幸福課第1堂：何謂積極心理學？(美國哈佛大學開放式課程)

hi good morning it's wonderful be to be back here wonderful to see you

here I'm teaching this class because I wish a class like this had been taught when I was sitting in your seats as an undergrad here

this does not mean that it's a class you wish to be taught nor does it mean that it's the right class for you what I hope to do in the next couple of lectures is give you an idea of what this class is

about so that you can decide whether or not it is for you I came here in 1992 and started off as a computer

science concentrator and then had had a mini Epiphany halfway through my sophomore year I realized that I was in a

wonderful place with wonderful students around around me wonderful teachers I was doing well academically I was doing well in

athletics was playing varsity squash at the time I was doing well socially everything was going well except for the fact that I was unhappy

and I didn't understand why and it was then in a matter of moments that I decided that I had to find out why and become happier and

that's when I switched my concentration from computer science to philosophy and psychology with a single question how can I become

happier over time I did become happier what it contributed most to my happiness was when I encountered a new emerging field at that time didn't have the name that it has

today but essentially research that falls under or within the field of positive psychology positive psychology studying it applying the ideas to my life has

made me significantly happier it continues continues to make me happier and it was when I realized the impact that it had on me that I

decided to share it with others that's when I decided that I wanted to be a teacher and teach this field so this is positive psychology psychology

1504 and we will be exploring this new relatively new and fascinating field and hopefully we will be exploring more than the field

ourselves when I first taught this class was back in 2002 I taught it as a seminar and had eight students two dropped

out that left me with six the year after the class became slightly larger I had over 300

students and then the third year when I taught it which was the last time I had um 850 students in the class making it at that

point the largest course at Harvard and that's when the media became interested because they wanted to understand why they wanted to understand this phenomenon that here you have a class

that's larger than introduction to economics how could that be so I was invited by the media for interviews

whether it was newspapers radio television and I started to notice a pattern during those interviews so I would walk into the interview we'd have

the interview and afterward the producer or the interviewer would walk me out and say something to the effect of well thank you T for the interview but you

know I expected you to be different and I would ask as nonchalant as I could of course as if I didn't really care but had to ask anyway uh how

different and they would say well you know we expected you to be more outgoing next interview at the end of the interview same thing thank you for

doing the interview but you know to I expected you to be different and once again nonchalantly of course I would ask so how

different and here or she would say well you know we espe to be less less introverted next

interview same thing how different well you know more extroverted more outgoing next interview well you know

less Shy cuz you I I get very nervous in interviews interview after interview literally dozens more outgoing more cheerful less

introverted more extroverted and on and on but here is the best one so this is one of the local

channels here in um around Boston I go to the interview we have quite a long interview which I thought was actually pretty good and at the end of the interview the

interviewer who's a very jolly guy walks me out puts his hand on my shoulder and says T thank you very much for doing the interview and then the usual comes but

you know T I expected you to be different and I said how different you now just so that you understand by this time my

self-esteem is sh but still but still with some semblance of nonchalant ask how different and he looks at me and says

well I don't know T I expected you to be taller taller what 57 or okay 56 and a half is not enough to teach

happiness and I thought about it and I thought about it a lot the whole pattern from the beginning and I think I understand why they expected someone different you see they had to explain to themselves as

well as the audience how come this class is larger as an introduction to economics and the way to explain it must

be that the teacher is very outgoing extremely charismatic very cheerful and extrovert and of course

tall well there was one L missing there but yeah if only

so the problem though is that they were looking in the wrong place for the explanation in other words they were looking at the messenger where they

needed to look at was at the message now how do I know that you see because I see other positive psychology classes on other campuses around the country around

the world there are over 200 campuses here in the United States that teach positive psychology on almost every campus where this class is taught it's

either one of the or the largest class it's about the message I see more and more organizations taking up positive psychology in their as consultant

companies some of the leading the big Consulting companies are taking it on more and more high schools are introducing positive psychology classes elementary schools are introducing it

governments around the world are expressing an interest in this new and emerging field why because it works because it really works you see this whole realm of

Life flourishing of Happiness of well-being has been until recently dominated by the self- health movement what do we have in the self- health Movement we have books that are very

interesting that are very accessible we have speakers who are very outgoing very charismatic and Tall attracting in the masses into these workshops and seminars

and lectures but and there is a very big but here many of these books many of these workshops and

seminars lack substance very often over promising and underd delivering so these are the five things you need to know to be happy the three things to be the

great leader the one secret of success happiness and the perfect love life over promising under

delivering on the other hand we have Academia what do we have in Academia we have a lot of rigor a lot of substance we have data that's analyzed reanalyzed

and meta analyzed things that actually work good stuff but and there is also a very big but

here very few people read refereed academic journals I me you think about it how many people outside of this room of course have read

the last 12 issues of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology well most people don't even know what that means the head of um my PhD program

actually estimated that the average academic Journal article is read by seven people you know and that includes the author's

mother so you know and I say it half in G but but it's actually really sad because certainly sad for me as an academic because these things are good they're

important things that make a difference can make even more of a difference but not accessible to most people and this is where positive

psychology comes in and this is is also where this class comes in the explicit Mandate of positive psychology as well as of this class is to create a bridge

between the Ivory Tower and Main Street in other words it is to bring the rigor the substance the empirical

