Transcript Authentic Happiness

Authentic Happiness
Nun Study
• 180 Nuns
• 90% of the most cheerful quarter lived to
85 at least
– Only 34% of the least cheerful quarter did
• 54% of the most cheerful quarter was alive
at 94
– Only 11% of the least cheerful quarter did
Duchenne smiles
• “genuine” smiles vs. fake smiles
– Sorted based on senior class photos
– Contacted at 27, 43, 52 years of age
– Duchenne smile women were more likely to:
• Be married, stay married, experiences more
personal well-being
– Attractiveness was measured as well- no link
was found
Hedonism
• How you feel at the moment
– Momentary pleasure
• Colonoscopy experiment (Kahneman)
– Group 1: regular colonoscopy where the scope
moves throughout
– Group 2: extra minute tagged on to the end where the
scope is stationary
• Group 2 had more overall discomfort (an extra minute with
the scope inserted), but the stationary scope is not as bad as
a moving scope
– Group 2 reported the experience as better and were
much more likely to undergo the procedure again
The Harry truman effect
• Tonic vs Phasic activity
– Tonic activity: introversion, IQ, depression, angermeasured without regards to an actual activity
– Phasic activity: when presented with a challenge
• Can tonic measures predict outcomes to phasic
situations?
– Sometimes, but not always
– High IQ people fail and low-IQ people succeed –
there are no perfect predictors
– After being fairly undistinguished, Truman took over
after FDR and is thought of as one of the greatest
presidents (according to Seligman)
Evolutionarily speaking
• Negative traits have an important place
and have been passed down
– The strongest and possibly most aggressive
will survive
– For many years, positive traits were ignored
here and believed to be extra
– Some even assumed that the “nice guy” loses
Barbara Fredrickson
• In the late 90’s and early 2000’s she
proposed that positive traits do have an
important place in survival
– Those with positive traits are more likely to
have support systems and love and other
aspects of life that make you more likely to
succeed and get through the bad times
– People that don’t have these in place are
more likely to have disorders
Experiment
• When primed with happier or positive
thoughts/statements, people are faster at
coming to proper conclusions
– Simply sorting words into categories
– Doctors diagnosing diseases
Depressive Realism
• Alloy and Abramson
– Validated the “happy but dumb” idea a bit
– Two groups
• Group 1: Gave control over the green light
• Group 2: Given no control over whether the green light was
on or off
• Groups were asked how much control they had
• Depressed subjects were very accurate in both groups
• Nondepressed subjects were accurate when they had
control, but assumed that they had control (35% control)
even when they had none
Happy vs Depressed people
• 80% of American men think they are in the
top ½ of social skills
• 85% of Americans think they are above
average for intelligence
• Most people think they are above average
at work and as a driver
Happy people
• Remember more good events than
actually happened
– Forget more bad events
• Lopsided in their beliefs about successes
and failures
– If it was a success, they were responsible and
they are good at everything
– If it was a failure, you did it to them and it was
just this one little thing
There is a debate though
• Happy people
– When given information, are more likely to
make important real life decisions well
– Aspinwall
• Gave health information to people
• Optimists were more likely to remember the
dangers of coffee drinking and sun bathing a week
later than pessimists were
– They are possibly more able to deal with them and
combat them, so they will not just ignore them as
pessimists might
Mood can work for you depending
on the task at hand
• Things that require critical thinking are benefitted
by having a more pessimistic/realistic mindset
– Taking GREs, SATs, doing taxes, deciding whom to
fire, dealing with failed romances, making crucial
decisions in competitive sports or college
• Things that require creative, generous, and
tolerant thinking are benefitted by having a more
optimistic mindset
– Marketing, finding ways to increase love, pondering a
new career field, deciding whether to marry someone,
hobbies and noncompetitive sports, creative writing
A study
• 2282 Mexican Americans age 65 or older
– Controlled for age, income, education, weight,
smoking, drinking, and disease
– Happy people were half as likely to die or
become disabled
Happiness may
• Increase productivity
