Happiness

New Paper and Project Ideas

 

• Check the "resources" link at the course website for more Paper and Project Ideas. 

•  Marriage and Well-Being

   

  Interesting research on this topic.  Explore questions about the supposed causal relationship between marriage and well-being.  Consider possible reverse causation (Do happy people marry or does marriage make people happy?) and related issues (Does marriage matter or long term cohabitation? Do 3 7 year marriages yield the same happiness as one 21 year marriage?)

  • Jack C. Smith, James A. Mercy, and Judith M. Conn, "Marital Status and the Risk of Suicide," American Journal of Public Health 78 (1988): 78-80.

  • Carol D. Ryff and Corey Lee M. Keyes, "The Structure of Psychological Well-being Revisited," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 69 (1995): 719-27.

  • Nadine F. Marks and James D. Lambert, "Marital Status Continuity and Change among Young and Midlife Adult: Longitudinal Effects on Psychological Well-being."   Journal of Family Issues 19 (1998): 652-86.

  • Allan V. Horwitz, Helene Rasking White, and Sandra Howel-White, "Becoming Married and Mental Health:  A Longitudinal Study of a Cohort of Young Adults,"  Journal of Marriage and the Family 58 (1996): 895-907.

• Read the History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, by Samuel Johnson, which has a thematic concern with happiness.

Check the "Resources" page of the course website (through alfino.org) for a longer list of topics.

The Movie List

Here's our movie list, which is useful for movie reflection papers, or just for a slow Thursday or Saturday night. (You might invite some of your classmates over.  Ask them to bring popcorn.) I'm not sure all of these will work for an individual paper, but I'll make notes about the ones I know about. Please look at the assignment description for advice on how to do a movie reflection paper.

 

The first nine are solid.  Add your own suggestions and we'll talk:

 

 

1. The Pusuit of Happyness
2. 13 Conversations about One Thing - Should almost be required viewing.
3. Amelie - Excellent at capturing the subtlety of a form of state-happiness that is often overlooked.
4. American Beauty - Good for both cultural critique of forms of American happiness and for state-happiness.
5. About Schmidt - Excellent for issues of meaningfulness.
6. Life is Beautiful - Raises profound questions about how we respond to evil in maintaining happiness.
7. Groundhog Day - Makes a philosophically interesting case for perfectionism and happiness.
8. 21 grams
9. Broken Flowers

 

I'm not sure that these first 8 will work, even though some of them are really good movies:

 

1. I Heart Huckabees - Ok, but a bit more about the fun of thinking about big philosophical issues.
2. The Waking Life
3. Lost Horizon
4. The Family Man
5. City Slickers
6. Little Women
7. It's a Wonderful Life - a classic with a good message, but let's skip it, ok?

    

8. Office Space - This is a funny and somewhat insightful movie, but let's not use it for a whole movie reflection paper since it isn't as serious or complex as many others. Combine it, perhaps, or use details from it in other papers. Definitely worth watching for this class