Coursera

Positive Psychology: Resilience Skills (Coursera)

Offered by University of Pennsylvania,

Learn how to incorporate resilience interventions into your personal and professional life with Dr. Karen Reivich. In this course, you are exposed to the foundational research in resilience, including protective factors such as mental agility and optimism. Several types of resilience interventions are explored including cognitive strategies; strategies to manage anxiety and increase positive emotions such as gratitude; and a critical relationship enhancement skill.

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

Throughout the course, you will hear examples of individuals using resilience skills in their personal and professional lives. Suggested prerequisites: Positive Psychology: Martin E. P. Seligman’s Visionary Science, Positive Psychology: Applications and Interventions and Positive Psychology: Character, Grit & Research Methods.
Course 4 of 5 in the Foundations of Positive Psychology Specialization.
What You Will Learn

Understand the protective factors that make one resilient
Describe thinking traps and how they undercut resilience
Make use of non-cognitive strategies that decrease anxiety
Create a buffer of positivity that boosts resilience in stressful situations

Syllabus

WEEK 1
Resilience and Optimism
In this module, you will learn the definition of resilience and understand the protective factors that make one resilient. You will differentiate between helplessness and mastery orientations, and understand the thinking styles underlying each. You will summarize major outcomes of optimism, and the mediators of those outcomes, as well as assess your own levels of optimism, using a questionnaire. Finally, you will hear about personal and organizational outcomes of optimism, and will be able to apply these concepts to your own life.

WEEK 2
Cognitive Approaches to Resilience: Strategies to Increase Optimism and Resilient Thinking
In this module, you will learn about thinking traps and how they undercut resilience. You will learn about five common thinking traps and identify which you are prone to, in addition to the effects of those styles of thinking. You will practice Real-Time Resilience, a strategy to challenge non-resilient thinking. Finally, you will hear about personal and organizational outcomes of optimism, and plan how to apply these concepts to your own life.

WEEK 3
Managing Anxiety and Increasing Positive Emotions Like Gratitude
In this module, you will learn the definition of catastrophic thinking and identify the effects it has on physiology, attention and contingency planning. You will experiment with several non-cognitive strategies to decrease anxiety, including Deliberate Breathing. You will be introduced to the Broaden and Build theory of positive emotions, and will be able to describe the effects of positive emotions on resilience. Finally, you will relate research and examples of gratitude to your own life and develop a plan for a gratitude practice.

WEEK 4
Leveraging Character Strengths and Strengthening Relationships
In this module, you will identify your own character strengths using a well-validated questionnaire. Next, you will describe how to use your character strengths in stressful situations to increase resilience by creating a buffer of positive emotion. Additionally, you will learn the research on active constructive responding, and identify their predominant responding style with important people in their lives. Finally, you will hear examples of inculcating resilience into organizations, and plan how to incorporate resilience strategies into your personal and professional lives.

Go to Class

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

Related Courses

Coursera

Johns Hopkins University

Data and Health Indicators in Public Health Practice (Coursera)

Health & Society Medicine & Pharmacology

Epidemiology is often described as the cornerstone science in public health. Epidemiology in public health practice uses study design and analyses to identify causes in an outbreak situation, guides interventions to improve population health, and evaluates programs and policies. In this course, we'll define the role of the professional epidemiologist as it relates to public health services, functions, and competencies. With that foundation in mind, we'll introduce you to the problem solving methodology and demonstrate how it can be used in a wide variety of settings to identify problems, propose solutions, and evaluate interventions.

Aug 10th 2026

4 Weeks

Health Data Disease

Coursera

University of Colorado Boulder

Successful Presentation (Coursera)

Management & Leadership Business

Few kinds of communication can have the effect of a powerful presentation. Even a short speech can motivate people to change long-held beliefs or to take action, and a wonderfully delivered speech can transform a normal person into a leader. In this course, Prof. William Kuskin provides a series of pragmatic videos and exercises for successful public speaking and presentations.

Aug 10th 2026

4 Weeks

Business Communication Public Speaking

Coursera

University of Lausanne

Unethical Decision Making in Organizations (Coursera)

Health & Society

This course 'Unethical decision making in organizations : A seminar on the dark side of the force' will teach you how strong organizational contexts push good people towards unethical decisions. You will also learn how to protect yourself and your organization against such forces lurking in the dark. This course teaches how narrow frames and strong contexts can push good people towards unethical decisions and how they can protect themselves and their organization against ethical blindness.

Aug 10th 2026

5-12 Weeks

Psychology Corruption Organizations

Coursera

University of Geneva

Children's Human Rights - An Interdisciplinary Introduction (Coursera)

Law Social Sciences

Drawing on the contributions of several academic disciplines including law, psychology, sociology, history, educational and health sciences, economy and anthropology, an interdisciplinary approach guides the student into a selection of critical issues concerning children’s rights. Participants will gain insight relative to the development of this specific human rights category, as well as to the evolution of the challenges faced by children over time and society’s efforts to respond.

