I had this course on my list of things to try for a long while, until I finally went through it with several people from my local group throughout this year. We used your provided resources (8 sessions, not the official, updated version with 6 sessions). As meeting for this did cause quite a bit of overhead, we mostly went with double sessions, meeting for most of a weekend day to have two sessions with a longer break in between (and then usually a few more hours of casually hanging out afterwards). This way, we overall met 5 times. There was a bit of fluctuation in who attended, but I think we always were between 4 and 8 people. We met at my flat, which is pretty nice and cozy, so I think it was a good place and probably better than some seminar room or so.
Overall, I enjoyed going through the course and was looking forward to the meetups, but I think it’s unlikely it had any outsized impact on our own happiness or our understanding of it (to a degree where it might positively shape our influence on other people’s happiness).
Things I liked:
as I mentioned, it was enjoyable, and a good “excuse” to meet friends in a relaxed setting
it was special enough that we even had a person from 100km away (who doesn’t have their own local group) attend 4 out of the 5 meetups
the effort for me running the sessions was pretty low as far as the course itself goes (I skimmed the slides beforehand, made sure the videos all loaded etc., and that’s about it)
the course sparked some in-depth conversations between us that we possibly wouldn’t have had otherwise, as these topics don’t come up that often during regular local group meetups
the course materials were nicely paced and I liked the variety of it
What I didn’t like:
the materials very often made this implicit jump from correlations to causation, clearly hinting at something being causal when the evidence for that was very thin—naturally, we couldn’t help ourselves but spend a non-trivial amount of our sessions pointing out the many scientifically questionable claims in the materials
actual exercises were fairly limited, most of the course was pretty theoretical and consisted of reading, discussing, and watching videos; I expected a bit more “doing”
as far as our group was concerned, there was hardly any new information. Probably this would be true of many other EA groups as well? So it never felt like we actually learned a lot, and it was more repetition of things we already knew.
Even if moderating the sessions was relatively straightforward and low in overhead, hosting physical meetups is still somewhat demanding, and every session probably still took ~3h of preparation, such as getting groceries and preparing food. But that’s just the “cost” of social gatherings and is most likely worth it. :)
Interestingly, this:
Although we didn’t run any kind of formal experiment, everyone who attended the course recommended it as a valuable exercise. Some attendees reported sharing material with family members and one attendee invited along family members who also found it valuable.
Was very much the opposite for us. My impression is that all participants here thought that content-wise, the course was somewhat disappointing and didn’t really make much of a difference. We still had a good time, but I don’t think any of us would recommend the course materials.
The RCT results you quoted of course also sound very impressive:
Life satisfaction (+1.0) on a scale of 1-10 Reduction in depression by 50% of a standard deviation ...
Assuming these results are indeed close to real (of course, surprisingly large study findings are often subject to regression to the mean upon further examination, but even then, it seems pretty large), I could think of several avenues through which such an effect could occur (without having looked into the study):
course participants in the RCT hadn’t engaged much with science of well-being before, and many of the concepts were indeed new to them
participants perhaps tended to have a limited social circle, and spending these 8 sessions with a group of others helped them find new friends
if they already knew some other participants, the course may have helped build deeper friendship by providing a scaffolding to be vulnerable
for people with mental health struggles, attending the course may have had a similar effect to talk therapy / self-help groups, where the course materials maybe played less of a role than the mere act of talking about your struggles with compassionate others
I think point 2 applied to some participants to a degree, and maybe there was a bit of 3 as well. 1 and 4, I’d say, didn’t really apply to our group.
Overall, as I mentioned, I enjoyed the sessions, and I think the others mostly did as well. We’re probably not notably happier than before. I doubt running this course was very “impactful”, but then again, it probably was impactful in the fuzzy way that our regular local group socials are, by just strengthening the community and making people feel more comfortable around each other. So I certainly don’t regret running this course. As far as recommending it to other groups goes, though, I’d only do that if a group struggles to find topics that excite them, and several members happen to be interested in a course on happiness in particular.
I appreciate that there’s a fair amount of effort in organising the course—thank you for giving it a shot and for sharing your thoughts.
I’ve run this course with friends and acquaintances several times since posting this. Although the content is no longer new, I do find it valuable to be reminded to apply it, and I also find it useful as a social bonding exercise. I do think it tends to increase my happiness, but that the effects fade over time.
Regarding the 4 mechanisms mentioned, I think I believe 4 and 2⁄3 the most. I think the programme, as typically run, would likely select for people who are lonely/going through mental health struggles—people drawn to volunteering to participate in a happiness course will be those who think they need it. I can see the programme being particularly helpful for people going through mental health difficulties, and perhaps of more limited utility for people who are already quite happy.
When I initially ran the course, the participants didn’t know each other very well and I think it was very helpful as a bonding exercise. This may have had less value in your group if you already knew each other quite well?
I do agree that the material tends to present research results somewhat uncritically—this was and has been a common point of discussion for us—and that the material could benefit from being more action oriented. I’ve seen the first session of the newer version of the materials, and it seems more concise and action-oriented: I think they’re shifting more towards trying to cultivate regular habits to increase happiness as opposed to once-off actions.
