values and
purpose discussion
• 5-year Life Plan Exercise
Assignments Due
• SUBMIT Get Some Sleep
Assignment
• SUBMIT Get Moving
Assignment
• PREPARE for In-Class Midterm
• SUBMIT Life Hack Proposal
•
•
READ “Wealthy, Successful
and Miserable”
READ “What is Job Crafting
and Why Does It Matter?”
• WATCH Daniel Kahneman’s
TED Talk: The riddle of
experience vs. memory
• WATCH Robert Waldinger’s TED
Talk: What makes for a good
life? Lessons from the longest
study on happiness
• READ “What Kind of Happiness
Do People Value Most?”
• READ “There’s More to Life
than Being Happy”
• READ “Millennial Searchers”
•
• SUBMIT Happy Practices in
Organizations Assignment
• SUBMIT Learning from Your
Elders Assignment
• SUBMIT Eulogy Assignment
• COMPLETE BY SUNDAY
MIDNIGHT BEFORE CLAS
Online Surveys to assess
current happiness
• SUBMIT Work and Life View
Assignment
MGMT 298D | Syllabus | 5
Week
10
Date
Weekly Title & Key Topics
• Sharing Your Happiness
In-Class Activities
• Life Hack Project
Presentations
Recommended
Readings/Media
Assignments Due
• PRACTICE & SUBMIT Life Hack
Final Presentation
MGMT 298D | Syllabus | 6
Evaluation and Grading
Requirements and Weighted Percentages
This course will be graded using the following weighted percentages.
% of Grade
Participation & Attendance
In-Class Midterm
Weekly Assignments
Life Hack Proposal
Life Hack Presentation
Total
20%
15%
50%
5%
10%
100%
Grades
The following grading schema will be used to determine your overall course grade based on your
performance on each of the course requirements according to their weighted percentages. Note that
courses in which an overall grade of C is received must be offset by higher grades in the same term for
students to remain in good academic standing at UCLA.
Letter Grade
Percentage
A+
A
AB+
B
BC+
C
CD+
D
DF
97.0% - 100%
93.0% - 96.99%
90.0% - 92.99%
87.0% - 89.99%
83.0% - 86.99%
80.0% - 82.99%
77.0% - 79.99%
73.0% - 76.99%
70.0% - 72.99%
67.0% - 69.99%
63.0% - 66.99%
60.0% - 62.99%
< 60%
MGMT 298D | Syllabus | 7
Assignment Descriptions
The following are overviews of your required assignments for this course. Specific instructions and
submission information are detailed on the course site.
Attendance & Participation
Attendance on the first day of class is mandatory and is expected at all other class meetings.
Critical to being part of the class is being fully present at each of the classes, both physically and mentally.
The course is developed to be an ongoing conversation—like those informative and fulfilling conversations
you have sitting around the dinner table with your really insightful and caring friends. And like any
meaningful conversation, it requires all parties to be fully engaged and undistracted. Therefore, other than
the technology you’ll need to actually attend class (for those zooming in), please stay off everything else (i.e.,
cell phones, email, social media etc.) during class. Also like any meaningful conversation, it requires trust.
Because much of the discussion content is personal and some can be sensitive, it is even more important
than in other Anderson classes to be constructive and supportive in these conversations and to not share
other people's comments outside of the class.
Beyond just being physically present (which will be assessed through attendance), you also need to be there
mentally. To allow your classmates to share in and benefit from your mental engagement and your personal
journey (in life and in the course), speak up and become part of the conversation.
Because speaking in front of large groups can be intimidating for some, in addition to discussions with the
full class, many of the in-class exercises and sharing of your experiences from doing the assignments will
take place within your assigned “Conversation Cohort.” Your Conversation Cohort will be comprised of you
and three to four of your classmates. Having conversations with your Conversation Cohort will be an
important contributor to your learning throughout the course. You will be assigned to your Conversation
Cohort in our first in-class meeting.
To thank the individuals in your Conversation Cohort for being good listeners and constructive contributors to
your journey through the course, you will provide input on the participation grade for each of them – as they
will for you.
In-Class Midterm
There will be a midterm administered during class time in the sixth week of the course. This is designed to
motivate and reward you for synthesizing the material covered to this point—ensuring that you have
intellectually absorbed the insights gained from the science of happiness. Even though knowledge is (only)
half the battle, it still gets you part of the way there.
Assignments
…The other half of the battle is doing. Therefore, the individual assignments are designed to put that
knowledge into action. Over the course of the quarter, you will be assigned out-of-class exercises that involve
applying what science has taught can increase happiness to your own life. You will write up brief reflection
pieces following these exercises to submit on the course site before the start of that day’s class. You should
also be prepared to share and discuss your experience and reflections with your Conversation Cohort during
class. See the course site for details on each assignment.
