Week 1 summary

What is Happiness?
Philosophical and spiritual views on happiness (Dacher Keltner)
Although positive psychology is a relatively new field of study, other thinkers have been
pondering happiness for quite some time. Confucius advocated a kind of dignity or reverence
(jen/ren) as happiness, where you focus on enhancing the welfare of others. Aristotle believed
that happiness is about living a life of virtue, and it can only be judged when looking at your life
as a whole. During the Enlightenment, utilitarianism advocated actions that bring about the
greatest happiness for the greatest number. As a Buddhist, the Dalai Lama preaches equanimity,
compassion, kindness, and detachment to alleviate suffering. In general, the happiness of
Western traditions tends to be more individualistic and high-spirited, while that of the Eastern
traditions is more communal and calm.

How scientists define and measure happiness (Dacher Keltner)

Being “happy” could refer to many things: a sense that our life is going well, a momentary
emotion, a trait we have, or even a sensation. Many scientists focus on the first two aspects: life
satisfaction and positive affect, which combine to form something called "subjective well-being."
To study happiness, researchers can observe our behavioral indicators like facial expressions or
beep us throughout the day and ask how happy we are (experience sampling). Happiness studies
might be cross-sectional - looking at a group of people across a slice of time - or longitudinal -
looking at the same people over time. Scientists also do experiments in the lab to observe how
different factors affect happiness.

“Happiness, the hard way” by Darrin M. McMahon

Before the late 17th century, people thought of happiness as the result of luck or divine favor. In
fact, the word for happiness in every Indo-Europe language comes from the word for luck.
Greco-Roman languages are an exception, but their virtuous happiness (eudaimonia) - complete
with effort, struggle, and possibly pain - looks a lot different from happiness as we understand it
today.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, a kind of happiness revolution took place
Happiness was declared to be natural - a right - and the goal of life to increase pleasure and
decrease pain. But that perspective has some drawbacks - namely, it minimizes the effort that
happiness requires and frustrates us when we feel the normal negative emotions of life. In some
ways, positive psychology is finding a balance between these perspectives and reintroducing the
notions of virtue and effort to our understanding of happiness.

“Is a happy life different from a meaningful one?” by Jill Suttie and Jason Marsh
Psychologists don’t fully understand the relationship between happiness and meaning. On one
hand, the concepts are clearly different. Health, money, and comfort affect happiness but not
meaning. Happiness is often about the present, while meaning encompasses the past, present, and
future. We derive happiness from receiving and meaning from giving. We can generally feel
meaning but not happiness in the face of worry, stress, and anxiety, or through self-expression.
So combining meaning and happiness into one concept is tricky.

On the other hand, separating out the two concepts - say, into “hedonic happiness” and
“eudaimonic happiness” - is also tricky. Meaning can make us happier, and happier people may
be more capable of finding meaning. To say that becoming a parent makes us unhappier yet
gives us more meaning is confusing. There is more work to do in understanding the relationship
between these two concepts.

Misconceptions about happiness (Emiliana Simon-Thomas)

Happiness is not a happy-go-lucky state without negative emotions, where all our needs are met
and we experience constant satisfaction. In fact, extreme positive emotions expressed in the
wrong context, or too much of some positive emotions like pride, can be detrimental. In addition,
there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for happiness.

“Four ways happiness can hurt you” by June Gruber

Positive psychology doesn’t advocate unadulterated happiness all the time, for several reasons.
Intense happiness can be a symptom of mania, a disorder that also inhibits creativity. Barbara
Fredrickson has found that too much positive emotion is associated with inflexibility in the face
of challenges. Extreme happiness can also make us take undue risks, since we focus on the
positive and can miss warning signs. Too much pride, a positive emotion in moderation, is
associated with aggression, antisocial behavior, and less empathy.

Beyond these considerations, happiness isn’t appropriate to every context; negative emotions like
anger, fear, and sadness are normal and appropriate sometimes. And when we set too high of a
standard for happiness, excluding these negative emotions, we often become disappointed when
we don’t meet it. Instead, we should pursue happiness in moderation, in the right context, and
with the acceptance of negative emotions and situations.

Why does happiness matter?

The benefits of happiness (Dacher Keltner)
Happiness is associated with greater longevity - 5-7 years for happiness when you’re young, or
20 months for happiness when you’re older. It’s also associated with better health, from
decreased chronic pain, increased immune activity, and better cardiovascular health to a
decreased likelihood of diabetes, stroke, cancer mortality, and fatal accidents. Happy people have
better social relationships: they have more friends, are judged more warm and intelligent and less
selfish, and are more likely to get assistance and trust. Happy people who get married are less
likely to get divorced and feel more love and fulfillment. Finally, happiness can boost creativity
and innovation for us and our subordinates at work, if we happen to be managers.
“Why be happy?” from The How of Happiness
In addition to the above, happy people are more sociable and energetic, and more charitable and
cooperative. They think more flexibly and with more ingenuity. Happy college freshmen have
higher salaries 16 years later; happy female students are more likely to be married at age 27 and
satisfied in marriage at age 52.

Sonja Lyubomirsky: More or less happy, what’s the difference?

According to research, about 50% of our happiness is accounted for by genetics, 10% by life
circumstances, and 40% by intentional activity. The 40% is what we should focus on changing,
by cultivating relationships and philanthropy, optimism, savoring and mindfulness, physical
activity, spirituality, and goal pursuit.

Why study happiness? (Dacher Keltner)

Americans need to learn about happiness more than ever, for several reasons. We are becoming
more lonely: we have fewer close friends, and 1/4 of us have no close friends. Loneliness
increases stress, affects our health and sleep, and makes us unhappier. We’re becoming more
narcissistic, which goes hand in hand with less empathy for others. Inequality is also increasing,
as the top 1% of society experiences large growth.

Happiness practice #1: Three good things

To be happier, spend 10 minutes every night remembering three good things that happened
during the day. For each thing, write a title, details about the event (including how you felt then
and now), and what caused it. This activity teaches us to seek out and savor positive things, and
it’s been shown to increase happiness up to six months later.

What's joy got to do with it?

Positive emotions open our mind (Barbara Fredrickson)
Positive emotions open our hearts, minds, and perspectives. They cause us to think more broadly,
seeing global differences and similarities. In fact, people experiencing positive emotions actually
expand their field of vision, looking at the background as well as the foreground. This allows us
to see more possibilities and be more creative. Physicians experiencing positive emotion, for
example, make better medical decisions. We also become more trusting and come up with better
solutions to negotiations.