I had this course on my list of things to try for a long while, until I finally went through it with several people from my local group throughout this year. We used your provided resources (8 sessions, not the official, updated version with 6 sessions). As meeting for this did cause quite a bit of overhead, we mostly went with double sessions, meeting for most of a weekend day to have two sessions with a longer break in between (and then usually a few more hours of casually hanging out afterwards). This way, we overall met 5 times. There was a bit of fluctuation in who attended, but I think we always were between 4 and 8 people. We met at my flat, which is pretty nice and cozy, so I think it was a good place and probably better than some seminar room or so.
Overall, I enjoyed going through the course and was looking forward to the meetups, but I think it’s unlikely it had any outsized impact on our own happiness or our understanding of it (to a degree where it might positively shape our influence on other people’s happiness).
Things I liked:
as I mentioned, it was enjoyable, and a good “excuse” to meet friends in a relaxed setting
it was special enough that we even had a person from 100km away (who doesn’t have their own local group) attend 4 out of the 5 meetups
the effort for me running the sessions was pretty low as far as the course itself goes (I skimmed the slides beforehand, made sure the videos all loaded etc., and that’s about it)
the course sparked some in-depth conversations between us that we possibly wouldn’t have had otherwise, as these topics don’t come up that often during regular local group meetups
the course materials were nicely paced and I liked the variety of it
What I didn’t like:
the materials very often made this implicit jump from correlations to causation, clearly hinting at something being causal when the evidence for that was very thin—naturally, we couldn’t help ourselves but spend a non-trivial amount of our sessions pointing out the many scientifically questionable claims in the materials
actual exercises were fairly limited, most of the course was pretty theoretical and consisted of reading, discussing, and watching videos; I expected a bit more “doing”
as far as our group was concerned, there was hardly any new information. Probably this would be true of many other EA groups as well? So it never felt like we actually learned a lot, and it was more repetition of things we already knew.
Even if moderating the sessions was relatively straightforward and low in overhead, hosting physical meetups is still somewhat demanding, and every session probably still took ~3h of preparation, such as getting groceries and preparing food. But that’s just the “cost” of social gatherings and is most likely worth it. :)
Interestingly, this:
Was very much the opposite for us. My impression is that all participants here thought that content-wise, the course was somewhat disappointing and didn’t really make much of a difference. We still had a good time, but I don’t think any of us would recommend the course materials.
The RCT results you quoted of course also sound very impressive:
Assuming these results are indeed close to real (of course, surprisingly large study findings are often subject to regression to the mean upon further examination, but even then, it seems pretty large), I could think of several avenues through which such an effect could occur (without having looked into the study):
course participants in the RCT hadn’t engaged much with science of well-being before, and many of the concepts were indeed new to them
participants perhaps tended to have a limited social circle, and spending these 8 sessions with a group of others helped them find new friends
if they already knew some other participants, the course may have helped build deeper friendship by providing a scaffolding to be vulnerable
for people with mental health struggles, attending the course may have had a similar effect to talk therapy / self-help groups, where the course materials maybe played less of a role than the mere act of talking about your struggles with compassionate others
I think point 2 applied to some participants to a degree, and maybe there was a bit of 3 as well. 1 and 4, I’d say, didn’t really apply to our group.
Overall, as I mentioned, I enjoyed the sessions, and I think the others mostly did as well. We’re probably not notably happier than before. I doubt running this course was very “impactful”, but then again, it probably was impactful in the fuzzy way that our regular local group socials are, by just strengthening the community and making people feel more comfortable around each other. So I certainly don’t regret running this course. As far as recommending it to other groups goes, though, I’d only do that if a group struggles to find topics that excite them, and several members happen to be interested in a course on happiness in particular.
I appreciate that there’s a fair amount of effort in organising the course—thank you for giving it a shot and for sharing your thoughts.
I’ve run this course with friends and acquaintances several times since posting this. Although the content is no longer new, I do find it valuable to be reminded to apply it, and I also find it useful as a social bonding exercise. I do think it tends to increase my happiness, but that the effects fade over time.
Regarding the 4 mechanisms mentioned, I think I believe 4 and 2⁄3 the most. I think the programme, as typically run, would likely select for people who are lonely/going through mental health struggles—people drawn to volunteering to participate in a happiness course will be those who think they need it. I can see the programme being particularly helpful for people going through mental health difficulties, and perhaps of more limited utility for people who are already quite happy.
When I initially ran the course, the participants didn’t know each other very well and I think it was very helpful as a bonding exercise. This may have had less value in your group if you already knew each other quite well?
I do agree that the material tends to present research results somewhat uncritically—this was and has been a common point of discussion for us—and that the material could benefit from being more action oriented. I’ve seen the first session of the newer version of the materials, and it seems more concise and action-oriented: I think they’re shifting more towards trying to cultivate regular habits to increase happiness as opposed to once-off actions.