Big idea. Small deliberate activities help, by modest and varying amounts. The honest question is not “does it work?” but “how much, for whom, and how sure are we?”
Outcomes served. O4 (mechanisms and evidence for positive activities), O5 (read a study critically), O6 (run and log your habit experiment).
Plan your six hours
| Part | Minutes |
|---|---|
| Opener and orientation (this page) | 15 |
| M4.L1 Do positive activities work? Effects and publication bias | 55 |
| M4.L2 Acts of kindness: one review in detail | 55 |
| M4.L3 What works for whom? | 45 |
| M4.L4 Choosing and dosing your activity | 45 |
| Practice set | 35 |
| Lab: Critique a positive-activity study | 50 |
| Mastery checkpoint | 30 |
| Discussion prompt and recap | 30 |
| Total | 360 (6 hours) |
Assumed. Modules 1 to 3: scales, effect sizes, confidence intervals, evidence cards and the personal-experiment design.
Where this module fits. Habit week 1 of your capstone experiment begins this week, using the protocol you drafted in Module 3. Modules 5 to 7 carry weeks 2 to 4.
Where this topic appears in practice. Schools, workplaces and apps promote gratitude lists and kind acts. Researchers pool the trials in meta-analyses to ask how large and how reliable the effects are.
A note on care. These activities are everyday habits studied in research, not treatment. A learner who is struggling should speak to a qualified professional or a trusted person, and should not use a habit experiment in place of care.