Sociology Major (Level 3)
Sociology Minor (Level 3)
Does money make you happy? Is music the cure to a bad mood? Can laughing reduce stress? Is it better to help other people, or to undertake thrill-inducing activities like jumping out of aeroplanes, to alleviate the boredom of work? Or can work itself be a pleasurable activity?
This module looks at ways of increasing your understanding of your own happiness and wellbeing, and understanding more about how those around you might be able to do the same. As a new interdisciplinary social science module it will introduce you to the theories and philosophical foundations of approaches to happiness and wellbeing from across the social sciences. You will also encounter cutting-edge research in a range of areas including skydiving, music festivals, volunteering and community engagement, humour, and wellbeing in the workplace. The module consists of a series of weekly seminars on a range of different topics related to wellbeing, with an ongoing blog where you will put these ideas into practice through a series of exercises and reflect on how these change the way you think. You will also design, conduct, analyse and write up your own independent exercise to study a specific aspect of your own wellbeing, relating this to some of the theoretical approaches.
This module is ideally suited to anyone from a broad social science background and will particularly appeal to students from psychology, sociology, education, business management and economics. Other students are also welcome as full support will be given on social scientific theories and methods.
To support students through a practical project which will increase their understanding of their own wellbeing as well as that of others;
To deliver high quality cross-disciplinary research-led teaching.
Develop their own reflexive skills in considering how theory and research in happiness and wellbeing applies to their own life situation and that of those around them will be achieved by assessments: 01
Show an awareness of the range of theoretical foundations informing contemporary research on happiness and wellbeing, and place their own project work within this will be achieved by assessments: 02
Design and execute a small-scale research study which addresses a given research question will be achieved by assessments: 02
Report the results of social-scientific research using appropriate conventions will be achieved by assessments: 02
Communicate complex ideas in writing will be achieved by assessments: 01, 02
7 weekly blog entries (research and writing): 21 hours
Design, conduct, analyse and report individual project: 107 hours
Students will complete a weekly blog entry throughout the module where they are asked to reflect on the relevance of the topics and material presented to their own lives, and to carry out mini-studies on their own happiness and wellbeing. This will include exercises such as the Gratitude Diary which have been demonstrated to improve wellbeing as well as more speculative exercises. Full guidance will be given on setting up the blog and topics provided on a weekly basis.
Students will undertake an independent exercise, building on the tools introduced to them through the module, which aims to improve their understanding of their own levels of happiness and/or wellbeing in a given area of their lives. They will collect data on themselves, analyse this and write it up as a report (3,000 words).
This document is the definitive current source of information about this module and supersedes any other information.