Yale University - Psychology 231 - Research Methods in Happiness
Dr. June Gruber - Yale Psychology - Research Methods in Happiness - Psych 231

Calendar

Thursdays, 9:25-11:15 (Lecture), 1:30-2:30 or 2:30-3:30 (Lab)


Location: Kirtland 207 (Lecture), Kirtland B01F (Lab)

Date Topic Readings

Week 1:
08/30

INTRODUCTION
What is happiness?

Lecture
» Course overview, enrollment
» Defining happiness

Lab
» Exercise: Big 3 Empirical Questions
» Research Project: Group Project Ranking
» Lab Tour & Keys

Required
» Buss. (2000). The evolution of happiness.
» Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi. (2000). Positive psychology: An introduction.
» Fredrickson. (2003). The value of positive emotions.

Optional
» Nozick. (1989). The examined life (ch. 10: happiness).

Week 2:
09/06

RESEARCH ETHICS
How to conduct research ethically?

Lecture
» Conducting Research: Yale IRB

Lab
» Statistics quiz
» HSC/HIC Ethics quiz (finish)

Required
» Doing Psychology Experiments. How to be fair with participants (pp. 68-86)
» Doing Psychology Experiments. How to do basic statistics (pp. 310-324).

Optional
» Lyubomirsky. How of Happiness, Ch 1
» Goodwin. Statistical analysis (pp. 141-165).
» APA Ethics Code

Week 3:
09/13

EXPERIENCING HAPPINESS:
Self-Report Instruments
How to report happiness?

Lecture
» Self-report instruments, psychometrics
» Reading summary overview
» Research Project: Meet & Greet Partners

Lab
» Qualtrics scale programming, data collection, & analysis

Required
» Lyubomirsky & Lepper. (1999). A measure of subjective happiness: Preliminary reliability and construct validation.
» Buhrmester, Kwang & Gosling. (2011). Amazon's mechanical turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high quality data?
» Pennebaker et al.(2007). Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC-2007): Operator's manual.

Optional
» Lyubomirsky. How of Happiness, Ch 2
» Gosling et al.(2004). Should we trust web-based studies?
» Kashdan.(2004). The assessment of subjective well-being.

Week 4:
09/20

EXPERIENCING HAPPINESS:
Experience Sampling & Diary Methods
Happiness: the real world?

Lecture
» Daily Diaries
» ESM
» DRM

Lab
» ESM Data Collection

Required

*RS DUE [Cohn et al., 2009]*

» Cohn et al. (2009). Happiness unpacked: Positive emotions increase life satisfaction by building resilience.
» Scollon, Kim-Prieto & Diener (2003). Experience sampling: Promises and pitfalls, Strengths and weaknesses.
» Kahneman et al. (2004). A survey method for characterizing daily life experience: The Day Reconstruction Method.

Optional
» Lyubomirsky. How of Happiness, Ch 3
» Goetz et al. (2010). Antecedents of everyday positive emotions: An experience sampling analysis.
» Feldman-Barrett & Barrett (2001). An introduction to computerized experience sampling in psychology.

Week 5:
09/27

NEUROSCIENCE OF HAPPINESS
Intro to Affective Neuroscience

Your brain on happiness?

Lecture (MEETS 9:00am MRRC)
» fMRI & MRI

Lab
» MRRC Tour & fMRI Study Demo
» Research project: Creating project outline

*RS DUE [ARTICLE #1]*

Required
» Johnstone, Kim, & Whalen. (2009). Functional magnetic resonance imaging in the affective and social neurosciences.
» Burgdorf & Panksepp. (2006). The neurobiology of positive emotions.
» Kringelbach & Berridge. (2010). The functional neuroanatomy of pleasure and happiness.

Optional
» Lyubomirsky. How of Happiness, Ch 4
» LeDoux. (1995). Emotion: Clues from the brain.
» Berridge & Robinson. (2003). Parsing reward.

Week 6:
10/04

ATTENTION TO HAPPINESS
Eye-Tracking Methodology

Is happiness in the eye of the beholder?

Lecture
» Eye-Tracking

Lab
» Eye-tracking exercise
» Research project: Prepare group presentation (4 parts of project: Intro, Methods, Results, Discussion)

*RS DUE [ARTICLE #2]*

Required
» Isaacowitz. (2005). The gaze of the optimist.
» Wallinger & Isaacowitz. (2008). Looking happy: The experimental manipulation of a positive attention bias.

Optional
» Stanners et al. (1979). The pupillary response as an indicator of arousal and cognition.
» Salvucci & Goldberg. (2000). Identifying fixations and saccades in eye-tracking protocols.
» Isaacowitz et al. (2008). Looking while unhappy: Mood-congruent gaze in young adults, positive gaze in older adults.

Week 7:
10/11

PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY OF HAPPINESS
Conceptual Foundations

Blood, sweat, and tears??

Lecture
» Overview of Autonomic Nervous System
» Autonomic Nervous System & Emotion
» Research Project: Methods Drafts

Lab
» Psychophysiology acquisition

*RS DUE [ARTICLE #3]*

Required

Required
» Cacioppo & Tassinary (1990). Psychophysiology and psychophysiological inference
» Kreibig (2010). Autonomic nervous system activity in emotion: A review.

Optional
» Lyubomirsky. How of Happiness, Ch 5
» Curtin, Lozano, Allen. (2007). The psychophysiological laboratory.
» Ekman et al. (1983). Autonomic nervous system activity distinguishes among emotions.

