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. 311 ----------------------- 页面
2----------------------- 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 \you have a class, that's larger than Introduction to Economics\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 \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, \different?\expected you to be more outgoing.\Next interview, the end of the interview, same thing. \the interview. But you know Tal, I expected you to be 312 ----------------------- 页面
3----------------------- different.\nonchalant of course. \to be less, less introversit.\thing. \
extroverted. More outgoing.\you know, less shy.\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, \you very much for doing the interview.\And then the usual comes. \you know Tal, I expected you to be different.\different?\self-esteem is short. But still with some resemblance of nonchalance I asked, \at me and says, \to be taller.\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, \come this lecture is larger than the Introduction to Economics?\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 313 ----------------------- 页面 4----------------------- 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
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