For followers of positive psychology, two relevant Coursera courses started this week:
- Barbara Fredrickson’s course, Positive Psychology (February 9 – March 26)
- Stewart Friedman’s course, Better Leader, Richer Life (February 8 – April 23)
Coursera courses are free to anyone in the world with an online connection.
Positive Psychology Course Description
Taken from Coursera About this Course:
“These are exciting times. The science of positive psychology now clearly offers evidence-based approaches to help people live full and meaningful lives. We can now confidently steer ourselves and our communities towards health and flourishing.This course not only showcases the visionary scientific work of Barbara Fredrickson and her colleagues in the field of positive psychology, it also features practical applications of this science that you can put to use immediately.
Together we will “lift the hood” of positive psychology to discover the tiny engines that drive it: Positive emotions. Often subtle and always fleeting, positive emotions are remarkably consequential – psychologically, socially, and physically. Topics of study include creativity and resilience, love and connection, flourishing and physical health.
By taking this course, you will become conversant in leading-edge theory and evidence straight from the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory (PEP Lab), including work that measures the benefits of positive emotions for your heart and your immune system. You will also gain experience using lab-tested tools and practices geared toward helping you discover all that life can be.
Register now to learn how positive emotions drive a positive psychology that can boost your and others’ energy, connections, and health, even during trying times.”
Better Leader, Richer Life
Taken from Coursera About This Course:
“Life is a zero-sum game, right? The more you strive to win in one dimension (such as your work or school), the more you have to sacrifice in the other dimensions (family, community, and the private self). Described in the best-selling, award-winning book Total Leadership: Be a Better Leader, Have a Richer Life (Harvard Business, 2008) and in the soon-to-be published Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life (Harvard Business, 2014), this course teaches you a proven method that shows how you don’t always have to make trade-offs between life’s most important domains, and certainly not as often as you think. Nor should you! A trade-off mindset makes people feel all manner of stress – unfocused, resentful, and overwhelmed. It hurts those you care about and prevents you from performing effectively to produce results that matter in every part of your life.
In this course you learn how to articulate your values and personal leadership vision, cultivate supportive relationships with people who matter most in all parts of your life, and continually experiment with how you get things done to better align your actions with your values — and so produce positive sustainable change. This step-by-step method for pursuing what professor Stew Friedman calls “four-way wins” has enabled people all over the world to become more successful and satisfied leaders in all parts of life: work (or school), home, community, and the private self (mind, body, and spirit).”
Here are just a few Positive Psychology News articles introducing Dr. Fredrickson and Dr. Friedman:
Yeager, J. (2008). Getting more of what you want with 4-way wins.
Comtois, K. (2013). Integration is better than balance.
Britton, K. (2014). Think of it as an experiment.
Skinner, A. (2013). The sheer complexity of love.
Polly, S. (2013). How love creates health.
Levy, A. (2009). Positivity by Barbara Fredrickson (Book Review).