Week 8:
10/18

PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY OF HAPPINESS
Cardiovascular System Pt I

Is goodness located in the heart?

Lecture
» ECG, HR, HRV/RSA, PEP, CO
» Research Project: Introduction drafts, Set Office Hour Time for Data Analysis

Lab
» Cardiovascular data analysis (HRV)

*PROJECT: METHODS DRAFT DUE (Sun 10/15)*

Required
» Berntson, Quigley, & Lozano. (2007). Cardiovascular psychophysiology.
» Shiota et al. (2011). Feeling good: Autonomic nervous system responding in five positive emotions.
» Berntson et al. (1993). Respiratory sinus arrhhthmia: Autonomic origins, physiological mechanisms, and psychophysiological implications.

Optional
» Lyubomirsky. How of Happiness, Ch 6
» Cacioppo et al. (1997). Psychophysiology of emotion.

NO CLASS OCT 25 - HAPPY FALL BREAK!

Week 9:
11/01

PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY OF HAPPINESS
Electrodermal system

Physiological arousal = happiness?

Lecture
» GSR principles, SCL, SCR/NSCR
» Research Groups: Results Data Analysis

Lab
» Collect & analyze GSR data
» Conference poster guidelines

*PROJECT: INTRO DRAFT DUE (Sun 10/28)*

Required
» Dawson, Schell & Filion (2007). The electrodermal system. Handbook of psychophysiology.
» Fowles. (1981). Publication recommendations for electrodermal measurements.

Optional
» Lyubomirsky. How of Happiness, Ch 7
» Demaree et al. (2004). Behavioral, affective, and physiological effects of negative and positive emotional exaggeration.
» Gendolla & Krusken (2001). The joint impact of mood state and task difficulty on cardiovascular and electrodermal reactivity in active coping.

Week 10:
11/08

PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY OF HAPPINESS
Blood flow and temperature

Happiness heating up?

Lecture
» Skin temperature
» Vasoconstriction & vasodilation

» Research Groups: Discussion Drafts

Lab
» Collect & analyze SKT/FPLE data
» Research project: Go over papers & posters

*PROJECT: RESULTS DRAFT DUE (Sun 11/04)*

Required
» Swain & Grant. (1989). Methods of measuring skin blood flow.
» Levenson. (2003). Blood, sweat, and fears: The autonomic architecture of emotion.
» Mauss et al. (2005). The tie that binds? Coherence among emotion experience, behavior, and physiology.

Optional
» Lyubomirsky. How of Happiness, Ch 8
» MacFarlang. (1985). Relationships of skin temperature changes to emotions accompanying music.

Week 11:
11/15

SHARING HAPPINESS
Dyadic interaction methods

If you're happy then you share it?

Lecture
» Dyadic & social interaction paradigms

Lab
» Research Project: Drafting Conference Posters

*PROJECT: DISCUSSION DRAFT DUE (Sun 11/11)*

Required
» Roberts, Tsai, & Coan. (2007). Emotion elicitation using dyadic interaction tasks.
» Gable, Gonzaga, & Strachman. (2006). Will you be there for me when things go right? Supportive responses to positive event disclosures.
» Coan & Gottman (2007). The special affect (SPAFF) coding system.

Optional
» Lyubomirsky. How of Happiness, Ch 9
» Berry & Hansen (1996). Positive affect, negative affect, and social interaction.
» Gottman & Krokoff (1989). Marital interaction and satisfaction: A longitudinal view.
» Yuan et al. (2010). Physiological down-regulation and positive emotion in marital interaction.

NO CLASS NOV 22 - HAPPY BREAK!

Week 12:
11/29

HAPPINESS AND HEALTH
How to cultivate healthy happiness?

Lecture
» Healthy & unhealthy happiness

Lab
» Research project: Conference posters
» Practice Q & A for poster session



*PROJECT: POSTER DRAFT DUE (Sun 12/02, 12pm)*

Required
» Sheldon & Lyubomirsky. (2004). Achieving sustainable new happiness.
» Brown, Ryan, & Creswell. (2007). Mindfulness: Theoretical foundations and evidence for its salutary effects.
» Gruber, Mauss & Tamir. (2011). A dark side of happiness?
» Oishi, Diener, & Lucas (2007). The optimal level of well-being: Can we be too happy?

Optional
» Lyubomirsky. How of Happiness, Ch 10
» Davidson et al. (2003). Alternations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation.
» Online meditation exercises: www.shinzen.com - www.mkzc.org/beginzen.html - www.how-to-meditate.org

Week 13:
12/06

HAPPINESS PRESENTATIONS
Presenting Research to the Public

Time to say goodbye?

Lecture
» Conference Poster Session

Lab
» None.

*PROJECT: FINAL PAPERS DUE (Thurs, 12/06, In Class)*

"Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness"

--John Stuart Mill, Autobiography

News & Events

*ENROLLMENT CAPPED
Enrollment is near full at this point. Sorry. Contact instructor if you have questions.

*FIRST CLASS THIS WEEK!*
Thurs, August 30, 2012
9:25-11:15am
Kirtland Hall 207

*LAB SECTIONS: REQUIRED*
Thursdays 1:30-2:30pm or 2:30-3:30pm
Kirtland Hall B01F
Must Enroll Online (Max. 8 per section)