Positive emotions transform us (Barbara Fredrickson)

According to Barbara Fredrickson, positive emotions may even affect us on a biological level,
the level of cell renewal. To increase positive emotion, she recommends doing loving-kindness
meditation regularly over three months. People who do this experience increased mindfulness
and resilience and better health and relationships.
“A better way to pursue happiness” by Lahnna Catalino
Catalino distinguishes between two different ways to pursue happiness: by striving to feel good
all the time, or by striving to have more positive experiences (“prioritizing positivity”). People
who prioritize positivity try to do more activities they enjoy - monitoring their schedule rather
than their emotions. According to her study of more than 200 adults, people who prioritize
positivity have more positive emotions, fewer negative emotions, more life satisfaction, and
fewer depressive symptoms. But the opposite is true for people who try to feel good all the time.
The upshot? Let go of the constant need for happiness and instead try to organize your week and
your life around positive activities.

Pessimism, myths, and misconceptions about happiness

Sonja Lyubomirsky: Pessimism about pursuing happiness
There are several reasons to believe that we might not be able to change our level of happiness.
First, we all have a genetic set point, which accounts for about 50% of our happiness at any
given time. Happiness seems like a personality trait, and personality traits aren’t generally very
malleable - including extroversion and neuroticism, which are highly linked to happiness and
unhappiness. Finally, hedonic adaptation would suggest that we’ll eventually adapt to any
positive thing that happens in our life and our happiness will return to its former levels.

What gets in the way of happiness? (Emiliana Simon-Thomas)

Although hedonic adaptation is clearly real, we fail to predict how much and how quickly we’ll
adapt to positive and negative circumstances - this is called the "impact bias." As a result, we’re
very poor judges of what will make us happy or unhappy in the future; our “affective
forecasting” is off. We fear breakups, even though people who have experienced them bounce
back; we pursue wealth, when (after a certain amount) it doesn't give us a boost. We buy things,
when material purchases actually decrease our satisfaction.

Money and happiness (Dacher Keltner)

Money makes us happier - but only up to a certain point. People in poor countries become
happier when they have more money, but we don’t see much change in happiness as people start
earning more than $75,000 a year. These days, wealth but not happiness is increasing in the
United States, and 37% of the wealthiest Americans are less happy than the average American.

Sources of happiness: A teaser (Emiliana Simon-Thomas)

Exercise, sleep, achievement, and social relationships - but that’s a story for next week.

WEEK 2 SUMMARY

Happiness and Social Connection

Social connection and happiness (Emiliana Simon-Thomas)
Research from across the field of positive psychology has shown how important social
connections are to our happiness. Very happy people have rich relationships and spend little time
alone, talking with friends is one of the happiest activities, and sex and socializing give us a lot
of positive emotion. On the flipside, loneliness is correlated with health problems like
hyperinflammation, decreased immune response, and trouble sleeping, and being excluded by
others creates the same effect in our brains as pain.

“Scratch a happy adult, find a socially connected childhood” by Lauren Klein

One study in New Zealand followed hundreds of people from childhood to age 38 to understand
the link between achievement, social connection, and happiness. Both achievement and social
connection were associated with happiness for kids, but as they reached their later teen years,
social connections became more important. Social connections give us support during challenges
in life, help us see our strengths, and provide meaning.

Why Do Social Connections Foster Happiness?

Why are humans ultrasocial? (Dacher Keltner)
Ultrasociality in humans refers to our caretaking behavior, egalitarian relations, tendency for
forgiveness and reconciliation, coordinated and imitative actions, and monogamy. Yet modern
society is becoming less social in certain respects, evidenced by our higher divorce rates and less
marital satisfaction, increases in loneliness, and fewer close friends.

Causes and consequences of attachment styles (Dacher Keltner)

According to John Bowlby, families become attached to each other thanks to three systems:
reproductive (sex), caregiving (between parents and babies), and attachment (love and
commitment). Taken together, these three systems create “working models” in our brains: deeply
held views about whether other people are trustworthy and how to relate to them.

Bowlby also identified three attachment styles: secure, anxious, and avoidant. People who are
securely attached are loving, warm, and trusting; as a result, they tend to be happier, have more
positive emotions, have more stable relationships, and be optimistic, forgiving, and supportive.
People who are anxiously attached never feel close enough or loved enough. They’ve often
experienced divorce, abuse, or a parent’s death, and they are more prone to depression, drug
abuse, anxiety, and eating disorders. People who are avoidantly attached avoid closeness,
remaining aloof and distant. Anxious and avoidant attachment styles are considered “insecure,”
and we can combat them in the short term by simply thinking about positive relationships we’ve
had, or in the long term by cultivating a relationship with someone who has a secure style.

Attachment, happiness, and the brain (Emiliana Simon-Thomas)

Our attachment style, shaped by our early childhood experiences, affects how oxytocin is
released and used in the brain. The mechanism is something called the “care-nurturance
circuitry,” which controls the production of oxytocin. In comparison to securely attached people,
anxiously attached people have a greater amygdala response to negative feedback and avoidantly
attached people have a lesser response to positive feedback. In other words, insecure attachments
increase the sting of criticism and dampen the thrill of praise.

“How to stop attachment insecurity from ruining your happiness” by Meghan Laslocky
Sometimes psychologists talk about a fourth style of attachment: fearful-avoidant, where we
want to be close but are afraid of being hurt.

To overcome our insecure attachment, we should understand our personal style and consider
seeing a therapist with expertise in attachment. If we’re in a relationship, we should make sure
our partner is securely attached or consider couples therapy if they aren’t, and practice
communicating better. Any movement toward secure attachment has beneficial side effects,
including more generosity, altruism, and compassion.

We’re Built to Connect

The vagus nerve (Dacher Keltner)
The vagus nerve is a mammalian nerve that starts at the top of our spinal cord and runs
downward through the neck muscles we use to nod, make eye contact, and speak. It has
connections to many key physical functions, including our oxytocin networks, immune response,
and inflammation response. It also coordinates the interaction between our breathing and heart
rate and controls many digestive processes. Activity in the vagus nerve is related to feelings of
connection and care, so it activates in response to emotions – responding strongly to empathy
and weakly to emotions like pride. People with lots of vagal activity show more positive
emotion, stronger relationships and more social support, and more altruism.

