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Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) now accepting applications

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

I received the following email today (below), and thought people interested in positive psychology might want to know about it if they don’t already. I was involved in a professional development course led by Martin Seligman before the MAPP degree began, and I found him to be an outstandingly engaging speaker with a wealth of knowledge at his fingertips. James Pawelski has a gift of a rare degree of intelligence and practical insight. Students who are able to experience what this program has to offer are fortunate.

Martin Seligman discusses positive psychology with students
Master of Applied Positive Psychology
Dear Authentic Happiness Member:

We are happy to announce that the Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program at the University of Pennsylvania is now accepting applications for the 2010-2011 academic year.

We are looking for the next class to join the more than 190 students who have enrolled
in this extraordinary program in the five years since its inception and who are now applying positive psychology in education, medicine, law, business, psychotherapy, counseling, coaching, consulting, and elsewhere.  Some of our younger students are now enrolled in Ph.D., J.D., or M.D. programs to further their training before engaging in the practice of positive psychology.

Because MAPP is offered on an executive education model, most of our students continue to work full time during the year and commute to Philadelphia – from across the United States and as far away as Mexico, the UK, Sudan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand! – for the on-site classes.  While many students have already earned other master’s degrees or even Ph.D.’s, only a Bachelor’s degree is required for admission.

If you hold at least a Bachelor’s degree (or will complete one this spring), have an excellent academic record, and are interested in learning about positive psychology and its applications from leading researchers and practitioners in the field, we invite you to find out more about our program.  If you think the program may be a good fit for you, we encourage you to submit an application before the deadline of March 1, 2010.

For more information about our program, please visit our website at http://www.pennpositivepsych.org

In addition to general program information, the website contains a link to a recorded Virtual Information Session that features input from administrators, professors, and students of the MAPP program.

Please feel free to pass this message along to anyone else you know who might be interested in this program.

Whatever you choose to do in this New Year, we hope it will be one of authentic happiness for you and yours.

Sincerely,

Marty Seligman
Director
Positive Psychology Center
University of Pennsylvania

James Pawelski
Director of Education and Senior Scholar
Positive Psychology Center
University of Pennsylvania

Penn LPS logo

Positive Psychology online course

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

I’m sometimes asked about Positive Psychology courses – either online courses, or classes in a traditional classroom setting (like at the University of Pennsylvania). Recently someone asked me about whether there were any Positive Psychology classes at Penn (home of the Positive Psychology Center and the “Master of Applied Positive Psychology” graduate degree program) that were open to the general public. I wasn’t aware of any, other than the classes for those accepted into the MAPP degree program, so I called the Positive Psychology Center at Penn to ask.

I was told that there weren’t any available at that time, but was happy to go on a mailing list (something I should start for this blog) to hear about future programs. Well, I just learned that there will be another online course in Positive Psychology this summer, led again by professor Tal Ben-Shahar, whose class on Positive Psychology at Harvard went from 8 students the first year to being the most popular course on campus two years later.

This upcoming class is open-enrollment, and has no pre-requisites. It’s completely online, so anyone in the world with an Internet connection can participate. In fact, people from over 50 countries around the world have already done so. I was part of a similar online / conference call course several years ago, and it was interesting to have participants from all over the U.S. as well as from other countries, even in my own discussion section. I wrote about that course and other programs in a previous post on “Positive Psychology courses.”

Tal Ben-Shahar’s online Positive Psychology course information:

Name: “Foundations of Positive Psychology”

Dates: June 7 – August 27, 2010 (12 weeks)

Tuition cost: $895

School: College of Liberal and Professional Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Registration: Now open

The email I received says:

Examine the history and scientific underpinnings of this intriguing field and learn how its principles have been used to enhance work and home life. This course will blend the rigor of academia and the accessibility of self-help to guide people to lead more satisfying, more meaningful, happier lives.

And goes on…

This course allows you to:

  • Progress at your own pace or follow a weekly schedule.
  • Communicate with the instructor, course facilitators, and classmates via blogs and discussion forums.
  • Join live, interactive events.
  • Create your own social networks.

