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.

More recently, I developed The Happiness Lab, a podcast that has been downloaded more
than 8.5M times since its launch in September 2019 and has been a mainstay on the Apple
Podcasts top shows chart.  The show takes through the latest scientific research and
shares surprising and inspiring stories that will forever alter the way you think about
happiness. 
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