哈佛大学公开课--幸福课-第一集演讲内容及部分内容

○哈○佛○大○学○公○开○课

整理:耿加稳

校对:小帅哥

I'm teaching this class because i wish a class like this had been taught when I was sittingin your seat as an undergrad here.I came here in 1992,and started at computer science.And then I had a mini epiphany halt 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 acedemically.I was doing well in athletics.I was doing well socially.Everything 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 to find out why and became happier.And that was when I switched my concentration from computer science to philosophy and psychology.With single question how can I became happier.Overtime I did became happier,what contrbuted most to my happiness was when I encounted a new emerging field that time didn't have a name that it has today.But essentially research that falls uder or with 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 I realized the impact that it had on me that I decided to share it with others.

So this is positive psycology,and we will be exploring this new,relatively and fascinating field.And hopefully, we will be exploring more than the field ourselves.

“How can this lecture is larger than the Introduction to Economics”.And the way to explain it must be that the teacher is very outgoing,extremly charismatic,very cheerful and extrovert and of course ,tall.Why is it so popular,because it works,You see this whole realm on life flouring on happiness,on well being has been until recently dominated by the self-health movement(心理自助运动).what do we have in the self-health movement?We have that books are very intering,that are very accessible,we have speakers are very outgoing attracting the masses into these workshops,seminars and lectures.But there is a big “but”here.Many of those books,many ot these workshop and seminars lack of substances(缺少实际内容).very often，overpromising and under-delivering.So those are five things you need to know to be happy.The three things to be the greatl eader.The one secret of success,happiness and a perfect love life. overpromising and under-delivering(夸大其词,效果甚微).On the other hand, we have academica(学术界),what do we have in academia?We have a lots of rigor, a lot of substances.We have datas analayzed,reanalyed and meta-analyzed.

things really work,really good stuff.But there is also a big “but”here.Very few people read refereed acedemic journals.I mean think about it:how many of people outside this room of course have read the last twelve issues of the Journal of Personnality and Social Psychology(个性与社会心理学)?Most pepple don’t even know what that means.The head of my PHD programs actually estimated the average academic journal arctical is read by seven people.You know…and that include the author’s mother.So you know I say half in jest but it’s atually really sad。Because…certainly sad for me,as an academic.Because those things are good.They are important,those things can make a differrence,can make more of a differrence.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 creat a bridge between Ivory tower and mainstreet.In other words,it is to bring the rigor,the substance，theempirical of foundation,the science from academia and merge it with accessibil of the self-help or New Age movement.In a way the best of both worlds.And this explain the popularity of the field of positive psychology:

science that works.

The class will be tore into two levels,the first will be taught as any other class in

psychology.or any of the class 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 will be taking exams.Just like 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 I apply to my life?How I apply them to my commumity?”Two levels.The acedemic,applied.I didn’t introduce whether it’s in the readings or in the lecture ideas just because they are intesting for the sake of the idea.It is always an idea that is both rigorrous and can be applied.Just a few words about housekeeping(再唠叨几句题外话).About feedback and questiongs.If you have any questions,anything not clear,if you agree or disagree something,email me or email you TF(Teaching fellow at Harvard,just like TA at

other school,and we’ll always respond.Sometimes if the question is asked by ennough people,we’ll respond to it publicly.All the powerpoints,as well as the videos of the class will be online,will be available within a couple of days.The vedios,unfortunately,can’t be available before.we tried.couldn