Exciting features include:

  • High quality streaming video lectures.
  • Twitter-like live discussions with fellow students.
  • Flexibility in the depth and breadth of content explored.
  • Expert researchers and practitioners for instructors and course facilitation

And here are a couple of testimonials from students who’ve taken this online course in the past:

“The course has exceeded my expectations by a long shot! Tal’s lectures are well organized and I especially appreciated the routine grounding of the material in research. I have learned very much about myself and the concepts of Positive Psychology. I genuinely feel the course has changed my life. It has inspired me to enroll in the MPOD program at Case Western this fall!”

-Kevin, Assistant Dean for Planning and Institutional Effectiveness
Doha, Qatar

“It’s one thing to hear of the claims made by Positive Psychology. It’s quite another to have a world renowned expert walk you through the rich research that backs up those claims. Tal connected rigorous science with useful, daily applications of Positive Psychology.”

-Director of Professional Development at an Experiential Educational Institution
Estes Park, Colorado, USA

(Read more testimonials.)

For more information, and for course and registration details, go to U Penn’s Liberal and Professional Studies web site.

Dr. Ben-Shahar has authored several very popular books and taught one of the most popular courses in Harvard University’s history, all on the topic of positive psychology. He consults and lectures around the world to executives in multinational corporations, the general public, and at-risk populations on topics of happiness, self-esteem, resilience, goal setting, mindfulness, and leadership.

Dr. Ben-Shahar is a favorite speaker, and writes in a clear style that is easy to read and apply. He is the author of Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment.

Gratitude may be “the ultimate positive emotion”

Friday, June 26th, 2009

This post is going to be a little more personal. Recently the number of comments on this site has been increasing, and I’ve been responding as appropriate. It’s gratifying to know that there have been more and more people discovering the site, and finding it useful and interesting. But I haven’t actually written a post since a car accident put me on the couch for almost a month. It was a bit of a shock, and it gave me more time to really think. I didn’t come to any firm conclusions, but I felt the need for more exploring. (See my article “Three strategies for being happier at work or school.”) I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Paradoxically, sometimes an unfortunate event can spark the kind of reflection that leads to gratitude, because you realize all the other things that are good about your life. I’ve written more about gratitude on this blog than any other subject so far, but that’s not because of personal taste. Researchers are learning that gratitude is of top importance in their study of the psychology of happiness.

So at the recent First World Congress on Positive Psychology, one of the participants wrote on twitter (him, me):

“Keep hearing the same thing throughout sessions and empirical studies: gratitude may be the ultimate positive emotion.”

(Also see my articles on gratitude: “Eight ways gratitude boosts happiness,” “Gratitude leads to psychological and physical well-being,” and “Gratitude Visit.”)

The subject of gratitude came up for me again recently when I was giving some advice to a PhD student going off to a conference. I know her quite well, so some of my advice was tailored specifically to her, and is not what I’d say to everyone. The more relevant part was:

Although it doesn’t happen often, there is always a possibility, as you obviously know, for someone to ask a question after your presentation which is aggressively challenging to the point of being obnoxious. I know you well enough to know that you would handle such a question very well. But also, if it ever does happen, don’t let it bother you. Many of the others will see such people as unnecessarily adversarial and will tend to want to defend you emotionally in proportion to the aggressiveness, even if they don’t speak up. The person might be upset about something else or may have even had a difficult childhood. It’s possible to be compassionate under such circumstances, and even grateful for one’s own situation. (And I’ll have to remember my own advice next time I talk to a rude customer service agent!)

This got me thinking. You never know what short or long term causes might contribute to someone being obnoxious. They could be in a bad mood for a variety of reasons, but normally it would be because something happened to them that was worse than their expectations, so it’s possible to have sympathy or compassion if you consider what their situation might be. There may be a cause as remote as a defensive style they developed in childhood in response to a perceived threat, perhaps an ongoing one. Even genetic predispositions might be a factor.

Sometimes it can help to know about one of these factors. Steven Covey tells a story about being annoyed that some kids were being unruly on a train and the father wasn’t saying anything. He finally said something to the father, and the father apologized and said they are probably not quite themselves because their mother just died. Covey felt embarrassed and his annoyance immediately evaporated.

Discovering something like this, or even something much more minor, can help one to actually be grateful after such encounters, grateful for one’s own background, experience, or circumstances. Now if we could only have the presence of mind to consider this kind of thing before making assumptions and getting upset!

                  twitter.com/DrSteveWright