Foundation the science from Academia and merge it with the accessibility of the self-help or New Age movement in a way the best of both Both

Worlds and this explains the popularity of the field of positive psychology science that works this class will be taught on two

levels the first level it will be taught like any other class in Psychology or any of the the classes you have taken here you'll be introduced here to studies to

research to rigorous academic work you will be writing p p a paper an academic paper you'll be taking exams just like every other

class but then it will also be taught at a second level which is for every paper that you'll read every paper that you will write you will always be thinking

okay so how can I take these ideas and apply them to my life how can I apply them to my relationship how can I apply them to my

community two levels the academic applied I did not just introduce whether it's in the readings or in lectures

ideas just because they're interesting for the sake of the idea it's always an idea that is both rigorous and can be applied just a few words about

housekeeping some of the questions that I've already received from you uh before the class started so this unfortunately is the last time that I'm teaching uh

positive psychology or or any other class for that matter at Harvard um hopefully within two years probably not next year but within 2 years there will

be positive psychology class offered but uh I certainly cannot guarantee it um about feedback and questions if you have any question if anything is

not clear if you agree or disagree with something email me or email your TF and will'll always respond sometimes if the question is asked by enough people we respond to it publicly always

anonymously unless you specify specifically that your name uh can be mentioned but sometimes you may be listening to a lecture and then halfway

through it there's an emergency there is something that you really have to ask something that cannot

wait in that case please just put your hand out because you know it's like when when you just have to go to the bathroom

just you know can't stop can't wait and when you got to go you got to go so we'll take a positive psychology

break for that and just stop me halfway through and um and and I'll answer any question all the Powerpoints as well as

the videos of the classes will be online will be available within couple of days well the Powerpoints will be available before except for this lecture will be available before so that uh you can use

them in class uh the the videos unfortunately cannot be made available before we tried couldn't couldn't figure it out so there will be available um

within a day or two after and um the reason why they're they're up there first of all I do prefer that you attend lecture I do prefer that you're

physically here um you get things in the energy of the room with you know with so many students that you wouldn't get just in front of your computer but the reason why I do put them up is so that you have

an opportunity if you want to see it again or if you happen to miss a class that's that's perfectly fine um and also because and this is also the reason why the Powerpoints are always

available I want you to be engaged in the material I want you to be engaged in whatever it is that we're discussing in class not necessarily thinking about

getting down every word that I say on paper remembering everything memorizing everything I want you to take rather than passive notes of writing down what it says on the PowerPoint or every word

that I say I'd like you to take active notes and that means being engaged with the material for example if you hear something an idea that you say oh that's

interesting you know start it write it down or okay I think I'm going to start applying this write it down or I want to tell my my mom about this later or I

want to talk to my roommates or my team about this idea write it down active not taking as opposed to passive no taking for two reasons first of all as I said

this class is a class about making a difference in people's lives I would not be teaching the class just for its academic beauty though there is a lot of academic Beauty in the in this

field so write down if you have ideas that you think you can apply the second reason why you should we should do that is because it's more um you'll remember more better retention better

understanding of the material if you're actively engaged as opposed to just taking down passive notes throughout the

class starting next week we'll take what I call time ins as opposed to time outs it's like a time out it's a time where

we stop the the class and you look Inward and this is literally a time of Silence in the class I will stop for a minute or two and you'll have a chance

either to just stare at me or anyone else or think about what we've just discussed or have a guiding question that I will um

provide you that you will address during the class the reason why I have time is and this is something that I'm introducing this year for the first time we didn't have it last time is because over the last two years since I last

started I've done a lot of work in the area of Silence I've read a lot of research in this area about the importance of quiet

times whether it's in a class in a lecture whether it is at home whether it's for a leader in a business for a relationship for children starting from

preschools now many of you as you're going through these um timings if you decide to take the class may think well you know is this what I'm paying $40,000 a year for to

sit in a class and be quiet well first of all it will only be a minute or two at a time maybe once or twice a lecture but second it may be the most important thing that you take from the this class

the notion of embracing Stillness let me read to you um an excert from a study that was run by two MIT professors by the way all the names

that I read that are not on the Powerpoints you don't need to to remember or write down this is just for your edification but um so David Foster

and Matthew Wilson um both of them are from from MIT and did the following study that I think confirms the importance of a time in time to look

inside what they did was they scanned the brains of rats while they were in a maze and after they were doing they were they went

through the Maze and here is what they found what the result suggests is that while there certainly is some record of your experience as it is occurring in

other words when they were doing the maze the actual learning when you try to figure out what was important what should I keep and throw

away that happens after the fact during periods of quiet wakeful introspection what they showed was rats who went through the Maze and then went through

the maze again and again learned far less than rats who took time aside chilled out a little

bit after a maze had Margarita experienced embraced Stillness this has implications and they showed implications to human beings as well not

only those who are on the rat race all human beings so what they say is that replay might constitute a general mechanism of learning and memory both

learning understanding as well as memory retention when we reflect when we replay the material we much more likely to retain to

remember what we have just has been through so the importance of time aside is cannot be o

overemphasized in his wonderful book on teaching um Parker Palmer it's called the courage to teach says the

following words are not the sole medium of Exchange in teaching and learning we educate with silence as well silence gives us a chance to reflect on what we have said and heard in authentic

education silence is treated as a trustworthy worthy metrix for the inner work students must do a medium for learning of the deepest

sort silence is something that's missing from our culture I know that many of you have have probably read Zen In The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Robert

