The Science of Generosity: Do Good...Feel Good (Coursera)

The Science of Generosity: Do Good...Feel Good (Coursera)

What does it mean to be generous? Can doing good actually make you feel good? In this course, we’ll hear from multiple experts and explore the many facets of generosity by looking closely at the meanings, traits, and motivations behind giving behaviors across communities and cultures. We’ll discuss how generosity contributes to our own happiness and well-being as well as the happiness and well-being of our loved ones, our local communities, and our global society.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

We won’t just talk about generosity; you’ll be able to do good and feel good -- without spending lots of time or money. You’ll have multiple opportunities for both doing and feeling good throughout the course and you’ll create a giving plan that helps you continue your generous acts into the future.

What You Will Learn

  • Why “doing good” results in “feeling good”
  • Ways to demonstrate generosity in your everyday life
  • Strategies for continued giving that doesn't require a lot of time or money but results in high impact

Syllabus

WEEK 1: Generosity: Your Way, My Way, or Is There Another Way?
WEEK 2: Why Are People Generous?
WEEK 3: Feeling Good by Doing Good
WEEK 4: Facilitating Generosity in Yourself and in Others

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Designing and Building Institutional Anti-Racist Spaces (Coursera) Coursera
Wesleyan University

Designing and Building Institutional Anti-Racist Spaces (Coursera)

Designing and Building Institutional Antiracist Spaces (D-BIAS) is a course whose mission is to teach and apply tenets of equity, anti-racism, and cultural justice to students from Institutions to achieve social change. The course is aimed at educators and administrators in educational spaces, lawyers and advocates in spaces that touch civil rights, equity, and whose Institutional mission it is to achieve greater cultural equity.

Sep 21st 2026
4 Weeks
Cómo hablar bien en público (Coursera) Coursera
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Cómo hablar bien en público (Coursera)

Cada día es más importante hablar bien en público. La mejor oratoria es la que permite al orador conseguir los objetivos que se había planteado. Contrariamente a la creencia común, la necesidad de una buena oratoria no es exclusiva de ciertos grupos profesionales, sino que todas las personas deberían superar el miedo escénico y hablar bien en público.

Sep 28th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Finding Purpose and Meaning In Life: Living for What Matters Most (Coursera) Coursera
University of Michigan

Finding Purpose and Meaning In Life: Living for What Matters Most (Coursera)

In this course, you’ll learn how science, philosophy and practice all play a role in both finding your purpose and living a purposeful life. You will hear from historical figures and individuals about their journeys to finding and living a purposeful life, and will walk through different exercises to help you find out what matters most to you so you can live a purposeful life.

Sep 28th 2026
4 Weeks
Off the Clock: The Many Faces of Time (Coursera) Coursera
Universidade de São Paulo, Brasil

Off the Clock: The Many Faces of Time (Coursera)

“Off the Clock: The Many Faces of Time” presents a transdisciplinary and transnational set of perspectives on time. This MOOC aims to expand the learners' understanding of the many facets of time, from our human experience of the present to plants, animals, bacteria, and even art’s relationship to the passing of time. This course equips learners with multidisciplinary tools for thinking about time in human and more-than-human constituents. To do so, the course asks and answers three key questions.

Sep 28th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Success (Coursera) Coursera
University of Pennsylvania

Success (Coursera)

Do you want to be more successful? This course was designed to help you define what success means to you, and to develop a plan for achieving it. Wharton Professor G. Richard Shell, an award-winning author and the creator of the popular Wharton School course on the meaning of success, created this course to help you answer the questions that arise when you consider how best to use your life. Drawing on his decades of research and mentoring, Shell offers personalized assessments to help you probe your past, imagine your future, and measure your strengths.

Sep 21st 2026
4 Weeks
Diseño de proyectos para promover el bienestar (Coursera) Coursera
Universidad de los Andes

Diseño de proyectos para promover el bienestar (Coursera)

Tú y yo, al igual que la mayoría de personas, con las acciones que realizamos tenemos el propósito de mejorar las circunstancias en las que viven las personas. Pero ¿Cómo llevamos a cabo esa tarea? ¿Qué tan claro tenemos qué es lo que queremos hacer, para qué lo queremos hacer y cómo lo vamos a hacer? ¿Qué tanto anticipamos los posibles resultados de lo que proponemos y los factores del contexto que pueden facilitarlos u obstaculizarlos para aprovecharlos o contrarrestarlos? ¿Cómo sustentamos que con lo que hacemos efectivamente podemos contribuir al bienestar de las personas? Nuestra experiencia nos muestra que muchas iniciativas para promover el bienestar se realizan sin que previamente se adelante un proceso riguroso de planificación.

Sep 28th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Health, Society, and Wellness in COVID-19 Times (Coursera) Coursera
University of Colorado Boulder

Health, Society, and Wellness in COVID-19 Times (Coursera)

You may be encountering a world unlike any other generation. The public health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic has created a context of pervasive uncertainty, heightened anxiety, and social isolation that overlaps with a critical time of your own learning and development. The COVID-19 pandemic also has exacerbated long-standing inequalities and disparities, and recent events in the United States have laid bare historical and current realities of racism and systemic oppression.

Sep 28th 2026
4 Weeks
Leading for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education (Coursera) Coursera
University of Michigan

Leading for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education (Coursera)

This course is open to professionals interested in learning more about leadership in higher education for a changing demographic or interested in developing their own leadership skills. The very idea that individuals can be taught to lead is not without its skeptics. Reasonable people, even some scholars in the field, point to the important traits, skills, and attributes that are observed in many visible leaders and contend that certain qualities necessary for effective leadership are not easily transmitted.

Oct 5th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Cannabis, Mental Health, and Brain Disorders (Coursera) Coursera
University of Colorado Boulder

Cannabis, Mental Health, and Brain Disorders (Coursera)

This Cannabis, Mental Health, and Brain Disorders course is designed to have you think critically about the health effects of cannabis (i.e., marijuana) in the context of several mental health and neurocognitive disorders. You'll be able to identify key features of several anxiety disorders (e.g., panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, PTSD), major depression, schizophrenia, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease.

Sep 21st 2026
4 Weeks
Training and Learning Online (Coursera) Coursera
University of Leeds

Training and Learning Online (Coursera)

Have you considered completing online training programmes and courses? Or perhaps you have to work online for your studies and you are not sure how to do it? Learning online is very different from face-to-face learning, as it often involves independent study and a different set of skills. On this course, you will develop effective online learning strategies that work for you, whether you are learning for work, leisure or for your studies, so that you can make the most of it.

Sep 21st 2026
3 Weeks
Positive Psychiatry and Mental Health (Coursera) Coursera
The University of Sydney

Positive Psychiatry and Mental Health (Coursera)

In today’s world, mental illness and distress are common and these account for a significant burden of disability within our community. At the same time, there is a growing interest in understanding and enhancing positive mental health and wellbeing; particularly from developments in the fields of positive psychology and mental health promotion. Positive Psychiatry is a new term (Jeste et al 2016) that describes a dual approach to mental health, where we build strengths, supports and healthy lifestyles as well as treating illness and distress.

Oct 5th 2026
5-12 Weeks