The science of oxytocin, “the love hormone” (Dacher Keltner)

Oxytocin is a neuropeptide, a sequence of amino acids that affects the brain and organs. It is
increased by touch, and people with a particular gene on their third chromosome produce more
oxytocin. When you give a whiff of oxytocin to people, we show more trust, generosity,
empathy, and ability to read emotions. In fact, giving a father oxytocin will cause his baby to
show increased oxytocin. Giving oxytocin to non-human species increases monogamy and
caregiving.

In general, more oxytocin correlates with a reduced stress response in our hormones,
cardiovascular system, and amygdala. On the positive side, it correlates with secure attachment
and peaceful conflict resolution in romantic relationships.

“Five surprising ways oxytocin shapes your social life” by Jeremy Adam Smith
Oxytocin, produced by mothers during childbirth and breastfeeding, is widely known as the feel-
good hormone. Yet there is a flipside to oxytocin: while it attaches us to some people, it also
makes us exclude others.
Hyped up on oxytocin, we are loyal to our lovers and leery of other potential partners. We’re
transformed into poor winners and sore losers; oxytocin courses through us when we feel envy
during a game or taunt other players – anytime we want something from someone else. Deprived
of oxytocin, we’re more apt to forget negative social encounters, so cruel people can “fool us
twice.”

Oxytocin promotes cooperation, to the extreme – boosting our oxytocin levels makes us more
likely to follow group decisions instead of thinking for ourselves. According to some studies, it
also makes us favor our own group and see it as better than others.

Thankfully, however, we don’t need to be afraid of sci-fi dictators pumping us with oxytocin.
Although it makes us more trusting, we’ll still have doubts and hesitation if the person we’re
dealing with or the message they’re promoting doesn’t seem quite right.

The science of touch (Dacher Keltner)

We are physically built for touch, with dexterous hands and skin that is full of information-
processing neurons and manipulates our immune response.

Touch can be used to communicate emotion – in one study, even a one-second touch on the arm
could communicate emotions like gratitude, fear, and disgust with 50-60% accuracy. We’re
better at differentiating certain emotions when they’re expressed through touch rather than face
or voice. Touching someone creates feelings of reward, reciprocity, safety, soothing, and
cooperation. In certain situations, the touch from a romantic partner is powerful enough to
eliminate our stress response.

Yet our culture is becoming touch-deprived, particularly in the United States. While friends at a
cafe in France or Puerto Rico touch each other over 100 times per hour, we cool Americans
touch each other twice. Many babies died in orphanages before caretakers started holding and
touching them.

To combat this trend, touch therapy is being used in health care and education. It has (almost
miraculously) been shown to increase weight gain in premature babies, reduce depression in
Alzheimer’s patients, make students more likely to speak up, and decrease mortality in patients
with complex diseases.

The voice: A primal way we connect

Finally, our voice is a key tool for connection. We’re able to make more vocal sounds than other
primates – in fact, we can communicate many emotions like interest, disgust, and sadness
without even saying a word (hmm!). Our ears are also specially built for hearing human speech.

Happiness Practice #2: Active listening

One practice that’s been shown to increase happiness is active listening. Take 15-30 minutes a
week to have a conversation with someone you’re close to, and ask them to share what’s on their
mind. As they’re talking, show attentive body language and don’t get distracted or interrupt
them. Make sure you understand by paraphrasing what they’re saying and asking questions. Try
to be empathetic and avoid pronouncing judgments. When they’ve finished talking, share
something yourself.

This technique is especially useful for difficult conversations and showing your support. It can
make your conversation partner feel more understood and improve satisfaction in your
relationship.

Romantic relationships, family, and friendships

Relationships, marriage, and happiness (Dacher Keltner)
Pair-bonding is a human tendency across cultures, but relationships have come a long way in the
past centuries. Economic considerations have given way to love and romance as the deciding
factors in selecting a partner.

Scientists distinguish between desire and love, which can even be observed in primates. Much
like humans, primates express desire through actions like pursing and licking their lips, and love
through open arms and smiles. Love behaviors, but not desire behaviors, coincide with the
release of oxytocin.

Marriage correlates with happiness, but researchers are still trying to untangle whether marriage
makes us happier or happier people get married. Some evidence suggests that it’s actually happy
marriages, not just marriage, that make us happy – and, in fact, unhappy marriages take a huge
toll on kids’ happiness.

Certain demographics of people are more likely to have happy marriages, such as people who are
older, from a higher social class, and not anxious or neurotic. Influential research by John
Gottman and Robert Levenson shows that happy marriage is predicted by the way couples
interact: couples who exhibit contempt, criticism, stonewalling, and defensiveness have a 92%
chance of divorce, while happy couples exhibit humor, appreciation, forgiveness, and emotional
disclosure.

Parenting and happiness (Emiliana Simon-Thomas)

Research on the connection between parenting and happiness is still ongoing. On one side of the
arena, we hear that spending time with our kids is only slightly more fun than housework. On the
other side, we’re starting to hear that parents are slightly happier than non-parents, particularly
right after having their first child.

But the truth is probably more nuanced. Whether we’ll be a happy parent or not may depend on
whether we purposely chose to have kids, and what kind of attachment style we have. And the
happiness of parenting may be more the “meaning” type of happiness and less the “positive
emotion” kind.

“What makes a happy parent?” by Emily Nauman

In fact, many different factors have an effect on whether a particular parent is happy or not.
Parents who are older, male, and securely attached tend to be happier. Parents with trouble-free,
easy-tempered, and older children are as well. And so are parents who have strong social
networks, are married, and have custody of their kids. And don’t forget that happy parents make
for happy children.

How friendships matter for happiness (Dacher Keltner)

Friendships, or alliances with non-kin, have many benefits to our lives. While chimpanzees (and
some humans) use them to gain power, the more civilized among us find practical help,
emotional support, and a sympathetic ear in our friends. Friendship and connection have health
benefits, activating oxytocin, combatting stress, and even increasing lifespan.

“Are some social ties better than others?” by Juliana Breines

Social capital refers to the tangible and intangible benefits we get from our social connections.
But like everything in life, social connections have their drawbacks.

Online contacts – even Facebook friends – can provide advice and emotional support, especially
for the introverts among us. Yet too much focus here can lead to narcissism and loneliness. For
the most benefit, we should look for niche groups online and deliberately try to offer our help to
others.

Professional contacts aren’t just useful for watercooler chit-chat; they also help us find new jobs
and expose us to a larger community of people with diverse ideas and opportunities. As such,
they’re called “bridging capital.” Professional contacts can’t give us intimacy or emotional
support, but Breines reiterates her advice from the online sphere: look for niche groups to join
and offer help to others, and we’ll be happier.

