MAS S62 Health Behavior Change Lab
Instructors:  Rosalind Picard, Pattie Maes, Kevin Slavin, Karthik Dinakar
Units:  12 H (3 – 1 – 8)

Tuesdays

10:30-12 in E15-359

Thursdays

2:45              Refreshments available
3:00 – 4:30  Speaker and Q&A (open to public)
4:30 – 5:00  (people taking the class have private project time)

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We often know what to do to be healthy (don’t smoke, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, get >=7 hours sleep, walk or exercise 30 mins/day, develop healthy relationships, manage stress, etc.) but we don’t always behave in ways that promote health, and these behaviors contribute to the most serious and costly chronic health problems – heart disease, stroke, cancer, obesity, diabetes, arthritis, and more.  The most successful behavior change methods are known to succeed, at best, only 20% of the time.  Can MIT come up with something better?

This course combines weekly attendance at the Advancing Wellness seminar series (Thursdays) with weekly interactive class activities and discussions (Tuesdays) intended to help launch successful projects in health behavior change.   Students will learn about the most successful cases, why most fail, and what is involved in the ones that succeed.  We will cover readings from persuasive computing, behavioral economics, and prosocial marketing as well as from theories of motivation and behavior change studies in psychology. Most of the class is focused on small group projects where we will work together to learn how to create better tools, technologies, media, and cultural influences that bring about higher success rates.  Students will be expected to deploy these projects in order to bring about behavior change, and to analyze and understand the factors that influence success.

Grades are based on:
– 30% Class participation (including attending Thursday seminars)
– 50% Behavior change projects
– 20% Reading/writing assignments