Authentic Happiness

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Authentic Happiness
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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

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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

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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

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The Harry truman effect

• Tonic vs Phasic activity
• Tonic activity introversion, IQ, depression,
  anger- measured 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)

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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

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Barbara Fredrickson

• In the late 90s and early 2000s 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 dont have these in place are more
  likely to have disorders

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Happiness may

• Increase productivity
• Lead to better evaluations at work

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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
• 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

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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

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Broad theme

• Positive feelings are there to allow the
  body/mind to grow into something better

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Happiness Formula

• H S C V
• H enduring level of happiness
• S set range
• C circumstances of your life
• V factors under voluntary control

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Enduring level of happiness

• Different than momentary happiness
• Has a genetic component
• Twin studies
• Certain aspects are changeable

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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

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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)

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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

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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

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Purchasing power within a country

• Has more than doubled over the last half-century
  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

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The Forbes 100

• The 100 richest in the world are only slightly
  happier than the average American

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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

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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

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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)

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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 dont

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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

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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

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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

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Voluntary factors under control

• Satisfaction with the past, present, or future
• Separated pieces

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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 didnt 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

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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

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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

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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 youll 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

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Savoring

• The awareness of pleasure and of the deliberate
  conscious attention to the experience of pleasure
• Five techniques for savoring
• 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

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Gratifications

• Typically dont 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

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Eudaimonia

• Living the good life
• Distinct from pleasures
• Accompany gratifications

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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

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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

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Seligmans 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
  sky-rocketed
• 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

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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

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Six main virtues

• Wisdom and knowledge
• Courage
• Love and humanity
• Justice
• Temperance
• Spirituality and transcendence

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Wisdom and knowledge

• Curiosity
• Love of learning
• Critical thinking/open-mindedness
• originality/practical intelligence
• Social/emotional intelligence
• Perspective

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Two others

• Courage
• Valor and bravery
• Perseverance
• Integrity
• Humanity and Love
• Loving and allowing oneself to be loved
• Kindness and generosity

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Justice

• Duty, teamwork, loyalty
• Fairness and equity
• Leadership

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Temperance

• Self-control
• Prudence/discretion
• Humility and modesty

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Transcendence

• Appreciation of beaty and excellence
• Gratitude
• Hope/optimism
• Spirituality/faith
• Forgiveness and mercy
• Playfulness and humor
• Zest/passion

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Seligmans 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

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Finding happiness at work

• Money isnt 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

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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 patients charts and
  help the family
• Kitchen workers
• More like culinary artists than cooks

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Properties of a calling

• Uses your signature strengths (according the
  Seligman)
• Contributes to a greater good
• Allows you to experience flow

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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

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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

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Levels of depression

• Married people lowest
• Never married people 2nd
• People divorced once
• People cohabiting
• People divorced twice highest

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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 anti-social
• Led the way for Mary Ainsworths strange situation

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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

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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

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Seligmans claim

• Two pessimists married dont not usually last
• Any other combination will work though