Mig well he has a second book art less less welln called Lila and lla is an anthropological study of Native Americans and what he does there there

is compare their culture to Americans from European ancestry and one of the distinguishing characteristics between these two

cultures is their approach toward silence what he found was when he went and sat around

with Native Americans they would sit around the fire and hang out for 2 3 hours without saying a word just a around look at one

another smile have a good time introspect just be there for hours whereas he points out that in our culture we feel very uncomfortable with the absence of words

with the absence of sound or noise we have to fill up all the gaps and this is an important cultural difference and we pay a price for this lack of

Stillness a price that I will talk about a lot when I talk about relationships when I talk about virtue and morality and when we talk about happiness and

well-being in general let me give you a little bit of background on positive psychology how it came about and how this class came about in many ways positive psychology is the

brain child the product the grandchild of humanistic psychology what we have in humanistic psychology is essentially

a reaction to the existing psychologies of the time the founders considered the founders of humanistic psychology in

fact called it the third Force why the third Force because the first force was behaviorism the work of Skinner the work of Watson the work of Thorndike

this was the first Force the second force was psychoanalysis the work of Freud Jung

Adler to some extent this was the second for force and the third Force humanistic psychology came as a reaction to it first as a reaction to behaviorism

behaviorism looks at the human entity the person as basically a collection of behaviors as a box like a bilard billiard bolt knocked

around by reinforcements by punishment by reward and what humanistic psychology said was that we're much more than just

a billiard ball being knocked around we have a spirit we have a soul we have cognitions and thoughts that matter it's not just Behavior that's

important for understanding as well as Improv improving life and then psychoanalysis the second

Force what psychoanalysis is about basically understanding mostly through the subconscious that's how you understand and that's how you improve the quality

of life there are defense mechanisms there are biological instincts neurosis and if we understand these very often dark Forces we're better able to handle

and deal with life understand as well as improve the quality of life humanistic psychology human says a human being is much more than that much more than biological instincts much more

than Neurosis much more than a person who exist in a UT tonian reality like a billiard

ball we need to Value much more the human being we need to give much more dignity and freedom

to the person there was a problem the problem was with humanistic psychology is that it lacked the rigorous

methodology while it brought in many wonderful ideas talked about the study of well-being talked about the study of optimism of kindness of morality of virtue of love relationships of peak

experiences of self-actualization of empathy all these wonderful Concepts that we'll talk about throughout the semester it wasn't as

rigorous about its epistemology about how we form ideas and how we learn and that's why in many ways largely not completely but it largely morphed into

the self-help movement interesting ideas good ideas important ideas certainly good intentions but to some extent without the academic rigor and that's why it lack to have the impact on Academia

that's why we don't have hardly any humanistic psychology classes offered at universities today there are very few still around and this is why also a lot

of it became the new age essentially but still it's humanistic psychology that has in many way fathered and mothered as we'll see positive

psychology so let's meet the grandparents people like r o may people like Carl Rogers and more than anyone Abraham maslo was the American

Psychological Association president was a professor just down the road here at brandise and he introduced this humanistic psychology in 195 4 he wrote

a chapter called toward a positive psychology 1954 in it he said we need to also research kindness and goodness and

happiness and optimism many ways the you know was way ahead of his time then if maslo is the grandfather

then Karen horny is the grandmother initially a psychoanalyst trained through the works of Freud realized that the focus has been too much on the negative on Neurosis on

psychosis and said we also not only but also have to focus on what is working in the human organism we have to work look at the fine qualities and cultivate

those because part of being human is being those things as well in many ways brought about the movement toward humanistic psychology

and through that positive psychology Aaron andonovski the third person I would consider the

grandfather brought in the idea of focusing on health he has a new concept or he introduced A New Concept

I'm still here don't worry introduced A New Concept which he called it's his own neologism

saluto Genesis saluto Genesis saluto Health Genesis origin the origin of health and

this was an alternative model to the conventional wisdom model of pathologies so instead of just studying pathologies whether it's in physical

health or psychological Health we should also study the origin of Health in many ways that is what preventative medicine is about so this was a novel idea back

in the 1970s when he introduced it and we'll talk a lot about Aaron andonovski now the parents Marty Seligman considered the

father of the positive psychology network of Scholars started to feel the in 1998 like maslo he too was the president of the American Psychological

Association and as his mandate during his PR presidency he had two aims the first aim to make academic psychology more

accessible in other words Bridge Ivory Tower and Main Street this was the first aim of his presidency the second aim was to introduce a positive psychology a

psychology that will look at also things that work that will not just study depression anxiety schizophrenia or Neurosis a psychology a network of

Scholars who will focus on love relationship self-esteem motivation resilience and well-being and he introduced these

ideas and it's all been literally uphill from then before Marty Salman this happened all in 1998 and we'll talk about it a little bit more next time

this all happened in 1998 long before 1998 our very own own Professor Alan Langer did research in all these areas bring the humanistic spirit and

combining it with the academic scientific rigor we're going to be talking probably more than about any other scholar about her work in in this class and another

person from Harvard one of the parents of positive psychology was Philip Stone who passed away two years ago yesterday

both Langer and stone were my thesis advisers introduced me to the field of positive psychology into this research in

