In 2008, through UC Berkeley's fundraising arm, he was introduced to alumni Cher Wang and Wen Chi Chen, who rank among Taiwan's wealthiest entrepreneurs and philanthropists. The couple wanted to donate seed money for various projects in China. After some discussion with Peng, they agreed to support the Berkeley-Tsinghua Program for the Advanced Study in Psychology as part of a broader collaboration between the two campuses.

Peng traveled to Beijing that same year with George Breslauer, UC Berkeley's executive vice chancellor and provost, and Sheldon Zedeck, vice provost for academic affairs and faculty welfare, to propose the idea to Tsinghua University officials. The visit went well, and an agreement was struck. With seed money from Wang and Chen and a matching donation from Tsinghua University, the partnership was born and recruiting began.

Today, the 10-member psychology faculty at Tsinghua University is made up of four Chinese professors, three U.S.-trained Chinese psychologists and three American professors, including Seth Roberts, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of psychology and author of "The Shangri-La Diet," a book that promotes weight loss through flavorless foods.

Roberts said he jumped at the opportunity to teach at Tsinghua University because he said he thought "Beijing would be fascinating," and that his light teaching schedule would give him more time to write books. He also said he expected the students to be brilliant and talented, and was not disappointed.

"To get into Tsinghua as an undergraduate, you have to score extremely well on a nationwide test," Roberts said.

The idea for a positive psychology conference came to Peng and his colleagues this spring when a spate of knife attacks in kindergartens that left 15 young children dead turned the spotlight on mental health in China. The assailants were alleged to suffer from psychological problems or grudges related to workplace or relationship problems. Then in May, 10 workers at Foxconn, a computer component manufacturing plant in southern China, committed suicide, deepening concerns about the gap between China's haves and have-nots.

One obstacle to happiness in China, Peng said, is the intense culture of competition: "When you have that many people all fighting to achieve the same narrowly defined goals, it becomes a zero-sum game," he said.

"That's why we need to change the paradigm of what success means and come together for the greater good of Chinese society," Peng added. "That's why we need to talk about the science of happiness."

Source: University of California - Berkeley