好几年没有在 Coursera 上听课了。今天是偶然的机会，我在重新听「好和弦」讲流行抒情乐钢琴伴奏之后，又去这个视频里的主唱 JR 的 YouTube 频道看到他在三天前更新的视频介绍了这个耶鲁大学最受欢迎的课程：The Science of Well-Being, by Laurie Santos。
以下摘自《纽约时报》今年 1 月底的报道：
Students have long requested that Yale offer a course on positive psychology, according to Woo-Kyoung Ahn, director of undergraduate studies in psychology, who said she was “blown away” by Dr. Santos’s proposal for the class.
本科生心理研究主任 Woo-Kyoung Ahn 表示，长期以来，学生们一直要求耶鲁开设一门积极心理学课程。她说，桑托斯博士提出开设这门课程时，她「特别高兴」。
Administrators like Dr. Ahn expected significant enrollment for the class, but none anticipated it to be quite so large. Psychology and the Good Life, with 1,182 undergraduates currently enrolled, stands as the most popular course in Yale’s 316-year history. The previous record-holder — Psychology and the Law — was offered in 1992 and had about 1,050 students, according to Marvin Chun, the Yale College dean. Most large lectures at Yale don’t exceed 600.
安博士等管理人员预计这门课的选修人数会很多，但谁也没预料到会这么多。「心理学与美好生活」这门课目前有 1182 名本科生选修，成为耶鲁大学 316 年历史上最受欢迎的课程。耶鲁学院的院长 Marvin Chun 表示，此前的纪录保持者是 1992 年推出的「心理学和法律」课程，约有 1050 名学生选修。耶鲁的大多数大型课程的选修人数都不超过 600 人。
Yale’s Most Popular Class Ever: Happiness
耶鲁史上最受欢迎课程：快乐
Google 了一下发现这门课已经上线 Coursera（《纽约时报》今年 1 月底报道这门课的时候还只是说很快就会上线）。最近几年觉得国内上 Coursera 的网络状况真的不太好，当然我也不是随时都在测试，毕竟试过几次感觉很糟糕之后就不会太有动力去听课了。但今天的网络效果很好，不知道是不是最近用了另一家代理服务……
我自己对积极心理学（positive psychology）一直比较感兴趣，但也有好几年没有继续阅读这方面的内容了，希望这门课能带给我新的收获吧，积极心理学对个人幸福感的研究在我的哲学里是一块非常重要的基础内容。
附一封 Santos 老师的欢迎信：
Dear Learner,
Congratulations on taking part in this journey! Over the next several weeks, we’ll explore what new results in psychological science teach us about how to be happier, how to feel less stressed, and how to flourish more. We’ll then have a chance to put these scientific findings into practice by building the sorts of habits that will allow us to live a happier and more fulfilling life.
In Spring 2018, I taught “Psychology and the Good Life” for the first time. I created this Yale course because I was worried about the levels of student depression, anxiety, and stress that I was seeing as a Professor and Head of College at Yale. I originally developed this course to teach Yale students how the science of psychology can provide important hints about how to make wiser choices and how to live a life that’s happier and more fulfilling. Since I’m not an expert on positive psychology, I began by learning more about this topic, diving into the work of pioneering scientists like Martin Seligman, Ed Diener, Barbara Fredrickson, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Daniel Gilbert, Robert Emmons, and others. I also learned more about work in social psychology and behavior change, including work by scholars such as Liz Dunn, Mike Norton, Nick Epley, Gabriele Oettingen, and others. The Yale course was my attempt at synthesizing work in positive psychology along with the science of behavior change. My goal was to present these scientific findings in a way that made it clear how this science could be applied in people’s daily lives.
When I first developed the class, I had no idea it would become the most popular class ever taught at Yale University. The Yale class was featured in both the national and international news media, and I was flooded with requests from people around the world to find a way to share the content of this Yale class more broadly.
This Coursera class is an attempt to do just that. My goal is to share the insights from that popular Yale class with learners far beyond Yale. To make the lectures feel more intimate, we filmed at my home in one of Yale’s residential colleges with a small group of Yale students in the audience. I hope you’ll enjoy this more personal format, which allows you to hear the sorts of questions Yale students had about the material and how they applied the science in their daily lives. We understand that many of you taking the course are not currently college students, but we hope you see yourselves as though you are part of this virtual classroom.
During this course, you’ll have the opportunity to enhance your own well-being by implementing a few simple research-based methods to your own life.
I am thrilled to share this information with a wider audience. As you go through the lessons please share your feedback with the course team! You can direct item-specific feedback via content flags and general course feedback in the Discussion Forums or in the post-course survey when you complete the course.
Sincerely,
Laurie