Friends provide us with deeper benefits, including a sense of belonging, visibility, and a chance
to express empathy. The main dangers of friendship are jealousy and dependence: we may
become discouraged or bitter about our friends’ successes, or rely on them too much for approval
and self-esteem. The best way to handle these is to remember that we want our friends to be
happy – don’t we? – and to realize that their success benefits us, too.

Finally, significant others – partners, best friends, or family – provide us with a cornucopia of
mental and physical benefits. They fall under the category of “bonding capital,” providing
support in times of need. The biggest danger here is that we rely on one person too much,
creating unrealistic expectations or dependence. The remedy is to remember to keep cultivating
friendships as well.
Social capital works best when we have a combination of strong and weak ties. That way, our
support system doesn’t collapse if we lose a single node. But each connection takes time and
effort to maintain, so it’s our job to prioritize and know when to say no.

Why cross-group relationships matter for happiness (Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton)

As if we need another reason to get rid of our prejudices, it might just be good for your health.
Prejudiced people get stressed in the presence of people outside their group, but three deep
interactions with “outsiders” is enough to lower stress levels. To become more egalitarian, we
should deliberately expose ourselves to and cultivate friendships with people outside our in-
group.

The Science of Empathy

The science of empathy (Emiliana Simon-Thomas)
There are two types of empathy: affective and cognitive. Affective empathy refers to a feeling or
an action – the way we absorb or imitate the feelings and expressions of others. We begin
mimicking others as infants, and continue mirroring expressions and body language into
adulthood. Some studies even suggest that mimicry helps us understand what emotions other
people are feeling. Affective empathy may be facilitated by mirror neurons, which are motor
neurons that fire even when we’re just watching other people move (although there is some
controversy about whether they affect emotions, as well).

Cognitive empathy refers to a thought – the ability to understand how people feel and to see
things from their perspective. Cognitive empathy involves broader parts of the brain.

Empathic concern can make us happier, as long as it doesn’t turn into empathic distress (the kind
of paralyzing feeling when we become overwhelmed by others’ suffering). In general, empathy
increases the sharing of positive emotions and brings people closer together. And if other people
are empathetic, we get the benefits of their understanding and support when we’re in need.

“The evolution of empathy” by Frans de Waal

Empathy is useful from an evolutionary perspective because it encourages us to care for our
young and work cooperatively in groups. So it should be no surprise that humans aren’t the only
empathetic creatures: researchers have observed empathy in domestic pets as well as apes, who
console fellow apes who are suffering. Over the course of our lifetime, empathy grows from
relatively simple mimicry and transmission of emotions to the more complex ability to take
someone else’s perspective.

Empathy has a role to play in bringing people across the world closer together and reducing
discrimination. But to do that, we’ll have to figure out how to overcome our innate tendencies to
hate our enemies, ignore strangers, and distrust people who are different.

“Six habits of highly empathic people” by Roman Krznaric

We can cultivate empathy by learning and thinking more about the lives of other people. Try
having conversations with strangers and being genuinely curious about how they live. In fact, in
any conversation, make it your goal to understand how the other person is feeling and to express
your own feelings. Challenge yourself to discard prejudices and get to know individuals.
Literally walk in someone else’s shoes and live a day in their life.

To take your empathy to the next level, draw on your fellow human beings’ empathy and lead a
movement to provide aid or reduce discrimination. Go so far as to empathize with your
opponents in order to figure out how to speak to them and change their minds.

WEEK 3 SUMMARY

Compassion and Kindness

Intro to week 3 (Emiliana Simon-Thomas)
Pro-social behaviors and emotions are directed at improving the well-being of others. This week
looks at two of them: kindness and (one of its major motivators) compassion. Why are we
studying kindness in a happiness course? Because various evidence suggests that kindness makes
us happier: it literally activates the brain’s reward circuitry and strengthens our social
connections. We’re happier when we spend money on others vs. on ourself, for example, and
people who volunteer are more satisfied with life and in better health.

The What and Why of Compassion

What is compassion? (Dacher Keltner)
Kindness might be motivated by empathy, gratitude, or a desire for social status, but it might also
be motivated by compassion. Compassion is the feeling of witnessing someone suffering and
wanting to help them. That desire to help distinguishes compassion from empathy and from
mimicry. Compassion is also different from pity, which includes the belief that the person
suffering is inferior to us. Acting on compassion leads to altruism – helping others, even if it
involves sacrifice – but compassion isn’t always acted upon, and altruism can be motivated by
other things. Here’s a little graphic we created that might help:
Various religious traditions emphasize compassion, but where does it come from? Although
many theorists didn’t believe we evolved to be compassionate, Charles Darwin himself thought
that sympathy or compassion was our strongest instinct. He reasoned that compassionate groups
of people would cooperate better and raise more children. Altruism evolved for the same reasons,
and it’s called “reciprocal altruism” when we expect the people we help to help us in the future.

Over time, training in compassion can increase happiness as well as altruism.

“The compassionate instinct” by Dacher Keltner

The same region of the brain activates when we imagine harm being done to others as when
mothers look at their babies – suggesting that compassion may have its roots in our care for
offspring (who are born more premature and dependent than other mammals’). The same brain
region is also associated with positive emotions. Compassion calms our autonomic nervous
system, slowing our heart rate, and can kick off a virtuous circle where compassion stimulates
oxytocin that encourages more compassionate behavior. When we actually reach out and help
others, we have activity in the brain’s reward/pleasure centers (like the caudate nucleus and
anterior cingulate).

We’re hardwired to express compassion through facial expressions and touch. When we feel
compassion, we display a concerned gaze and oblique eyebrows. Keltner’s research has also
shown that a short touch on the arm from a stranger – whom we can’t even see – can convey
compassion quite accurately.

Compared to negative emotions, positive emotions are less genetic and more influenced by our
environment. So parents can try to raise compassionate children by helping them develop a
secure attachment style, parenting with reasoning rather than power, and modeling compassion
themselves.

What’s good about compassion (Emiliana Simon-Thomas)

Compassion has three stages, beginning with empathy. After experiencing the emotions of others
or understanding their perspective, we start to have other feelings. We might feel caring,
distressed, or even annoyed. In the third stage, we form judgments about ourselves, the sufferers,
and the environment that help us decide how to act (see the graphic above).

