What is Well-being and Happiness? What is the Good Life? This course explores what psychological science teaches us about how to be happier, why we often do not pursue the things that truly make us happy, how to feel less stressed, and how to flourish more. We will examine why people are not as happy as we assumed. We will look at some misconceptions as well as features of our mind that work against our subjective well-being. We will also put into practice some of the research findings we learn and try to create habits that help us to live a happier and more fulfilling life. We will practice throughout the course some Well-being Improvement Strategies and Exercises (WISE). We will end the course by applying what we've learned to improve our own happiness and/or try to make a difference in our relationships. The content of this course is modeled after the course, The Science of Well-Being, the most popular class offered by Yale University. We use the textbook “Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment” offered by a similar class at Harvard University. Class lecture materials will include information from different books and journal papers.

• Required: Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment by Tal Ben-Shahar
• Reference: The Myths of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky
• Reference: Positive Psychology: The Scientific and Practical Explorations of Human Strengths (3rd Ed) by Shane J. Lopez, Jennifer Teramoto Pedrotti, and Charles Richard Snyder