1998 when they had the first positive psychology Summit Professor Stone took me along with him I was his graduate student in 1999 he taught the first positive psychology class at Harvard one

of the first in the world I was his teaching fellow few couple of years later he taught it again gen was his teaching fellow and then

when I graduated he suggested that I take over his class and here we are today so this is 1504 let me give you a

sense of in the next half hour or so a sense of what to expect in this class the first thing is that this class is

not just about information it is also explicitly about transformation what do I mean by that you see most of Education today is about

information what is information so we have a container which is our mind and

information is about taking data taking science taking information and putting it inside the form that is is information

now when this form is filled that's when we're educated more information more data

better not enough because it's not just information that determines our well-being our success our self-esteem our motivational

level the relationship and the quality of our relationships it's much more than information

transformation is about taking this form and changing it trans change form shape change the form this is

transformation this is a distinction that I learned first from at school Professor Robert Keegan who talks about this information in and of itself is not

enough think about this example you go for a athletic meet your aim is to get into the top three to be a

medalist you come in number eight what's the analysis what is the interpretation terrible I just failed you feel deflated

innervated on the other hand the exact same event you came eight when you expect to be top three you can interpret it as okay so what have I learned I need

to work even harder you become even more energized you learn from the experience in other words the same objective information which is I got eight I

expect a top three the same information very different interpretation one is a disaster the

other interpretation is an opportunity one leads to loss of energy the other one to an increase in energy or think about another very common example we

know of many people around the world who seemingly have everything who are doing well who have more than they need and

yet they're unhappy and then there are people around the world who have very little and yet never cease never stop to celebrate life and then we have the

other way around as well people who have everything and appreciate it and enjoy life and people who are very little who see themselves as victim in other words it's not just the

information that goes in it's also the shape the interpretation the perception the focus and that is determined by the

shape of the form this is what I realized when I was in undergrad here seemingly looking in from the outside had

everything doing well Sports academics socially and yet my perception my focus my interpretation of life not that great wasn't

happy the interpretation matters very often a lot more as we'll see than the information that goes in one of the sentences that I'll repeat

throughout the class is that happiness is much more contingent on our state of mind than on our status or the state of our bank

account and that's where transformation comes in and that's why it's so important for well-being what that will look like in

practice is that we will cover not so much not So Much Information we'll uncover much more and I don't mean that in the Berkeley sense of the word I mean that in the academic

sense of the word in other words what we'll do is uncover potential that we have inside us that we've had inside us all along maybe we just didn't

see or maybe it was obscured by something or another we'll uncover it so that we can utilize it so that we can focus on it so that we can perceive

it here's a story just to to illustrate this so this is um Michelangelo one day he was asked by a journalist of his time

um how did you create this most amazing how did you create this most amazing Masterpiece

David to which Michelangelo responded it was easy I went to the Quarry I saw this huge piece of

marble and in it I saw David all I needed to do was to chip away the access

Stone to get rid of the marble that shouldn't have been there and when I got rid of this excess Stone so was David

now obviously you know easier has that than done but the story captures the metaphor of what this class very much is about it's about chipping away the

excess Stone it's about getting rid of limitations of barriers whether it's the fear of failure something that we didn't have as kids but today most people in

our culture have it it's about chipping away perfectionism that is debilitating and that often hurts us it's about chipping

away our ability for Success because maybe we're afraid of success maybe we feel guilty about some of the things that we have in our lives that are and

that in turn limits us maybe it's about chipping away the limitations in our relationships and why we don't Thrive within

them this is what this is mostly about as tho says the soul grows more by

subtraction than by addition by getting rid of these limitations limitations that are preventing us from fulfilling our potential because our potential is in there in nature and we'll talk a lot

about human nature it's there whether it's through God whether it's through evolution we have a lot of potential that over time with external voices with being

part of of our culture that very often these limitations are put up put on top of us just like the excess Stone loud too in pursuit of knowledge

every day something is acquired in pursuit of wisdom every day something is dropped knowledge is about information

wisdom is about transformation I was recently interviewed for a newsletter on coaching before a large conference on

the topic and the interviewer asked me so what tips what tools can you give from positive psychology so I talked about some of the quote unquote greatest hits the importance of gratitude the

importance of physical exercise I talked about the importance of spending time on our relationships about taking time aside and simplifying and so on and so

on and as I was going through my long list she stopped me and she said you know you know this is all good you know important stuff I know but our readers

already know that I'm looking for the wow factor you know come on surprise me what can you tell our readers and I thought about about this

question for a minute and I realized that there is no wow and I told her that you know if there is a wow the wow is that there is

no wow that's it you see because the overnight transformation Emperor the Emperor of quick fixes has

no clothes doesn't exist it's over promising and underd delivering you know a good line for fulfilling life a rich life includes ups and downs includes

pain and getting up again it includes failure and getting up again it includes success and celebrating it victories and losses ups and downs as we'll talk about next

week it's not about this one secret one wow to the good life and many of the things that you were learning this class you would have heard of before probably

