幸福课讲稿Lecture 1

Positive Psychology – Lecture 1 Tal Ben-Shahar Hi Good morning. It's wonderful 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 seat as an undergrad here. This does not mean it is a class you wish to be taught, nor does it mean that it is the right class for you. But I hope to doing the next couple of lectures is giving you an idea what this class is about so that you can decide whether or not it is for you. I came here in 1992 And then I had a mini epiphany half way through my sophomore year. I realized that I was in a wonderful place with wonderful students around me, wonderful teachers. I was doing well academically. I was doing well in athletics. I was playing squash at that time. I was doing well socially. Everything was going well. Except for the fact. That I was unhappy. And I didn't understand why. It was then in a matter of moments, that I decided that I had to find out why and become happier. And that was 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 contributed most to my happiness was when I encountered a new emerging field 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 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 in this field. So this is positive psychology, psychology 1504. And we'll 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 that was back in 2002, I taught it at 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 three hundred students. And then third year when I taught it which was the last time, I had 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 would have the interview. And afterwards, the producer or the interviewer would walk me out and say something to the effects of "well thank you Tal for the interview. But you know I expected you to be different". And I would ask, as nonchalant as I could of course. I didn't really care but had to ask anyway, "how different?" And they would say, "Well you know, we expected you to be more outgoing." Next interview, the end of the interview, same thing. "Thank you for doing the interview. But you know Tal, I expected you to be different." And once again, nonchalant of course. "Well you know, we expected you to be less, less introversit." Next interview, same thing. "How different?" "Well, you know, more extroverted. More outgoing." Next interview. "Well, you know, less shy." Coz 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 around Boston. I was going to the interview. We had a quite long interview, which I thought was actually pretty good. And at the end of the interview, the interviewer is a very jolly guy. He walks me out and puts his hands on my shoulder, and says, "thank you very much for doing the interview." And then the usual comes. "But you know Tal, I expected you to be different." And I said, "How different?" Just so you understand, by this time, my self-esteem is short. But still with some resemblance of nonchalance I asked, "how different?" And he looks at me and says, "Well I don't know Tal. I expected you to be taller." Taller? What? Five seven, well ok five six and a half is not enough to teach happiness? And I thought about it. 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 lecture is larger than the 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 is 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. What they needed to look at was the message. Now how do I know that? You see because I see other positive psychology classes on other campuses around the country and around the world. There are over 200 hundred campuses here in 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 them the leading big consultant companies are taking it on. More and more high schools are introducing positive psychology class. ***** Elementary schools are introducing it. The governments around the world are expressing interest in this new emerging field. Why? Because it works. Because it really works. You see this whole realm on life flourishing, on happiness, on 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 the masses into these workshops, seminars and lectures. But, there is a very big "but" here. Many of these books, many of these workshops and seminars lack substance. Very often, overpromising and under-delivering. So these are five things you need to know to be happy. The three things to be the great leader. The one secret of success, happiness and a perfect love life. Overpromising. 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 datas 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 mean Think about it: how many people outside this room of course have read the last twelve issues of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology? Most people don't even know what that means. The head of my PHD programs actually estimated the average academic journal article is read by seven people. You know... And that includes the author's mother. So you know I say half in jest but it's actually really sad. Because...certainly sad for me, as an academic. Because these things are good. They are important. These things make a difference, can even make more of a difference. But not accessible to most people. And this is where positive psychology comes in. And this 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 Ivory tower and mainstreet. In other words, it is to bring the rigor, the substance, the empirical foundation, the science from academia and merge it with accessibility of the self-help or New Age movement. In a way the best of 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 as any other class in psychology or any of the classes you've taken here. You'll be introduced here to studies, to research, to rigorous academic work. You'll be writing paper, academic paper. You'll be taking exams. Just like every other class. But then it will also be taught at the second level, which is for every paper that you'll read, every paper that you'll write, you'll always be thinking, "Ok, 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 the lectures ideas just because they are interesting for the sake of the idea. It is always an idea that is both rigorous and can be applied. Just a few words about housekeeping. Some of the questions that I have already received from you before the class started. So this, unfortunately, is the last time that I am teaching positive psychology or any other class for that matter at Harvard. Hopefully within two years, probably not next year, but within two years, there will be positive psychology class offered, but I certainly cannot guarantee it. About feedback and questions. If you have any questions, anything that's not clear, if you agree or disagree with something, email me or email your TF (Teaching Fellow at Harvard, just like TA at other schools) and we'll always respond. Sometimes if the question is asked by enough people, we'll respond to it publicly. Always anonymously. Unless you specified specifically that your name can be mentioned. Sometimes you may be listening to a lecture and then half way through it there is an emergency. There is something that you really have to ask, something that cannot wait. In that case, please just put your hand up. Coz it's just like when you have to go to the bathroom. Just can't stop. Can't wait. And when you gotta go, you gotta go. So