Open Yale Courses

Overview:

The last lecture in the course wraps up the discussion of clinical psychology with a discussion of treatment efficacy. Does therapy actually work? Professor Bloom summarizes the different types of influences that clinical interventions might have on people who receive therapy.

Professor Bloom ends with a review of one of the most interesting research topics in "positive psychology," happiness. What makes us happy? How does happiness vary across person and culture? What is happiness for? Students will hear how the most recent research in psychology attempts to answer these questions and learn how people are surprisingly bad at predicting what will make them happiest.

Reading assignment:

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience." In The Norton Psychology Reader. Edited by Gary Marcus. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006. pp. 210-222

Sapolsky, Robert M. "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: An Updated Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping." In The Norton Psychology Reader. Edited by Gary Marcus. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006. pp. 223-232

Class lecture: Some copyright-protected content has been excluded from this lecture.

Resources:

PowerPoint slides from screen - Lecture 20 [PDF]
Due to copyright restrictions, certain content has been removed from the PowerPoint slides.