nothing new to you you already know it inside of you and you're going to say well this is common sense and yes a lot of it is

common sense however as voler once said common sense is not that common and this especially applies to application so the

aim of this class is to make Common Sense more common especially in the realm of application at the end of the class here is what I'm

hoping for at the end of the class if you decide to take it the end of the semester I don't think and I'm not expecting you to come and tell me wow T

thank you for teaching me so many new things that's not what I'm expecting I don't think that is what will happen what I hope will happen is for you to come and say rather than thank you for

teaching me something new you would say thank you for for reminding me of something that I've already known and this is what the class is about it's a constant reminder twice

a week constant reminder of what you already know of what is inside you the David that is inside you and what this class will hopefully do is help you to

chip away some of these limitations whether it's limitation cognitive limitations that prevent you from seeing what you already knew emotional limitations that are

preventing you from deriving the benefits of what you already know or behavioral

limitations the ABC effect behavior and cognition that we'll talk about during the change week it's about making Common

Sense more common information in and of itself is simply not enough it's not enough and what we need in addition to our information highway is a transformation

Highway transformation highway or transformation back rows to counter the fast increasing Pace because as we'll talk about next time rates of depression are on the rise rates of anxiety are on

their rise not just in this country globally it's literally a global epidemic and to deal with it more information will just not do just not

enough here is um archal Mich who's U was a poet was a Harvard Professor what is wrong is not the great discoveries of science information is

always better than ignorance no matter what information or what ignorance what is wrong is the belief behind the information the belief that information will change the

world it won't just adding and filling up our containers with more and more stuff more and more information more and more data it's just not enough we need

more than that this class will take the humanistic approach and let me read you a quick excerpt by Abraham maslo who talks about this this

approach if one took a course or picked up a book on the psychology of learning most of it in my opinion would be beside the point that is beside the humanistic

Point most of it would present learning as the acquisition of associations of skills and capacities that are external

and not intrinsic to the human character to the human personality to the person himself external refers to information

internal refers to the transformation the changing of the form and when we talk about transformation I actually mean it quite literally changing of the form changing of the brain as we'll talk

about when we talk about meditation for instance our brain today can actually we know that our brain today can actually

change and through fmri studies since 1998 A New Concept came up which is neurogenesis or neuroplasticity meaning

our brain actually changes transforms changes its form throughout our life so I don't just mean it metaphorically I also very often mean it um

literally Abram maslo continues humanistic philosophy offers a new conception of learning of teaching and of Education stated simply such a concept holds that the function of

Education the goal of Education the human goal the humanistic goal the goal so far as human beings are concerned is ultimately the self-actualization of a person The Becoming fully human the

development of the fullest height that the human species can stand up to or that the particular individual can come to in a less technical way it is helping

the person to become the best that he is able to become and this was before the ad came out for the Army i' be all you can be

this is what the class is about it's the humanistic approach it's about fulfilling our potential chipping away those limitations now to many of you this may

sound naive idealistic naive it is not idealistic it is and we'll talk about the and discuss the importance of idealism and maintaining idealism if we are to

introduce personal change interpersonal change or Community or society change this class is not about providing

answers concerning the good life or happiness it was about identifying the right questions ask and you shall receive say

the scripture this class is what I think education is all about which is the Quest for information and transformation must begin with a

question question it's no coincidence that there is an eological link between the two in this class you will be asking you will be asked many questions questions that as you will see create

reality we'll talk about that already next time the importance of the question you ask of yourselves first and foremost of your partner of your students of your

parents of your employees in the future teammates and so on questions make a difference Peter drer the most common source of mistakes in management

decisions is the emphasis on finding the right answer rather than the right question Peter Ducker considered the most important uh management scholar of

the 20th century just recently passed away saying that the biggest mistake is not asking the right questions as we'll see next time this is the biggest mistake in research potentially this is

the biggest mistake in application not asking the right questions as well whether it's managing an organization whe whether it's managing

Our Lives now when I said that questions are important and that answers matter less I'm not coming from a point of relativism I'm not a relativist I think that there are to some questions

definitive answers that are important to know however what I'm saying is that it's important no less important to focus on questions when it comes to education the educator Neil Postman once

said that kids enter schools as question marks and they leave as periods My Hope in this class is to

bring up many more question marks than period once again it's about chipping away the excess Stone because as kids we're always asking questions we're

always curious let me show you a quick excerpt from a video of um one of my favorite psychologists well actually he

a comedian um Seinfeld here is talking about and we'll we'll we'll watch a lot of excerpts during throughout the semester um talking about what we were

like as kids is this in your way so the first couple years I made my own costumes which of course suck the ghost the hobo no

good then finally third year beging the parents got the Superman Halloween costume not surprisingly cardboard box cellophane top mask included remember the rubber band on the

back of that mask that was a quality item there wasn't it that was good for about 10 seconds before it snapped out of that cheap little staple they put it in there with you go to your first house trick or

snap it broke I don't believe it wait up you guys I got to fix it hey wait up wait up

that's what you say they don't say wait they say wait up hey wait up cuz when you're little your life is up the future is up everything you want

is up wait up hold up shut up mama clean up let me stay up parents of course it's just the opposite everything is down just calm

