March 24
Monday and Wednesday, March 24 and 26, 2025Plenary (Monday) and Breakout (Wednesday)
Positive Psychology: The Scientific Search for the Good Life
Positive Psychology is a new branch of a young scientific discipline. Psychology separated from philosophy in the mid to late 1800s, and since then many disparate schools of thought have sought to better understand and explain the human mind and behavior. Positive Psychology emerged roughly twenty years ago as the scientific study of human strengths and flourishing. The field has sought to offer an alternative to the traditional pathology model utilized by clinical psychology and psychiatry. Since its rise to popularity in 2000, the field has accumulated a vast research base that seeks to illuminate the fundamental components of human happiness.
Goals
Goals
- Understand Positive Psychology’s unique approach to understanding the human experience
- Recognize the limitations of Positive Psychology’s early Westernized definition of happiness
- Appreciate Positive Psychology’s more recent attempts to broaden the definition of happiness in order to more accurately reflect the experiences of a wide range of people and identities
- Understand the major remaining critique of the field as too focused on the individual without regard to context
- Critically engage with the overall project of Positive Psychology and its understanding of “happiness” as our final end
Before Class
- Before Monday: watch Dr. D’Andrea’s 31-minute lecture on Positive Psychology in Perusall, and make at least two comments on the video
- Complete the UPenn “VIA Survey of Character Strengths”
- To access the survey, click here
- Note: if you haven’t taken a questionnaire before on this site, you’ll be asked to register (a username and e-mail address is required to take the survey; the address is not made public and will only be used if you wish to receive a new password or wish to receive certain news or notifications by e-mail)
- This will take a little while; there are 240 questions!
- Before Monday: Read Seligman, “Positive Psychology A Personal History” in Perusall; add at least two comments
- Before Wednesday: Read Christopher and Hickinbottom, “Positive Psychology, Ethnocentrism, and the Disguised Ideology of Individualism” in Perusall; add at least two comments
- Watch Dr. D’Andrea’s 31-minute lecture on Positive Psychology in Perusall, and make at least two comments on the video (see link under “Do This”).
After Class
Do This
Further Resources
Do This
- Breakout sections on Wednesday this week will examine additional points of intersection between positive psychology and philosophy
Further Resources
- Slides for today’s lecture
- You can learn more about the “Authentic Happiness” website here