Aug 10th 2026

5-12 Weeks

Psychology Law Justice

Coursera

Case Western Reserve University

Women in Leadership: Inspiring Positive Change (Coursera)

Management & Leadership Education

This course aims to inspire and empower women and men across the world to engage in purposeful career development and take on leadership for important causes - to lead change with more conviction and confidence - and improve our workplaces and communities for all. By offering more complex understandings of issues related to professional women and work, the course will help you increase self-knowledge about your own values and vision, as well as enhance your capabilities as a leader, manager, and team contributor. We will examine the opportunities, challenges, trade-offs, and organizational dynamics experienced by women in work organizations, as well as reflect on and practice effective individual behaviors.

Aug 10th 2026

5-12 Weeks

Women Leadership Manager

Coursera

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

3D Data Visualization for Science Communication (Coursera)

Data Science

This course is an introduction to 3D scientific data visualization, with an emphasis on science communication and cinematic design for appealing to broad audiences. You will develop visualization literacy, through being able to interpret/analyze (read) visualizations and create (write) your own visualizations.

Aug 10th 2026

4 Weeks

3D Communication Computer Graphics

Coursera

Technical University of Denmark - DTU

Whole genome sequencing of bacterial genomes - tools and applications (Coursera)

Sci: Biology & Life Sciences Medicine & Pharmacology

This course will cover the topic of Whole genome sequencing (WGS) of bacterial genomes which is becoming more and more relevant for the medical sector. WGS technology and applications are high on international political agenda, as the classical methods are being replaced by WGS technology and therefore bioinformatic tools are extremely important for allowing the people working in this sector to be able to analyze the data and obtain results that can be interpreted and used for different purposes.

Aug 10th 2026

5-12 Weeks

Health Microbiology Clinical

Coursera

University of Copenhagen

Air Pollution – a Global Threat to our Health (Coursera)

Health & Society

We all have to breathe to live. But the air we breathe is polluted both outdoors and indoors. Each year, this pollution costs 7 million lives across the globe – and a lot of suffering. 1 in 8 deaths is due to air pollution. This course will provide you with an introduction to the most recent research in the field of health effects of air pollution as well as a broader understanding of sources and spread of air pollution and what we should do about it.

Aug 10th 2026

3 Weeks

Health Global Health Toxicology

Coursera

University of North Carolina

Reasoning Across the Disciplines (Coursera)

Humanities

Critical reasoning skills are a key success factor for students entering their first year of college. They must be able to think logically and form arguments. This course, designed with incoming college freshmen in mind but open to anyone, provides an essential grounding in critical reasoning skills. Faculty from multiple disciplines at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill offer guidance on applying critical thinking skills in the context of specific disciplines. By developing these skills, students will learn more, enjoy their courses more, and experience greater academic success.

Aug 10th 2026

5-12 Weeks

Psychology Chemistry Literature

Coursera

The University of Tokyo

Global Health Policy (Coursera)

Health & Society Medicine & Pharmacology

In this course, learners will become familiar with principles and theories of global health problems, and major challenges and controversies in improving global population health as well as practical applications of quantitative methods to analyze and interpret issues and challenges for policy. Topics will include health and foreign policy, health governance, acute disease surveillance, non-communicable diseases, burden of disease, universal health coverage, health systems strengthening, health financing, and human resources for health and ageing.

Aug 10th 2026

4 Weeks

Health Health Systems Global Health

Coursera

Leiden University

De-Mystifying Mindfulness (Coursera)

Health & Society Personal and Professional Development

Interest in meditation, mindfulness, and contemplation has grown exponentially in recent years. Rather than being seen as mystical practices from ancient Buddhism or esoteric philosophy, they are increasingly seen as technologies rooted in evidence from psychology and neuroscience. Mindfulness has become the basis for numerous therapeutic interventions, both as a treatment in healthcare and as a means of enhancing well-being and happiness. For millions around the world, mindfulness has become a life-style choice, enhancing and enriching everyday experience. Mindfulness is big business.

Aug 10th 2026

5-12 Weeks

Philosophy Psychology Ethics

Coursera

Leiden University

Population Health: Alternative Payment Models (Coursera)

Health & Society

The way we currently pay our care providers lead to suboptimal outcomes and unnecessary spending. Consequently, we fail to maximize the value of our health care services. We need to change provider payment models in order to keep health care systems financial sustainability. Doing nothing is not an option. But the question is, how do we do it?

Aug 10th 2026

4 Weeks

Health Critical Thinking Population Health