down slow down come down here sit down put that down [Laughter] so again this curiosity this looking up

this opening up as opposed to closing down that kids have this notion this is what I hope will happen will happen in this class the one real object of

education is to leave a man in the condition of continually asking questions so here's a longitudinal study that was done by John cter John cter

professor of leadership and management at the business school across the river came to Harvard in 1972 joined the

faculty and started to follow Harvard class MBA class of 1973 and followed them for 20 years and what he was interested in was to find out all the

information that he could about this class what he found 20 years later early 90s when the study ended was that these students were extremely Su or ex-

students were extremely successful very wealthy having a lot of impact whether it's on their organization the community did extremely well but within the large

group of highly successful Harvard mbas he found a small group that was

extraordinarily successful more successful ful than the rest of the group whether it's in terms of income whether it's in terms of impact whether

it's in terms of overall quality of life extraordinarily successful and what he wanted to identify was why what distinguishes this

small group from the rest of the pack very successful but not quite as successful as that small

group and he found only two things it was not their IQs that made no difference whatsoever to their long-term

success it was not where they came from pre-mba what they did had nothing to do with it two and two things alone mattered in

terms of determining who will be the extraordinarily successful and the rest the first thing was that the extraordinarily successful group really believed in themselves they

thought they could do well they were driven they were motivated and we'll talk about that in future lecture as beliefs a self-fulfilling prophecies they thought

I'm going to make it I'm going to succeed that's the first thing this sense of confidence the second thing that he

found was that this group they were always asking questions always asking questions initially of their boss later of their employees

of their partner children parents friends they were always asking question they were always at this state of curiosity always looking up opening up wanting to understand the world more

they didn't say okay now I have my MBA that's it I know enough there were lifelong Learners that were always asking questions these two distinguishing

characteristics account for the difference between the extraordinarily successful and those who were successful it's a question that has guided me whether in it's in writing the book

whether it's in creating this class whether it's first and foremost my personal life is what I call the question of question which is how can we help ourselves and others individuals

communities and Society become happier note that it is not about helping ourselves and others become happy it is about becoming happier

why because many people ask me so T are you happy and I can't really answer that question I don't know what it means why be I mean how do I determine

whether or not I'm happy is it compared to someone else is it um is there a certain point Beyond which I become happy happiness is not a binary either

or zero one either I'm unhappy or I'm happy happiness resides on a Continuum So my answer to this question question am I happy is today I'm happier

than I was 15 years ago when I started focusing on this Pursuit 15 years from now I certainly hope to be happier than I am

today happiness is a lifelong Pursuit and hopefully this class is part of that Pursuit but just part you will not be happy at the end of the class hopefully you will be happier cuz many people sit

here you know during the lectures on um on self-esteem for example or when we talk explicitly about happiness and they say wait do I have high self-esteem you know thinking about themselves do I have

high self-esteem or low self-esteem irrelevant important impossible to answer also the question is how can I improve my self-esteem my healthy self-esteem

not narcissism of course how can I become happier that's the important question and this is the question of questions this class is not a survey of

positive psychology if you want a survey of positive psychology I recommend I can recommend some excellent textbooks whether it's by Lopez or by

Peterson great textbooks there's also the handbook of positive psychology which is a huge book with most of what you want to know about the field you can also use it in in self-defense very

useful in that respect but a wonderful book very well written very accessible in the spirit of positive psychology so but this is not that this is not a survey of positive psychology what it is

it's a selective exploration of the question of questions in that way it is eclectic my background is in Psychology

and philosophy I studied organizational behavior I worked as a consultant in business for for a few years still do some work there I worked in the field of education do a lot of work in the field

of education and I take from all these areas I also draw on not just on positive psychology I draw on Clinical Psychology in this class I draw on cognitive psychology social

psychology and so on it's an Eclectic class because my question my guiding question was what would contribute to happiness and if something within Psychopathology I thought could contribute to our well-being I took that

and used that if something from the field of Consulting and organizational behavior contributes that became part of the class as much as I could fit in of course in in one semester so the class

is eclectic the class is not cross-cultural I will bring in ideas from from Eastern thought I lived

in Asia for a few years worked there studied and continued to study um the Eastern philosophies and psychologies but my training primarily is in Western psychology and the focus of the class

will be that however that doesn't mean that positive psychology doesn't apply to people from different places in the

world now there was was recently a a meeting between um senior scientists psychologist from the West people like Paul emman Richie Davidson some of the

most important Minds in the field of psychology meeting with the Dal Lama and some of his his monks and um they were talking about the future of psychology

about research and how can you research meditation and so on and one of the things that they were talking a lot about is cross-cultural differences

and when that came up the Dal L suddenly seemed uneasy and when Daniel Goldman who was um writing about this whole event which

was held in India asked him what what's wrong the Dal Lama said that he was not comfortable with talking and emphasizing so much cultural differences now you can say many things about the Dal Lama one

thing you cannot say about him is that he's culturally insensitive arguably you know one of the most sensitive people alive and yet he says that we're focusing too much on

cultural differences and he added not because there are no cultural differences of course there are and they're important but there are many more similarities than differences and we

shouldn't ignore those similarities Daniel Gman about the Dal Lama we were a little surprised by the Dal Lama's seeming resistance to the