Compassion makes us happier by many pathways. It creates empathy, improving our social
connections and making us feel more similar to others (particularly vulnerable people). It teaches
us to manage distress: we learn to sit with others’ pain and channel it in a positive direction
toward caregiving. Compassionate people also see themselves as more capable and self-
efficacious, characteristics that are associated with happiness and resilience.

In the body, compassion has a number of physiological effects. It activates empathic and
caregiving circuitry in the brain. It makes us happier by increasing vagal nerve activity and
boosting the reward/pleasure response we get from helping others. It also has lasting stress-
reduction effects, lowering stress response and amygdala activity when we’re confronted with
challenging situations.

“Measuring compassion in the body” by Emiliana Simon-Thomas

Two new studies out of Purdue and UC Berkeley investigated the links between the vagus nerve
and compassion. In the UC Berkeley study, watching compassion-inducing videos did indeed
increase vagal tone. In the Purdue study, kids with more vagus nerve activity or warm,
authoritative parents showed higher focused concentration a year later and more sympathy (as
rated by their parents) three to four years later.

The Kindness-Happiness Loop

The kindness-happiness loop (Dacher Keltner)
Many studies have linked kindness to happiness, health, and a decrease in negative emotions.
Kindness makes us less lonely and less depressed. It strengthens our immune system, reduces
aches and pains, improves our cardiovascular profile, and boosts energy and strength in elderly
people. In fact, people who volunteer live longer, and elderly people who care for others are less
likely to die over a certain period of time.
In one famous study, people who spent $5 or $20 on others were happier at the end of the day,
while people who spent it on themselves got less happy – a finding that is being confirmed
across cultures. If we enroll in a two-month program in loving-kindness meditation, we’ll see an
increase in our daily positive emotions.

“Being kind makes kids happy” by Delia Fuhrmann

One study introduced toddlers to a monkey pet and then distributed treats in various ways.
Observers rated the toddler as happier when giving away one of their treats to the monkey than
giving away a treat the experimenter found or even getting a treat. This suggests that kindness is
innately pleasurable, although it’s possible that these young children have already been taught to
be kind.

Research suggests that the way to raise kind children is not necessarily to reward them for
kindness, which makes them see themselves as doing kind acts for the reward. Instead, parents
should help kids cultivate an internal motivation to be kind.

Sonja Lyubomirsky: Happiness for a lifetime

What’s the best way to boost our happiness with kindness? Pack one day with five acts of
kindness, says Lyubomirsky’s research. (People who spread out five kind acts across a week
didn’t get happier, probably because their kindnesses were less salient.)

Kindness changes the way we see ourselves: we become pillars of generosity, interconnected to
those around us. We start giving people the benefit of the doubt and feel less distressed when we
see suffering, because we’re doing our little part to help. Kindness also helps us make more
friends and become the recipient of others’ kindnesses.

“Kindness makes you happy…and happiness makes you kind” by Alex Dixon
One study showed that doing a daily act of kindness gives us as much of a happiness boost as
doing something new every day. Even remembering a time when we spent money on someone
else can boost happiness, and the happier we are when reminiscing, the more likely we’ll choose
to spend money on others again (when given the option).

Evolutionary roots of kindness (Dacher Keltner)

Besides the fact that kindness propels us to care for offspring and is often reciprocated, evolution
also selected for kindness because it makes us attractive to potential mates. One survey of 10,000
people from 37 countries found that good character/kindness was the most important trait that
attracted people to long-term partners.

Further evidence that kindness is innate can be found in our instinctual reactions. When you
force people to decide in 10 seconds or less how much to give, they give more than when they
have extra time to think about it – suggesting that we have generous intuitions. Even 18-month-
old children, who are relatively unburdened by social norms, show strong tendencies to help
others.

“Is kindness physically attractive?” by Scott Barry Kaufman

Various studies have shown that we find people more physically attractive if we also see them as
likable, familiar, respected, or intelligent - and our evaluations of their attractiveness can change
as we get to know them better.

Biological evidence that kindness fosters happiness. More studies of the brain show a connection
between kindness and happiness. The reward systems in our brain show similar activity when we
win money and when the same money goes to a charity of our choice. When our romantic
partners are receiving electric shocks and we comfort them by holding their arm, the brain’s
reward circuitry also activates. In short, when we give, our brains looks like they are gaining
something – and the pleasure we feel will make us more likely to give in the future.

Happiness Practice #3: Random Acts of Kindness

Follow Lyubomirsky’s suggestion and do five kind things – that you wouldn’t normally do – in a
single day. To maximize the effects, make them all different and take time later to write down
what you did and how you felt. The five kindnesses don’t have to be for the same person, and the
person doesn’t even have to know about it (like feeding someone’s parking meter).

Skeptics and Champions of Compassion and Kindness

Skeptical views on compassion and kindness (Dacher Keltner)
Despite recent scientific evidence for it, our compassionate nature has its critics. Freud believed
that humans only desire sex and destruction, while Machiavelli saw us as fickle, hypocritical,
and greedy beings. Immanuel Kant thought sympathy was a sign of weakness, and Ayn Rand
famously spoke out against altruism.

In addition, our national and global culture is not as compassionate as it could be. Among
industrialized nations, the United States is the only one to punish prisoners with solitary
confinement and has one of the harshest criminal justice systems. Studies show that empathy is
declining among students.

Challenges to compassion and kindness (Dacher Keltner)

Our environment can have a big effect on whether we decide to help others or not. If we’re busy,
we’ve been playing too many violent video games, or the sufferer is outside our group, we’re
less likely to help. We’re also discouraged from lending a hand when it doesn’t seem possible or
our contribution doesn’t seem to matter, such as when lots and lots of people are in need.

“How to increase your compassion bandwidth” by C. Daryl Cameron

Cameron cites a concerning phenomenon: the “collapse of compassion,” how we feel less
compassion for larger groups of people than we do for smaller groups or individuals. The reason
this happens is that we shut off compassion, because we’re afraid of feeling terrible and having
to make big financial sacrifices.

Cameron has looked at different ways to prevent this from happening. In studies, for example,
we can prevent the collapse of compassion by assuring participants they’re not expected to
donate money or by instructing them to fully experience their emotions.

To increase compassion outside the lab, our job is to help people accept their compassionate
emotions and not feel overwhelmed by them. We can do that by making helping easy – like
sending a text message to donate – and making clear the impact of that help. Compassion
training can also reduce our empathic distress and fear of compassion, and promote helping.

