Happiness Is a Skill: These Science-Backed Tools Can Help You Master It

If a friend sends you a bouquet, says Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas, the science director at the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, don’t just say “Thank you.” Instead, expand it to something like, “Thank you so much for sending me tuberoses; you know that those are my favorite. I felt so uplifted by that bouquet in a way that you knew I would. Thank you.”

According to research, Simon-Thomas says acknowledgment of the responsiveness of a person’s actions that led to goodness in your life is an even more impactful way of expressing gratitude, which is a boon to our relationships and, in turn, our overall well-being.

Since its inception in 2001, the Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) has pioneered a scientific movement dedicated to fostering happiness, compassion, and altruism — valuable qualities in a world looking for connection and healing.

Through initiatives like the Bridging Differences program and the Science of Happiness podcast, the Center serves as a resource for those seeking to nurture empathy and well-being in themselves and others. Concepts like social-emotional learning and kindness aren’t merely feel-good notions: the GGSC provides evidence-based practices from the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society.

GGSC amplifies its mission by empowering changemakers — educators, parents, health care professionals and leaders — to share its teachings. Its philosophy is simple yet profound: we can transform communities and cultures by fostering empathy and understanding at the individual level.

Simple Practices Backed by Research

At GGSC, Simon-Thomas directs the research fellowship program, co-instructs its Science of Happiness and Science of Happiness at Work online courses, and runs key study initiatives like Expanding the Science and Practice of Gratitude. These online programs that feature bite-sized, achievable prompts and goals, are interactive and experiential, built from expansive literature on practices that have proven to promote well-being. 

The Greater Good in Action website offers a suite of such practices for people to try, like the Pathway to Happiness program and the BIG JOY project. “Every section has multiple little happiness practices, and often, they involve meaningful social interactions that maybe push people’s boundaries a little bit,” says Simon-Thomas. “They might learn how to offer an effective apology. They might learn how to forgive. They might learn how to introduce more random acts of kindness into their day-to-day routines.”

The exercises are open for ratings and feedback from users. “We know that positive psychology and all of the science that we cover is regrettably and painfully biased,” says Simon-Thomas. “It’s mostly studies done on privileged white people. That’s a deep interest of ours as a center to stretch our assumptions and invite in the voices of people who are not represented or who have not been given the opportunity to end up in positions of power to tell us what’s not here, and how does what is here not make sense to you or feel unappealing?”

Can Happiness Be Taught? The Surprising Answer

The exercises work. Simon-Thomas says she often hears feedback like “I thought happiness wasn’t something I had any purchase over. Having taken this class, I have a sense of ownership, and I feel empowered to play a role in how happy I am and prioritize my time, energy, and behavior in a way that serves my happiness.”

Users reflect on how much they’ve learned about the role of relationships and community involvement in their own happiness. And they want to pass it on, too, says Simon-Thomas. Participants have told her, “I only wish I had learned this 30 years ago. I told my daughter, who’s in high school, to take this.”

Educator Burnout Is Real

A goal of GGSC is to get its tools into the hands of educators. Vicki Zakrzewski, the education director of the GGSC, serves educators from PreK-12 and higher ed with learning modules on topics like gratitude in schools, forgiveness in schools, and mindfulness in schools. Zakrzewski says educators and paraprofessionals in America are stretched to their limits, and this affects their students.If you’re stressed as a teacher, there’s research that shows that when a teacher’s cortisol levels are raised, it also affects the cortisol levels of the students,” she says. “Supporting our educators is, to me, one of the most crucial things that people need to be doing right now.”

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The Greater Good in Education website includes practices that schools can send home to parents to use with their children as well, like how to work with your child when they are feeling strong emotions, how to have conversations with people you don’t really normally know how to connect with, and how to show your child to how to be a helper.

Parental word-of-mouth is key to spreading the word, Zakrzewski says. “We’ve also had a lot of parents who will take these practices and bring them to their schools and be advocates. We know from our past efforts, you have people go back to their schools and transform their districts or make a total change in what they’re doing professionally. It really has had quite an impact.”

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How Feeling Supported Can Help Caregivers Thrive

The Center also provides resources for parents and caregivers to nurture peaceful, compassionate, joyful families. Maryam Abdullah, Ph.D., the parenting program director of the GGSC, is a developmental psychologist with expertise in parent-child relationships and children’s development of prosocial behaviors (prosocial behaviors are those that positively impact the community.) Her role at the Center is to develop educational materials for people who work with parents and families.

“We are thinking about how we care for these caregivers, this broader kind of collective responsibility. We’re not made to just have one parent take care of children, and then that’s it.” She says that children feel cared for when their providers feel the same way.

One practice recommended to strung-out caregivers is called “Feeling Supported,” a reflection activity recalling those who have helped or supported us in the past. By calling to mind people who have been there for us and alleviated our hardships, Abdullah says we can create a reserve of support to dip into when needed. Her team works on getting the GGSC tools into the hands of public school practitioners and parents who want to share learnings with their community.

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The Secret to a Happier, Healthier Life: It’s All About Connection

The act of sharing these resources is prosocial behavior on its own.

“There’s so much research telling us that social connection is a key predictor of longevity, and not just lifespan, but quality of life,” says Abdullah. “There’s a wonderful quote by a psychology professor at Pepperdine University, Louis Cozolino, who says, ‘We are not the survival of the fittest. We are the survival of the nurtured,’” she says. “Thinking about how human beings have survived over thousands and thousands of years, it is because we have this capacity to care for one another. Our survival depends on it.”


How to Help

Donate to the Greater Good Science Center annual fund, which helps bring research-based tools for well-being to individuals and communities, empowering them to lead healthier, more connected lives.

Get regular content from GGSC and share with those who might benefit—especially educators, mental health providers, and school administrators


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Claire Zulkey is a writer based in Evanston, IL, where she was born and raised. Her writing has appeared in local publications like Block Club Chicago, the Evanston Roundtable and Chicago Magazine as well as national publications like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Atlantic.

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