Description
- Explore this Web site (especially the sections on “Meaningful Life” and “Meaningful Work”), and then take The Meaning in Life Questionnaire.
- Next, review this short write-up on finding meaning in life.
- Based on this exercise, address the following points in your discussion with your peers:
- Compile a list of the top 3 factors/activities that you feel would, if accomplished, bring greater meaning to your life and increase your happiness.
- Compare the concept of happiness as defined in everyday use with the academic definition implied in the field of positive psychology, such as when discussing “meaning in life.”
A highly effective student will look on this assignment as an exercise in self-development. You need to make some inferences on this assignment, guided by the academic paradigm of highly effective students. An effective academic paradigm says start out by defining and discussing relevant concepts. It is important to define the terms so you demonstrate that you know them well enough to paraphrase them, but also because if you can correctly define the terms it is unlikely that you will use them incorrectly. For example, in unit three, almost nobody defined negative reinforcement, and almost everyone who used the term in the discussion used it incorrectly, usually using negative reinforcement to name their intervention, but describing one of the forms of punishment.
That paradigm suggests that if you are asked to do a survey or assessment, you discuss what you learned from it. That means an A response will
- Provide definitions and summaries of meaningful life and meaningful work,
- Provide definition and summary of the academic definition of happiness from positive psychology (web search) as well as the everyday definition of happiness.
- Summarize your assessment questionnaire results. There are two dimensions – presence of meaning in your life, and search for meaning.
- Compile a list of the top 3 factors/activities that you feel would, if accomplished, bring greater meaning to your life and increase your happiness. See if you can connect this to the assessment results.
- Compare the concept of happiness as defined in everyday use with the academic definition implied in the field of positive psychology (a web search will turn this up for you), such as when discussing “meaning in life.”