• Lead to better evaluations at work
Positive emotions can undo
negative ones
• Fredrickson
– Showed students a clip where a man is dangling from
the edge of a building and close to falling
• Heart rates increase
– Showed students one of four clips next
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Waves to induce contentment
Puppies to induce amusement
Sticks to induce no emotions
Cry to induce sadness
– Puppy and waves bring the heart rates back down
while cry makes them go even higher
Moebius syndrome
• Facial paralysis the leaves victims unable
to smile
– Unable to show positive emotions with their
face
– Have difficulty with friendships
• A rich social life is found in most people
that rate themselves as “very happy”
Broad theme
• Positive feelings are there to allow the
body/mind to grow into something better
Happiness Formula
• H=S+C+V
– H = enduring level of happiness
– S = set range
– C = circumstances of your life
– V = factors under voluntary control
Enduring level of happiness
• Different than momentary happiness
• Has a genetic component
– Twin studies
• Certain aspects are changeable
Set range
• Roughly ½ of your happiness score is
accounted for by the score your parents
would have gotten
• People that win the lottery see an increase
in happiness for a short period of time
– Happiness levels revert to where they were
pre-lottery
– 22 lottery winners reverted to their baseline
levels of happiness over time- ended up no
more happy than 22 matched controls
The bright side of a set range
• When things go bad, you typically will
rebound back to your normal range
– People with extreme quadriplegia consider
their life to average or above-average (84%)
The hedonic treadmill
• You rapidly adapt to good things after a
short period of time- then you need more
– Those that have less are typically just as
happy as those that have more
– Major events, wealth, raises, attractiveness,
health – NONE of these really have a large
effect on happiness over time- all of these
lead to more resources
Circumstances of your life
• Money
– At the whole country level
• Overall national purchasing power and life
satisfaction go in the same direction
• Once the GNP exceeds $8000 per person, the
correlation disappears
• Many exceptions to the rules for countries
– Brazil, China, Argentina more satisfied than their wealths
predict
– Former Soviet countries and Japan are less satisfied
than their wealths predict
Purchasing power within a country
• Has more than doubled over the last halfcentury in the USA, France, and Japan, but
satisfaction has not changed at all
• In very poor countries, the rich are happier than
the poor
• In wealthier nations, where most have a basic
safety net, increases in wealth have little to no
change on satisfaction
• Most importantly may not be buying power, but
the type of government and the level of freedom
The Forbes 100
• The 100 richest in the world are only
slightly happier than the average American
Circumstances continued
• Marriage
– Robustly related to happiness
– 40% of married people were “very happy”
• Only 24% of unmarried people
– Among those in “not very happy” marriages,
happiness is lowest though
Social Life?
• In one study, every person in the top 10% of
happiness (except one) was in a romantic
relationship
• Very happy people lead a more rich and fulfilling
social life than average or unhappy people
– Spend the least time alone
– The most time socializing
– Rated highest on good relationships by themselves
and by their friends
Negative Emotion?
• Is being happy simply avoiding the
negative emotions in life?
– Positive emotions and negative emotions
have a very small negative correlation
– Gender differences
• Women experience twice the depression as men
– Also experience more positive emotion (frequency and
intensity)
Other factors…
• Age?
– No real change in satisfaction with age
• Increases very slightly with age
• Fewer extreme emotions with age though
• Health?
– “barely” related to well-being
– What matters more is subjective perception of how
healthy we are
• Others have it worse
– Severe health problems (5+ health problems) will
bring unhappiness though- moderate problems don’t
Religion?
• Religious americans are less likely to abuse
drugs, committ crimes, divorce, and kill
themselves
• Also are physically healthier and live longer
• Can deal with problems more easily
– Disabled children, depression, divorce,
unemployment, illness, death
• Are moderately more happy than nonreligious
people
Why does religion lead to more
happiness?