notion of cultural differences so I will introduce these ideas but a because it's not my training and there are people who focus on cultural differences who would do a much better job than I do and second because

what I hope to look into is the universal things that are common across cultures so we'll study and we'll study research in this area but even more than

that we'll become even more particular than just talking about you know the psychology in this part of the world we'll study

yourselves we're going to go that particular now why you see when I put this class together I didn't think to myself okay so what are the things that I need to

introduce in order to please the um participants in the class the students that's not what I thought what I thought about what what was the

class that I would have wanted to take as an undergraduate here what would help me become happier if I were sitting there in other words thinking about it from my perspective from very personal

perspective in this class I'm going to encourage you of course you look at research and read research about other people about large sample sizes but I'm going to encourage you more than

anything to look inside yourselves to study yourselves whether it's through response papers that will be due weekly starting in in two weeks whether it's in

your final project that will be a presentation that you won't have to give but you'll have to write out a presentation about your um your

favorite topic or the topic that matters most to you whether it's in sections that you'll talking be talking about how can I apply these ideas to my life the timein are

about thinking about how can I take these ideas and use them it's about studying ourselves because as Carl Roger says what is most personal is most

general what is most personal is most General and as maslo adds we must remember that knowledge of One's Own deep nature is also simultaneously

knowledge of human nature in general when we understand ourselves better when we identify ourselves we're better able to identify with others in

fact this in many ways is the source of empathy of healthy empathy and there's some studies on this showing that people who know themselves who study themselves who are

self-reflective display less egregious Behavior less immoral Behavior toward others behavior that would fall under say racism and it's counterintuitive to some

wait don't you need to First study the other so that you can be more sensitive to other yes that too but it's not enough it's important to also study

ourselves because when we see our deep nature what we encounter there is actually part of the universal nature the similar ities among us all

regardless of where we're from and this is what the Dal Lama was talking about not stop crosscultural do it important but at the same time not ignore the self

not ignore the universal within each one of us CF Lewis there is one thing and only one in the whole universe which we know more about than we could learn from

external observation that one thing is ourselves we have so to speak inside information we are in the no now there are of course biases when

we study ourselves which is why it's not enough to just study the self it's important to counter it to add to it academic work studying others and that's

why we will do some research or study research as well as do some search searching inside us both are important we shouldn't just because there are

biases and mistakes that are potentially can be made it doesn't mean we need to throw out the baby with the bath water and stop studying ourselves so we'll do that or rather you

will do that probably more than in any other class on campus finally this may be news to you but this is not English 10A or math

55 meaning you will not have to read as much as you would read for 10A or for for a history class and this class is not as difficult as Matthew 55 so you can be you can rest rest assured though

I'm sure there are some people here who took the class this class at the same time is about rigorous fun fun because it's fun

to study ourselves sometimes it hurts and sometimes we see things that we may not like but overall it's fun it's interesting and at the same time it's rigorous based on on

Research now many of the ideas that you will encounter in this class are very simple very

accessible Common Sense however they're simple not simplistic and here is the difference here is the difference see Oliver wend Holmes at least this

quote is attributed to him not 100% sure it's his said I would not give a fig for the Simplicity on this side of complexity but I would give my life for

the Simplicity on the other side of complexity what Holmes means here is that he doesn't care about just Simplicity you know easy off the cuff Whimsical

ideas what he does care about though is the Simplicity that comes after we have chewed the idea after we have digested it after we have thought about

it ideas that have been worked on and if on the other side of complex it we can reach Simplicity and common sense that's great that's what he's interested in that is also what positive psychologist

researchers whom we'll discuss throughout the semester are interested in the Simplicity on the other side of complexity and there's a very big difference between these two kinds of

simplicities even though on the face of it they may at times look look similar what this class requires is is a very different kind of effort a very

different kind of effort to other classes again it doesn't require the kind of effort that you would need in 55 or in in English 10A the kind of effort

that it does require is the effort of application of applying it to your lives of introducing behavioral actual change to your life and before we go into some

of the technicalities of the class such as the syllabus I want to end with story about Peter duer Peter Ducker whom

I quoted earlier father of the study of mod um of management in modern times Peter duer lived to the grand old

age of 94 passed away just a couple of years ago and toward the end of his life while he was still 100% Lucid it was more difficult for him to be mobile and

to go into organizations so what he did was invite people who wanted Consulting from him wanted to learn from him would come to his home and he had presidents and Prime Ministers of countries he had

um CEOs of Fortune 500 companies come and spend the weekend with him and on Friday this is how we would start every session with every

world leader whether in business whether it's non for-profit whether in politics he would say to them the

following on Monday I don't want you to call me up and tell me how wonderful it

was meaning how wonderful the weekend was on Monday I want you to call me up and tell me what you're doing

differently at the end of the semester or at the end of a lecture if you enjoyed it by all means

you know tell me that you enjoyed it that it was fun but more important it is what you're doing differently how this has an impact of your life and that takes effort we're

going to spend a whole week talking just about change nothing directly related to positive psychology just about change because it is so difficult to change because we know that most organizational

change fails because we know that more most individual change fails unless we introduce behavioral change along with our cognitive and emotional

change affect and cognition is not enough Behavior has to be there as well what are you doing differently now to do things differently very often takes