To encourage this experiential learning, there are not required readings for the course. However, in case you
are interested in referencing any of the research articles covered during class, a complete References List
will be provided on the course site. So that you can learn about the research directly from the researcher, I
have also suggested several TED talks and some articles you might be interested to read.
MGMT 298D | Syllabus | 8
Life Hack Project
Informed by what science has taught us about 1) some of the annoying psychological tendencies that keep
people from enjoying lasting happiness, and 2) some of the ways people should think or behave in order to
increase happiness, you will design your own “Life Hack” to boost your personal happiness. In Week 6, you
will submit your Life Hack Proposal. This less than 1-page proposal will detail 1) what the behavior will be, 2)
a concrete plan for how you will implement it, and 3) the empirical grounding for why you expect this
behavior will increase your happiness (this last bit should actually be presented first). Over the following
three weeks, you will do your best to employ your Life Hack. After putting your Life Hack into practice, you will
then tweak its design as necessary before sharing it with the class on the final day. In your final
presentation, you should be honest in relaying your success in implementing your Life Hack and its effect (in
hopes that others might benefit from its implementation too). Along with your 4-minute in-class presentation,
the submitted slide deck for the presentation will serve as the deliverable. See the course site for more
details.
UCLA Policies
Confidential Support
Because this course is devoted to you and improving your personal well-being, you may want to share
information that is quite personal. Please note, however, that under UC Policy and the Responsible
Employee mandate, all faculty and TAs are required to inform the Title IX Coordinator should they become
aware that you or any other student has experienced sexual violence or sexual harassment. Unfortunately,
that means I would not be able to keep this information confidential. In order to receive confidential support
and advocacy in this domain, here are your options:
•
•
•
CARE Advocacy Office for Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, 1st Floor Wooden Center West,
CAREadvocate@careprogram.ucla.edu, (310) 206-2465
Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) provides confidential counseling to all
students and can be reached 24/7 at (310) 825-0768.
You can also report sexual violence or sexual harassment directly to the University's Title IX
Coordinator, 2241 Murphy Hall, titleix@conet.ucla.edu, (310) 206-3417
Code of Conduct
All participants in the course are bound by the UCLA Student Conduct Code:
(https://deanofstudents.ucla.edu/individual-student-code)
Netiquette
The written language has many advantages: more opportunity for reasoned thought, more ability to go indepth, and more time to think through an issue before posting a comment. However, written communication
also has certain disadvantages, such a lack of the face-to-face signaling that occurs through body language,
intonation, pausing, facial expressions, and gestures. As a result, please be aware of the possibility of
miscommunication and compose your comments in a positive, supportive, and constructive manner.
Academic Integrity
UCLA is an institution of learning, research, and scholarship predicated on the existence of an environment
of honesty and integrity. As members of the academic community, instructors, students, and administrative
officials are all responsible for maintaining this environment. It is essential that all members of the academic
MGMT 298D | Syllabus | 9
community practice academic honesty and integrity and accept individual responsibility for their work.
Academic misconduct is unacceptable and will not be tolerated in this course. Cheating, forgery, dishonest
conduct, plagiarism, and collusion in academic misconduct erode the University's educational, research, and
social roles.
Students who knowingly or intentionally conduct or help another student engage in acts that violate UCLA’s
expectations of academic integrity will be subject to disciplinary action and referred to the Dean of Students’
Office.
Please familiarize yourself with UCLA’s Academic Integrity Policy
(https://www.deanofstudents.ucla.edu/Academic-Integrity) and speak to your instructor if you have any
questions about what is and is not allowed in this course.
Integrity in Research
Integrity in research includes not just the avoidance of wrongdoing, but also the rigor, carefulness, and
accountability that are hallmarks of good scholarship. All persons engaged in research at the University are
responsible for adhering to the highest standards of intellectual honesty and integrity in research.
Please familiarize yourself with the University of California Policy on Integrity in Research
(https://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/apm/apm-190-b.pdf)
Accessible Education & Inclusive Education
Disability Services
Anderson is committed to providing a barrier free environment for persons with documented disabilities. If
you are already registered with the Center for Accessible Education (CAE), please request your Letter of
Accommodation in the Student Portal. If you are seeking registration with the CAE, please submit your
request for accommodation via the CAE website. Students with disabilities requiring academic
accommodations should submit their request for accommodations as soon as possible, as it may take up to
two weeks to review the request. For more information, please visit the CAE website (www.cae.ucla.edu),
visit the CAE at A255 Murphy Hall, or contact CAE by phone at (310)825-1501 or (310) 206-6083
(telephone device for the deaf).
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Please familiarize yourself with UCLA Anderson’s commitment to maintaining an equitable, diverse, and
inclusive community:
(https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/about/equity-diversity-and-inclusion)
MGMT 298D | Syllabus | 10