• Used to be thought that it was just an
increase in social support
• Possibly the belief of hope and a meaning
of lifef could be important as well
Others
• Education
– Only among those with low incomes
• Climate
– Not at all- misperception that californians are always
happier in the sunlight and on the beach
• Race
– Hispanics and african-americans have less
depression than caucasians
• Gender
– No difference among averages- women are just more
extreme
• None of these has any real effect on happiness
Voluntary factors under control
• Satisfaction with the past, present, or
future
– Separated pieces
Starting with the past
• Main idea
– Emotions drive thoughts and thoughts drive
emotions
• Depressed people (emotion) focus in on and have
sadder memories (thoughts)
• Thinking about loss (thought) causes sadness
(emotion)
– If thoughts can change emotions, change the
thoughts and you can change the emotions
(ie. be happier)
Past Psychological views on the
past
• Many theories in psych stemmed from the idea
that your past determined your future
– Darwin
– Freud
• Researchers have been unable to find effects of
childhood events on adult development
– Parental death, divorce, physical illness, beatings,
neglect, sexual abuse
– Some support came, but not nearly as much as was
expected
Current research
• Finding more and more effects of genes
on current behaviors than nurture on
current behaviors
• Childhood events are no where near
deterministic on adult
behaviors/development
Emotional hydraulics
• Emotions are like a balloon
– If you do not allow yourself to express an emotion, it will come
out at some other point, usually a less desirable one
• James-Lange theory of emotion is counter to this
– For sadness and anger, expressing it makes more come
– This is why psychoanalysis failed- people were told to focus on
all of the bad stuff that screwed them up- they got more
depressed instead of less
– When asked to bottle up anger, blood pressure decreases
– When asked to express their anger, blood pressure increases
Gratitude
• 3 groups
– Keep a journal of things they were grateful for
– Keep a journal of things that were hassles
– Keep a journal of live events
• Gratitude group had increases in joy,
happiness, and life satisfaction
• By remembering, focusing on, and
releasing positive emotions, they are
increased
Forgiving
• The removal of negative emotions from the past
• Recommends the “REACH” technique
– Recall the hurt
– Empathize why the person hurt you
– Altruistic gift of forgiveness (think of when someone
forgave you and they didn’t have to)
– Commit yourself to forgive publicly
– Hold onto the forgiveness
• When assigned to two groups (one that forgived
with these steps and a control group)
– Less anger, less stress, more optimism, better health,
more forgiveness
What about the future?
• Same from learned optimism
– Permanence
• How permanent are the things that happen
– Pervasiveness
• How much of your life is like what just happened to
you?
• ABCDE model for increasing optimism and
hope
The present
• Pleasures
– Ecstasy, thrills, orgasm, delight, mirth,
exuberance, comfort
• Gratifications
– Lose self-consciousness
– Enjoying great conversation, rock climbing,
reading a good book, dancing, making a slam
dunk
Pleasures
• Reliable to predict that they bring delight
– Short lived
– habituation
• Each subsequent pleasure that is the same is never as good as the
first
• Neurons respond to things that are new
– Habituation is hard wired into us
• Spread your pleasures out as much as possible to counter
habituation
– Take a mouthful of ice cream for 30 seconds
– If you still want another mouthful after 30 seconds, then do it, but wait
with it for another 30… you’ll stop fairly soon
– Spread out how often you listen to certain cds to make them always
sounding fresh
– Do something nice for someone else, but do a different nice thing each
time- or else they grow used to it
Savoring
• The awareness of pleasure and of the deliberate
conscious attention to the experience of
pleasure
• Five techniques for savoring
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Sharing with others
Memory building (grab mementos)
Self-congratulation
Sharpening perceptions
Absorption
• Four types of savoring
– Basking in praise, thanksgiving, marveling in the
moment, indulging the senses
Gratifications
• Typically don’t have a discreet emotion
that accompanies it the way pleasures do
• It is more about the total absorption, the
suspension of consciousness, and the flow
– Emotions are completely absent
Eudaimonia
• Living the good life
– Distinct from pleasures
– Accompany gratifications
Critical components of flow
• Task is challenging and requires skill and
concentration
• There are clear goals and immediate
feedback
• There is deep, effortless involvement
• There is a sense of control, but the sense
of self vanishes
• Time stops
Facts about flow
• Some experience it frequently
• Others rarely
• Low flow teenagers
– Mall kids, watch TV a lot
• High flow teenagers
– Hobbies, sports, homework
