Purpose: The content in this class can and should be applicable in your everyday life. The goal of this assignment is to use research on happiness as well as research on behavior change to implement a research-backed practice in the service of increasing your happiness.
Task: Your task is to create an implementation plan around a specific happiness practice and to then evaluate the success of your implementation.
Three double-spaced pages is a good rule of thumb for the length of this paper; shorter is fine if you answered all the questions. If your paper is longer than 4 pages please consolidate.
Provide a 1-paragraph summary of the article you based your practice on, remembering to use correct APA-style in-text citationsLinks to an external site. (do not include the article or journal title) and your own words (note that cutting and pasting from the article constitutes plagiarism even if you cite the article). If the article includes multiple studies, just answer these questions for the study that is most relevant to your plan.
Who are the participants in this study?
What are the conceptual independent and dependent variables in the study? How are they operationalized?
What were the key findings of the research
Describe your specific plan:
What will you do? (for example, if your plan is to exercise, describe the type of exercise and the amount of time)
When will you do it? (describe the frequency and the time of day)
Where will you do it?
Will you do this with anyone else? (things like exercise can benefit from a buddy; feel free to skip this question if your goal is sleep)
What are three things that could get in your way or throw you off track? Think about both internal (for example, difficulty getting up early) and external (for example, bad weather) obstacles.
Now that you’ve noted some of the obstacles you could encounter, begin to plan for how you’ll navigate them, should they occur. Think of this as an If/Then exercise: If _____, then _____. For each obstacle, write down either
a proactive strategy (what you’ll do to avoid the obstacle), or
a reactive strategy (what you’ll do when you find yourself right in the middle of the obstacle)
What does success look like for you (doing the behavior a certain percentage of the time, seeing a change in your happiness scale score, seeing someone else smile, etc.)? Make sure to include something measurable and quantifiable.