“Can fighting poverty make you happy?” by Jill Suttie

Daniel Karslake, creator of the documentary Every Three Seconds about five people fighting
hunger and poverty, shared his insights about helping with Suttie. Helping can start small, and
it’s not necessarily done out of a sense of duty – instead, people simply realize they have the
opportunity to make a difference. Helpers should be aware of what the recipients need, rather
than imposing their views on what would help. And helping can be incredibly rewarding when
we see people transformed from a state of suffering to happiness and gratitude.

Momentous Kindness
Kindness is contagious
As mentioned above, kindness is contagious – it can spread three degrees in a social network to a
third person we don’t know at all. Seeing people be kind or generous makes us more kind or
generous. Being in a group of people who give to charity – like a department at work – makes us
more likely to donate.

“Wired to be inspired” by Jonathan Haidt

Haidt studies “elevation,” the warm and uplifting feeling of seeing someone do something good,
kind, courageous, or compassionate. The most common cause of elevation is seeing someone
help a person in need. What does elevation feel like? We might feel a pleasant tingling in our
chest, cry, or (for me) get goosebumps. We feel emotionally moved, surprised and stunned.
Elevation induces social feelings, like the desire to be with, love, and help others and the desire
to be closer to the person doing the good deed. Elevation can also reduce cynicism and cause
people to “turn over a new leaf” or vow to become a better person.

Philip Zimbardo: What makes a hero?

Zimbardo defines heroism as altruism at a great personal risk. Heroes are ordinary people, yet
most of us are “reluctant heroes”: we stand by and do nothing. His goal is to understand what
makes a hero by studying the “heroic imagination,” the other-focused way of thinking – “from
‘me’ to ‘we'” – that could make us more likely to be heroic when the opportunity arises.

Philip Zimbardo: The Heroic Imagination Project

Heroism ranges from helping in an emergency or sacrificing for non-family to whistle blowing
and defying injustice. Although heroes are often seen as solitary, heroism actually works best
when we organize networks of people.

Through his research, Zimbardo has identified some of the demographic characteristics of
heroes, which make up 20% of the population. They tend to be city dwellers, educated, male, and
black. Surviving a disaster or trauma makes us three times more likely to be a hero, and one-third
of all heroes are also volunteers.

Zimbardo’s Heroic Imagination Project is trying to figure out how to turn compassion into
heroism. In his eyes, heroism is the antidote to indifference and evil.

“The banality of heroism” by Zeno Franco and Philip Zimbardo

Through decades studying the bad side of human nature, researchers have confirmed the idea of
“the banality of evil.” Ordinary people can become evil in the right (or wrong) circumstances;
there is no clear division between good people and bad people. Experiments like the Stanford
Prison Experiment and the Milgram studies have shown that, in a particular environment, people
adopt the dehumanizing and cruel behavior that is expected of them.

But the real threat to heroism is not evil but indifference. We tell ourselves that heroes are
special – but we are not special, so we can’t be heroes – or that someone else will step in and
help. Franco and Zimbardo are trying to teach people that anyone can be a hero.

A hero is someone on a quest – they’re out to save lives or preserve some noble ideal (such as
justice). They expect to risk their lives or their social standing. Contrary to popular belief,
heroism isn’t always a grand gesture in the heat of the moment; sometimes, heroism can be
ongoing and can consist simply in passive acceptance – like Socrates dying for a cause.

What makes a hero? The same situations that bring out evil also tend to bring out heroism, like
the Holocaust. Heroes have certain traits of character, like internal strength and self-assurance –
they’re willing to stand against the crowd. Often, they have a strong sense of morality that
prevents them from doing nothing in the face of injustice (what the authors call a “moral tickle”).

To promote heroism in our society, we should stop using the word “hero” to describe everyone
we look up to and reserve it for true cases of heroism. We should cultivate stories of heroism and
spread them through media like movies and video games. As individuals, we should be on the
alert for opportunities for heroism and avoid talking ourselves out of it by rationalizing why we
can’t help or fearing the negative consequences. We have to believe that heroism is the right
choice, and it will ultimately be recognized and celebrated.
WEEK 4 SUMMARY

Cooperation & Reconciliation

Roadmap for week 4 (Emiliana Simon-Thomas)
Cooperation, one of this week’s themes, means working together toward a common goal for
mutual benefit. We’ll look at how we evolved to cooperate and how cooperation is more intrinsic
to human beings than competition.

The evolution of cooperation (Dacher Keltner)

It make sense that we evolved to be cooperative because of its benefits for groups and for
individuals. Even today, neighborhoods with more social cohesion and cooperation (called
“collective efficacy”) have better child health and life expectancies, greater high school
graduation rates, and less social disorder. In contrast, non-cooperative or “Machiavellian” people
feel more isolated, more stressed, and less happy. And when we look at our primate relatives, we
see that they in fact are quite cooperative.

The prisoner’s dilemma game, where two players choose to either defect or cooperate and get
punished accordingly, is a microcosm of society. While an individual can get the best outcome
by defecting when their partner cooperates, this strategy obviously wouldn’t work if everyone
used it. Ideally, everyone would cooperate and achieve the greatest collective good. On the
individual level, the best strategy is called “tit for tat”: we start cooperative then mirror our
partner’s actions. This strategy is forgiving and transparent, but it prevents us from becoming a
sucker.

“Birds do it. Bats do it” by Jeremy Adam Smith and Alex Dixon
Cooperation is not just part of human nature, but also animal nature and nature itself.
Multicellular organism are simply cells cooperating. Ants coordinate their route in and out of the
nest to avoid traffic jams. Big fish let little fish clean out their mouths in exchange for a snack.
Birds gang up to protect each other from predators – but only if the bird in danger has come to
their aid before. Four out of five bats would die if they didn’t share food, which they do – as long
as the other bats share with them. All these behaviors should inspire us to nurture our own
cooperative natures.

Neuroscience of cooperation (Emiliana Simon-Thomas). Cooperation – and the lack of it – has a

distinctive effect on the brain. Cooperation activates our reward-processing and pleasure centers.
When cooperation breaks down, we feel displeasure and our amygdala gets activated.

Some brain areas, like the insula, activate when we cooperate or compete with others –
suggesting they deal with our connection and attunement to other people. Other prefrontal areas
activate only during competition, when we may need more brainpower for decision-making.
The “dark side” of the neuroscience of cooperation is that people who perform “altruistic
punishment” – against non-cooperators – have activation in the same reward-processing areas,
the striatum and medial prefrontal cortex. In both of those cases (cooperation or punishing non-
cooperators), the social order is being upheld.