• High flow kids do better on self esteem, engagement,
well-being
– These are more likely to make it to college, have more
successes in life, more social ties
– Except that they would rather be doing the low flow activities
Seligman’s theory
• Striving for the immediate easy pleasure leads to
depression
– Reduces flow opportunities
• Over the last 50 years, more is done for people,
making life “easier” and thus less flow is
experienced, and depression levels have skyrocketed
• Along with this, a focus on how we feel at the
moment, (supported by many therapists as a
good thing) may get people to harp on these
feelings
– Flow is accompanied by the absence of feeling
Character Strengths
• Many believed that character/personality
was simply formed by your environment
– If you are raised in a bad enough
environment, even the “good” people will
eventually turn to violence and lawlessness
– If this is the case, what is the point of
discussing “character” when all it is would be
a reaction to your environment
Six main virtues
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Wisdom and knowledge
Courage
Love and humanity
Justice
Temperance
Spirituality and transcendence
Wisdom and knowledge
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Curiosity
Love of learning
Critical thinking/open-mindedness
originality/practical intelligence
Social/emotional intelligence
Perspective
Two others
• Courage
– Valor and bravery
– Perseverance
– Integrity
• Humanity and Love
– Loving and allowing oneself to be loved
– Kindness and generosity
Justice
• Duty, teamwork, loyalty
• Fairness and equity
• Leadership
Temperance
• Self-control
• Prudence/discretion
• Humility and modesty
Transcendence
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Appreciation of beaty and excellence
Gratitude
Hope/optimism
Spirituality/faith
Forgiveness and mercy
Playfulness and humor
Zest/passion
Seligman’s thoughts
• The more you use your signature
strengths every day, the happier you will
be because you will engage in flow more
often and thus more gratifications
Finding happiness at work
• Money isn’t everything
– Lawyers are the highest paid profession
– Highest depression rate (3.6x more than other
jobs on average)
• High turnover rate
• Those that view their job as “a calling” are
much happier at work than those that view
their work as a job
– Works in any job
Examples
• Janitors
– If they see their job as helping enhance the work of
the doctors, helping them save lives- they are happier
• Haircutters
– Make their job intimate and interpersonal
• Nurses
– Focus on the details of the patient’s charts and help
the family
• Kitchen workers
– More like culinary artists than cooks
Properties of “a calling”
• Uses your signature strengths (according
the Seligman)
• Contributes to a “greater good”
• Allows you to experience flow
Experience of flow
• More likely to happen at work
– Active activities produce flow approx. 39% of
the time and produce apathy 17%
– Passive activities (watching TV) produce flow
14% of the time and produce apathy 37%
• Average state of an American watching TV is
mildly depressed
Why are lawyers in particular so
unhappy?
• Pessimistic quality of the job
– Pessimists do worse in almost every aspect of
life, but do better in law school
• Able to think of all of the possible bad things that
can happen in a case and defend against them
• High stress environment
• Low level of decision latitude
– Very few choices for an low level associate
• Nurses and secretaries also fall on this list
Levels of depression
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Married people lowest
Never married people 2nd
People divorced once
People cohabiting
People divorced twice highest
John Bowlby
• Claimed that a parent-child bond was
irreplaceable
– Examined orphans in the wake of WW2
• These kids were found to be:
“affectionless, lacking feelings, with only
superficial relationships, angry, and antisocial”
• Led the way for Mary Ainsworth’s strange
situation
Are securely attached people better
in romance?
• So long as one of the partners is secure, that is
way better than otherwise
– Of course, two securely attached people is best
• Securely attached people deal with adversity in
relationships much better too
– Avoidant people tend to try and forget anything
happened (not ideal)
– Anxious people focus on themselves
– Secure people reach out the their support system
Romantic illusions
• Asked married couples to rate themselves, their
partners and an ideal partner on strengths and
faults
– Asks friends of them couple to fill them out about the
couple as well
• Look at the discrepancy between how they rate
their partners and how others view them
– The bigger the discrepancy (in a positive direction)
the happier and more stable the relationship
• Partners try to live up to these illusions
• Also easily dismiss problems because they believe so
positively about their mate
Seligman’s claim
• Two pessimists married don’t not usually
last
– Any other combination will work though