Online course: Positive Psychology Specialization Project: Design Your Life for Well-being (this course is part of Foundations of Positive Psychology Line)

Dates: any time

Duration: 13 hours

Rating: 4.8 / 5.0 out of 548 ratings (see total ranking of online courses here)

Participating countries: any country

Apply here: Application form

Organizer: University of Pennsylvania at Coursera

Cost: FREE or $49 with sharable certificate

Positive Psychology Specialization Project: Design Your Life for Well-being

You are encouraged to take the first four courses of the Foundations of Positive Psychology Specialization before starting this course and completing the Specialization Project. This course, taught by Dr. Martin E.P. Seligman brings all the key concepts from the first four courses to practice as you develop and test a new positive intervention for an audience of your choice. You identify opportunities in your daily life to increase the wellbeing by using knowledge you developed in the first four courses of the Specialization. In this final project, you evaluate the efficacy of a positive intervention based on subjective and objective measures. Then, you compare how empirical and non-empirically-based positive interventions can be applied to influence a person’s wellbeing. Lastly, you reflect on how the fundamental elements of research methods are important in the everyday application of positive psychology.

Instructor

 

Programme

WEEK 1: 4 hours to complete

Character Strengths: One Concept to Rule them All

Module 1 of the Positive Psychology Capstone reviews the VIA Character Strengths Classification and in particular asks the learner to identify his or her five signature strengths and assess if they are authentic.

1.1 Course Overview
1.2 Module 1 Overview
1.3 Assignment: Taking the VIA or reviewing your results
1.4 Interview: Paul Rozin on Character Strengths
1.5 James Pawelski’s Review of Via Character Strengths
1.6 Signature Strengths
1.7 Disappointment in your Signature Strength
1.8 Does the strength seem to fit you?
1.9 How can you tell if the strength is authentically you?

WEEK 2: 3 hours to complete

Peterson Theory on Psychological Mental Illness as defined as an Excess, an Absence, or an Opposite of a Character Strength rather than by the Presence or Absence of a Symptom in the DSM

Module 2 presents Chris Peterson’s unfinished theory on mental illness. Specifically his belief that the absence of strengths, the excess of strengths, and the opposite of strengths might define 72 conditions of character weakness, and that these shortcomings might be a better framework than the DSM which uses a checklist of symptoms.

2.1 Module 2 Overview
2.2 Peterson’s Theory
2.3 Assessment of Peterson’s 24 Absence and Opposite of Strengths
2.5 Contrasting Strengths Versus DSM
2.6 Using Character Strength in a Challenge

WEEK 3: 4 hours to complete

Developing a Positive Intervention using a signature strength to bolster a strength absence or strength opposite. Hypothesis & Experiment Design for Personal Positive Intervention

Module 3 has the learner target an area for remediation from among Peterson’s inventory of 72 deviant strengths and craft a positive intervention using a signature strength.

3.1 Module 3 Overview
3.2 Interview: Picking what works best for you from strengths banquet
3.3 Deliberate Practice
3.4 Laying the Foundation: Defining Measurement and Testing Happiness and Flourishing
3.5 What is a Positive Intervention?

WEEK 4: 2 hours to complete

Putting the Positive Intervention into Action

Module 4 has the learner put the positive intervention into action, assess and the share the results, and finally reduce the positive intervention to writing so it can be shared.

4.1 Module 4 Overview
4.2 Trying the Positive Intervention
4.3 Aristotelian Balance
4.4 Interview: Using Strengths
4.5 Using Signature Strengths Instead of Weakness
4.6 Using Signature Strengths over time to Increase Happiness
4.7 Assignment: Retaking the PERMA and the PANAS assessment
4.8 Closing Thoughts

Full Line

This course is 1st module as part of Foundations of Positive Psychology Line: