PSY-30096 - Happiness and Wellbeing: Social Scientific Approaches
Coordinator: Alexandra Lamont Room: DH1.86 Tel: +44 1782 7 33323
Lecture Time: See Timetable...
Level: Level 6
Credits: 15
Study Hours: 150
School Office: 01782 733736

Programme/Approved Electives for 2022/23

None

Available as a Free Standing Elective

No

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2022/23

Does money make you happy? Is music the cure to a bad mood? Can laughing reduce stress? Is it better to help other people, or to undertake thrill-inducing activities like jumping out of aeroplanes, to alleviate the boredom of work? Can work itself be a pleasurable activity?
This module looks at ways of increasing your understanding of your own happiness and wellbeing, and understanding more about how those around you might be able to do the same. As an interdisciplinary module it will introduce you to the theories and philosophical foundations of approaches to happiness and wellbeing from across the social sciences. You will also encounter cutting-edge research in a range of areas: indicative topics include social relationships, motivation, community engagement, emotions, and wellbeing in the workplace. The module consists of a series of weekly seminars on a range of different topics related to wellbeing, and a set of mini-interventions where you will put these ideas into practice through a series of exercises and reflect on how these change the way you think. You will also design, conduct, analyse and write up your own independent exercise to study a specific aspect of your own wellbeing, relating this to some of the theoretical approaches.

Aims
To enable students to engage with high-level theory and practical applications of approaches to happiness and wellbeing across the social sciences;
To support students through a practical project which will increase their understanding of their own wellbeing as well as that of others;
To deliver high quality cross-disciplinary research-led teaching.

Talis Aspire Reading List
Any reading lists will be provided by the start of the course.
http://lists.lib.keele.ac.uk/modules/psy-30096/lists

Intended Learning Outcomes

critically discuss contemporary social scientific research on happiness and wellbeing, and explain key topics and concepts within this field: 1
reflect on how theory and research in happiness and wellbeing apply to their own life situation and that of those around them: 1
review and evaluate the range of theoretical foundations informing contemporary research on happiness and wellbeing, and place their own project work within this: 1
design and execute a small-scale research study which addresses a given research question: 1
report the results of social-scientific research using appropriate conventions: 1
communicate complex ideas in writing: 1

Study hours

Attendance at seminars: 12 hours
Preparation and follow up asynchronous work in between sessions: 38 hours
Design, conduct, analyse and report individual project: 100 hours

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment

1: Individual Report weighted 100%
Practical report on exercise designed to increase awareness of wellbeing
Students will undertake an independent exercise, building on the tools introduced to them through the module, which aims to improve their understanding of their own levels of happiness and/or wellbeing in a given area of their lives. They will collect data on themselves, analyse this and write it up as a report. The report will be prefaced by around 500 words of reflection on the in-module intervention activities to set the scene for the project. The report should be a maximum of 4,000 words (suggested range 3000-4000 words) including this opening section. Students will not be penalised for slightly shorter reports which meet all the criteria.