“The cooperative instinct” by Emiliana Simon-Thomas

Another game that gives us insights into our cooperative nature is the Public Goods Game, where
we start with a certain amount of money, we put part of it into a common pool, the common pool
gets doubled, and the money is redistributed. When players make their decisions in under 10
seconds – whether they do it naturally or they’re forced to – they give more money and thus act
more cooperatively. Players also contribute more if they’re primed to think about how intuition
helped them in the past or reasoning failed them. This suggests that we have cooperative instincts
but may reason ourselves into being more self-interested.

Peacemaking and Reconciliation

Conflict and peacemaking (Dacher Keltner)
Conflict among people is inevitable, as anyone with children, spouses, or parents can attest to.
But we’ve actually evolved sophisticated ways to kickstart the process of reconciliation. Our
facial expression of embarrassment (discussed below) actually makes people like, forgive, trust,
and give more resources to us. We see similar behavior among primates, who – instead of
avoiding each other after a fight – make peacemaking gestures that lead to physical contact and
grooming.

“Peace among primates” by Robert M. Sapolsky

Some primate species are violent and others are more peaceful, and the difference seems to lie in
their nature and their environment. Peaceful species tend to have more abundant food supplies,
less sex differentiation, monogamy, and shared parental responsibilities.

But these tendencies aren’t rigid. A violent baboon will learn to be more peaceful in just an hour
if we drop it among peaceful baboons. If we raise two groups together, naturally violent
macaques become reconciliatory and stay reconciliatory even if we put them back with their own
group. A group of baboons that lost its most aggressive males developed a more peaceful culture,
which persisted even when the males left and other males arrived.

What does that mean for humans? We’ve evolved to be cooperative but very wary of outsiders,
but that doesn’t mean we can’t change. Our amygdala may naturally activate when we see people
of other races, but we can stop that by regularly spending time with other races or striving to see
people as individuals.

“Born to blush” by Dacher Keltner

 Our embarrassed facial expression has many components that help us move past whatever gaffe
we’ve committed. When we’re embarrassed, we turn our heads down and to the side, exposing
our vulnerable necks and showing weakness and humility in a way similar to animal gestures of
appeasement. That movement breaks our eye contact with the other(s) and serves to cut off the
previous interaction and start a new one. We also smile, but in a way that’s similar to primates’
“fear grimace” or bare-teeth grin, showing inhibition. We may look up furtively a few times and
touch our faces, something primates do as well.

All this communicates respect for others and acknowledgement of our transgression, and it helps
the two parties make peace and become cooperative again – which is good for everyone in the
long run.

Introduction to apology (Emiliana Simon-Thomas)

How else do we resolve conflicts other than looking embarrassed? We apologize, of course.
Research has shown that apologies increase psychological health and positive emotion in
victims, while decreasing negative emotions. They also benefit the apologizer, who similarly
sees an increase in psychological health, positive emotion, and (if they’re a leader) authentic
pride. An apology will always generate some negative emotion for the apologizer, but that’s part
of the journey to greater well-being.

An effective apology has four components:

 We express remorse, shame, or humility in recognizing how the victim suffered.

 We acknowledge the specific offense and accept responsibility – that includes elaborating
on who was the offender, who was offended, and what the offense was.

 We show empathy and offer an explanation for why we did what we did. Often we might
explain why our actions weren’t intentional or personal in order to convince the victim that it
won’t happen again.

 We offer compensation or reparation.

This kind of apology satisfies the victim’s psychological needs for dignity, shared values, and an
opportunity to express their feelings. It convinces the victim they weren’t responsible and that it
won’t happen again. It also creates reparative justice by planning some punishment for the
offender and some compensation for the victim.

“Making peace through apology” by Aaron Lazare

The step where apologies often break down is in acknowledging the offense, because the
offender doesn’t get specific enough. But if done right, apologies make it easier for the victim to
forgive. Victims may even accept some blame and end up closer to the offender. When an
apology isn’t forthcoming, it might still make sense to forgive – which is different from
reconciling – because of the benefits for the forgiver.

The Science of Forgiveness

Jack Kornfield on what forgiveness means
Many common views of forgiveness miss the mark. Forgiveness doesn’t mean condoning or
forgetting; rather, it involves accepting negative emotions like betrayal, anger, grief, or fear. It
doesn’t minimize the offense, and we may still resolve to never suffer the same way again. It’s
something we do for ourselves, so it may not even involve contact with the offender. And it’s a
very profound and challenging process that doesn’t happen overnight.

“The forgiveness instinct” by Michael E. McCullough

People say revenge is human nature, and they are only half right – because so is forgiveness.
Revenge is found in nearly all cultures, and it serves a purpose to discourage aggression and
prevent free riding.

But forgiveness is also near-universal across cultures because of the purpose it serves: bringing
people together. It allows groups to stay cohesive and cooperative, which makes them more
likely to survive.

So what determines which side of our nature shows its face? Mostly our environment. If we’re in
a place with crime, disorder, and no rule of law, we’re more likely to be vengeful. But if our
environment has stable judicial institutions and norms of reconciliation and cooperation, we’re
more likely to be forgiving. We can also transmit forgiveness through cultural vehicles like
religion, the arts, media, and politics.

Intro to the science of forgiveness (Dacher Keltner)

Forgiveness occurs when we are able to accept what happened, reduce our desire for revenge,
avoid the offender less, and feel more compassion for them. It’s not reconciliation for the sake of
reconciliation or taking away responsibility from the offender; in fact, it can be something we do
for our own well-being. Forgiveness is linked to more life satisfaction, more positive emotions,
less negative emotions, less physical symptoms of illness, and less fight-or-flight response.
Couples who forgive are happier as many as 9 weeks later.

“The new science of forgiveness” by Everett L. Worthington Jr.

Forgiveness is actually good for our health: people who forgive have less stress and less hostility
(a marker of Type A behavior, which is a risk factor for heart disease). This is particularly true of
older people, who are more likely to forgive and experience benefits like less nervousness,
restlessness, and sadness. Not forgiving may disrupt the way our bodies produce hormones or
respond to bacteria, infections, and other health challenges.
Forgiveness is also good for our relationships. It correlates with happier and more committed
relationships, particularly in marriages. That doesn’t mean forgiveness is easier in close
relationships, but it helps if our partner seems trustworthy and willing to sacrifice for us. In
contrast, people who don’t forgive experience more conflict, negative emotions, and
unwillingness to compromise. When they don’t forgive, partners can become competitive and
start to “keep score,” which is extremely detrimental to the relationship.

