What is the good life? What makes you happy? For well over two thousand years, writers from a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, literature, religious and spiritual studies, as well as neuroscience and psychology, have attempted to answer this most basic and fundamental question that concerns each and every one of us.  But it is only in the past few decades that research psychologists have started to measure what happiness is, figure out what predicts it, and determine whether your degree of happiness can be increased.

In this introductory lecture, you will be introduced to some older theories about wellbeing but also learn about Martin Seligman’s psychological theory about wellbeing, called PERMA, as well as some contemporary research on wellbeing from all over the world.  All of the skills that you will learn and acquire in this course contribute in one way or another to your emotional and academic wellbeing.