we'll take a positive psychology break for that. And just stop me half way through and I'll answer any question. All the power points, as well as the videos of the classes will be online. Will be available within couple of days. Well the power points will be available before, say for this lecture it will be before so that you can use them in class. The videos, unfortunately, cannot be made available before. We tried. Couldn't figure it out. So it will be available within a day or two after. And the reason why they are up there. First of all, I do prefer that you attend lecture. I do prefer that you are physically here. You get things in the energy of the room with so many students so you wouldn't just get from your computer. The reason why I do put them up is so that you have the opportunity if you want to see it again or if you have to miss a class. That's perfectly fine. And also because, and this is also the reason why the power points are always available, I want you to be engaged in the material. I want you to be engaged in whatever it is that we are 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 is on the power point 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 heard something and idea and you say, "Oh, that's interesting." Star it. Write it down. Or "Ok I think I'll start applying this." Write it down. "Or I want to tell my mom about this later." Or "I want to talk to my roommates or my team about this idea." Write it down. Active note-taking is opposed to passive note-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, although there is a lot of academic beauty in this field. So write down if you have an idea that you think you can apply. The second reason why we should that is because you'll remember more. Better attention, better understanding of the material if you are actively engaged, as opposed to just taking down passive notes. Throughout the class, starting next week, we'll take what I called, "time-ins" as opposed to "time-outs". it's like a time-out. It's the time where we stop the class and you look inward. And this is literally a time of silence in a 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 provide you that you'll address during the class. The reason why I have "Time-ins"... This is something that I am introducing this year for the first time. We didn't have it last time. It's because over the last two years since I last taught it, I've done a lot 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 is for a leader in the business, for relationship, for children starting from pre-schools. Now many of you, as you are going through these "time-ins" if you decide to take this class may think, "Well, is this what I'm paying 40,000 dollars a year for? To sit a class and be quiet?" First of all, it will only be a minute or two at a time, maybe once or twice a lecture. But second, it is maybe the most important thing you'll take from this class. The notion of embracing stillness. Let me read to you an excerpt from a study that was run by two MIT professors. By the way, all the names that I read and that are not on the power points, you don't need to remember or write down. This is just for your edification. So David Foster and Matthew Wilson. Both of them are from MIT. Indeed the following study that I think confirms the importance of "time-in", time to look inside. What they did is they scanned the brains of rats while they were in a maze and after they went through the maze. And here's what they found. "What the results suggest is that while there certainly is some record of your experience as it is occurring. in other words when they were doing the maze, when you try to figure out: 'What was important? What should I keep and throw away?' during periods of quiet wakeful introspection. What they show was rats who went through the maze and 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 more margarita. Experience, embrace stillness. This has implications and they showed implications to human beings as well. Not only those of 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 are much more likely to retain, to remember what we have just been through. So the importance of time aside cannot be over-emphasized. In his wonderful book of teaching, 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 matrix for the inner work students must do, a medium for learning of the deepest sort." Silence is something that is missing from our culture. I know that many of you have probably read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig. He had a second book out, less well-known, called Lila (Lila: an Inquiry into Morals). And Lila is an anthropological study of Native Americans. And one of the distinguishing characteristics between these two cultures is their approach were silence. What he found was when he went and sat around with Native Americans. They would sit around the fire and hang out for two, three hours without saying a word. Just sit around. Look at one another. Smile. Have a good time. Introspect. Just be there for hours. While 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. This is an important cultural difference. And we pay a price for this lack of stillness. A price that we'll talk about a lot, when I talk about relationships, when I talk about virtue and morality and when we talk about happiness and wellbeing in general. Let me give a little bit background on positive psychology: how we came about and how this class came about. In many ways, positive psychology is the brainchild, the product and 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 (B. F. Skinner), the work of Watson (John B. Watson), the work of Thorndik (Edward Thorndik). This was the first force. The second force was psychoanalysis. The work of Freud (Sigmund Freud), Jung (Carl Jung), Adler (Alfred Adler) to some extent. This was the second force. And the third force, humanistic psychology came as a reaction to it. First it is a reaction to behaviorism. Behaviorism looks at the human entity, at the person as basically a collection of behaviors as a box, like a billiard ball knocked around by reinforcements, by punishment, by reward. And what humanistic psychology said was that we are much more than a billiard ball being knocked around. We have spirit. We have a soul. We have cognitions and thoughts that matter. It's not just behavior that is important for understanding as well as improving life. And then psychoanalysis, the second force. The psychoanalysis is about basically understanding mostly through the subconscious: that's how you understand it; that's how you improve the quality of life. There are defense mechanisms, there are biological instincts, neurosis-- and if you understand these very often dark forces, were better able to deal with life: understand as well as improve the quality of life. Humanistic psychology says human beings are much more than that. Much more than biological instincts, much more than neurosis, much more than the person who exists in a Newtonian 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 humanistic psychology is said 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, of 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 largely more of into the self-health movement. Interesting ideas,