So how do we get to a place of forgiveness, with its benefits to self-esteem, mood, and
happiness? Besides forgiveness training, we can summon our hearts (or, more accurately, our
brain’s limbic system) to be empathetic, rather than looking at the issue from the perspective of
fairness and rationality. And we can accept that forgiveness takes time.

Frederic Luskin on wanting “yes” and getting “no”

“Forgiveness is the ability to make peace with the word no,” says Luskin. We feel resentment
when reality doesn’t meet our expectations, but again we have a choice: to accept the past or not.
The healthy decision is to continue our lives without feeling like a victim. That might mean
forgiving whoever caused us wrong, as well as forgiving ourselves for the way we responded.

“The choice to forgive” by Frederic Luskin

Luskin is the director of the Stanford Forgiveness Projects, which do research and offer classes
on forgiveness. They’ve discovered that forgiveness can reduce stress, anger, depression, and
hurt while increasing optimism, hope, compassion, and vitality.

Part of the process of forgiveness involves rejecting our own “unenforceable rules” and creating
“enforceable rules.” Unenforceable rules are desires that we have no control over – such as
wanting other people to be a certain way – while enforceable rules are desires and goals that are
within our control.

The way to become forgiving is to practice it on small harms so that we’ll be more prepared to
forgive when we’re seriously hurt.

“Facing fear, facing forgiveness” by Jill Suttie

The movie Facing Fear is also a movie about forgiveness, starring gay man Matthew Boger and
former neo-Nazi skinhead Tim Zaal, who attacked him when they were teenagers. It’s
calledFacing Fear because the process is scary for both of them. Boger says that part of
forgiveness is letting go of a part of ourselves that we’ve identified with, the part that holds a
grudge and feels resentment.

Happiness practice #4: Forgiving

Robert Enright detailed eight steps to forgiveness, beginning by making a list of people who hurt
you who are worth forgiving. Then, you start with the least painful offense and take some time to
think about how you suffered and how that makes you feel. When you’ve decided to forgive, you
can start to think about the circumstances that led to the offense, including the offender’s
childhood, past hurts, and other pressures they were under. Pay attention to whether you feel
kinder toward the offender and consider giving them a small gift. In the end, you can reframe the
experience and try to find meaning and purpose in what happened.

Once you’re done, rinse and repeat for the more painful offenses on your list, working up to the
most painful. This process has been shown to increase forgiveness and decrease anxiety and
anger.

Building Trust
The science of trust (Dacher Keltner)
Trust is the sense that other people will act on behalf of our interests. Research has shown that
more trusting cultures tend to be happier, but trust of institutions and individuals is declining in
the US. So how do we make people more trusting, besides giving them a whiff of oxytocin?

Touch is a gateway to trust, with its ability to soothe and activate reward circuitry in the brain.
The simple handshake when we meet someone is a gesture of trust. Research has shown that
appropriate touch by teachers of students makes them volunteer to write on the board more, and
(everything else equal) NBA teams who touch each other more win more games.

Language also helps cultivate trust. Our habits of using indirect or polite language build bonds
between people, and negotiators who have a few minutes to communicate come up with better
and more cooperative outcomes. Even little differences can engender more trust: calling the
prisoner’s dilemma the “Wall Street game” or priming players with words related to competition
increases defection, while calling it the “Community game” increases cooperation.

“Brain trust” by Michael Kosfield

Another game that gives us a window into trust is the investor-trustee game, where the investor
gives money to the trustee, it gets tripled, and the trustee decides how much to give back. Players
tend to give away about half of their money and get a similar amount back. But we can increase
trust by having the players play with each other longer, introducing punishments for
untrustworthiness, reminding them of their obligations to each other, or giving the investors
oxytocin. Interestingly, oxytocin makes the investors give more money but not expect more in
return.

John Gottman on the importance of trust

Trustworthiness is the most desirable quality in a romantic partner, and it encompasses qualities
like dependability and honesty. In a romantic relationship, it has many dimensions – we need to
trust that our partner will be faithful, respect us, be there for us when we need them, choose us
over their friends or family, etc.

“Trust and betrayal” by John Gottman

 Gottman identified a “betrayal metric” to measure the lack of trust in a relationship. He had
couples interact and then independently rate their interactions afterward. For couples with less
trust, interactions were more like a zero-sum game – when she rated it well, he rated it poorly,
for example. Astonishingly, higher trust was correlated not just with relationship stability but
also with longevity in husbands.

When trust isn’t there, we see partners using the relationship as a “comparison level for
alternatives” (CL-ALT); they start to think they would be happier with someone else, which
changes behaviors significantly.

Trust is built like a tower of cards, one “sliding door” moment at a time. At many points in a
relationship, we have the choice to connect with our partner or turn away from them – ignoring
their emotions, concealing our own, or not engaging with them. The most trusting couples are
ATTUNEd to their partners: Aware of their emotions, Turning toward them, Tolerating different
views, trying to Understand their partner, Not being defensive, and feeling Empathy.

While it’s critical in relationships, trust is also important on a global scale. Regions of the world
with low trust have lower voting rates, less active parents/schools, less philanthropy, more crime,
lower longevity, worse health, worse academic performance, and more inequality.

WEEK 1

1. How have scientists defined happiness, and what have researchers discovered about the
role happiness plays in physical health, relationships, and psychological well-being?

2. How do positive emotions and one’s sense of meaning relate to happiness?

3. What are some of the challenges and misconceptions people face in pursuing happiness?

WEEK 2

1. What evidence suggests that connections with others are key to happiness? Relevant here
is the evidence indicating the perils of disconnection or isolation.

2. What are the main biological systems that support connecting with others via social
affiliation, the formation of long-term trusting relationship bonds, caregiving, and nurturance
behaviors?

3. What is empathy and what has science discovered about its biological underpinnings?

WEEK 3

1. What are some of the challenges to being compassionate, and why might it be good for
people to be more compassionate?
2. How have scientists shown that kindness relates to happiness?

3. What makes the inclination towards kindness, both across people and within a person,
stronger and more widespread?

WEEK 4

1. What scientific evidence from behavioral, biological, and observational studies supports
the claim that cooperation and reconciliation of conflict are as important to our survival as
competition (i.e., "survival of the fittest")?

2. How do apology and forgiveness relate to happiness, relationship satisfaction, and

physiological metrics of stress and well-being?

3. What inspires trust between people, and what kinds of social experiences or behaviors
foster interpersonal trust?