courage some of your response papers that you will hand in are I mean none of them are graded they're all just graded pass

fail you have to hand them in and then you pass but some of them will be maybe the most difficult papers that you have written here for some they'll be the

easiest and things will just flow out that's about introducing change that's about reflecting that's about taking time in that's about chipping

away the excess Stone and it can only be done through this kind of effort so if you really want to make this class to make a difference in your life it's up to you I'm going to

introduce you to the material I'm going to introduce you to this wonderful New Field of positive psychology what is up to you is to then take it and and apply

it I want to talk a little bit about the syllabus and the requirements and then I'll give some time for uh for questions um but before I do that I would also

like to welcome I know that some of you are are watching this from home to the extension school students is wonderful to have you uh here do come and visit

once in a while and um you'll be working with um obviously as part of this class but also with Deb Levy who is um the head teaching fellow for the extension School

the head teaching fellow for um the FAS class is uh Sean aor and um I'd like just to invite him for uh just for a few

words uh just to uh to introduce himself and to you and you'll be introduced to all the other TFS we have um amazing team amazing team this

year and this is Sean hey good morning can you guys hear me can you hear me now yes great this is an absolute honor to be back teaching

prop positive psychology again um this tall is too humble um this is not only extraordinary that he's sharing his time with us but he has actually moved here back moved his family back from Israel

for the entire semester his wife and his two little children just so that he could teach his class with us so it's an absolutely an extraordinary opportunity for us to share this this moment with

them and I'm really excited about it um last time we taught this class we did a survey to find out what type of people were sitting in this room they're just like yourselves uh to find out why you'd be taking this class because the comment

that we get so often about this class is um what why do why would Harvest possibly be unhappy what do they have to be unhappy about they thought that everyone would be taking this class would be taking it because they're

already really happy and they want to study about how amazing they are and they like to learn things so they can tell their roommates they're clearly less well off than themselves but turns out actually over a third of

the people that took the class last year took the class actually because they felt depressed and that they were trying to learn and learn about the research about uh positive psychology another third did it because they wanted to

learn more about optimism another third did it for completely different reasons I think an additional third this year did it because uh because Paul was on John Stewart and The Daily Show so um I

I'm absolutely thrilled about this class um the syllabus which uh T is about to tell you about is uh actually you know we learned a couple other things about you guys you know that of the people

that took positive psychology 75% of you um are an officer of a club 35% of you are the highest ranking officer of a club which means you think they're about 2,000 clubs at Harvard you're on a club

of three and the you happen to be the president we we learned other reasons why you're not happy we learned that uh uh the average number of romantic relationships for people to take positive psychology over the four years

is between zero and one zero and one no don't believe it don't leave wait but that was before taking class that was before taking the class we're going to test you

afterwards the average number of sexual partners which is between 0 and .5

um I have no idea what 0. five sexual

partners is um um this class is going to be amazing it was amazing in the past and tall is actually we have an extraordinary teaching staff that's here with us today

it's a large teaching staff and T has actually already given us homework so that the teachers are going to be learning not only the material that you're doing and talking about which they're experts at but learning how to be better teachers he's given us books to read he's actually given us an

assignment so it's going to be extraordinary class in that sense in terms of the syllabus it's going to be online Paul's about to describe that now we decided to go green uh so no trees were killed in the making of this class

except for the extraordinarily large Auditorium made out of wood um sections we're going to try we're going to section online next weekend so once we get the numbers in on Wednesday the following weekends we will be doing

sectioning that gives you a very short turnaround time but that way that you can give me Monday to change your sections if you need to which we hope you won't and sections will start that

following week so um thank you very much and if you have any questions s me an email okay so I don't think I'll have to explain to you why there's one lecture

in the in the semester that I don't teach and Sean will teach it and that is the lecture on humor figure out why yourselves um I do think you have to

walk your talk if you're teaching something um the syllabus the class pedagogically just to introduce you to my thinking

about about the class is what I call an integrated class what that means is that it's integrated horizontally uh sorry

vertically as well as horizontally vertically it means that every class is connected to the next class is connected to every class throughout the semester around a spiral so what we talk about

next week we'll revisit again in lesson 7 lesson 17 and lesson 24 everything is interconnected only higher level of the Spiral in other

words will lead to deeper understanding and hopefully assimilation of the material so it's vertically in um interconnected it's also horizontally interconnected that means that every

part of the class reinforces and influences the other parts the lectures not enough you'll get a lot more in sections sections are mandatory you'll

do a lot of work in your sections very much related to what your response papers that many students claim are the most important part of the class because that's where you get to time in that's

when you really get to chip away very much connected to the final project the final project is a presentation that you will write out you will actually give it but only give it to a couple of friends just to get

feedback not graded on that part the final project is graded as a final paper but just what you had in hand in what you submit and the reason why there is the final paper because the best what

which is like a presentation because the best way to learn is to teach and you'll be teaching these materials to other people or any material that you're

interested in in your um in your presentation so the readings very much connected and about taking you to the next level of understanding and

assimilation so any questions before I finish up any questions from you all right so let me just say I'm 1 second finishing words I'm very excited

to be back here my family is very excited to be back here looking forward to um meaningful pleasurable enjoyable and

happier semester with you thank [Applause] you