Pursuit of Happiness

How to measure happiness

• Well-being and life satisfaction• General questions

– At the moment are you: very happy, pretty happy, unhappy

• A bit more specific questions– During the past weeks have you felt:

• Particularly excited or interested in something• Pleased about having accomplished something• On top of the world• Bored• Upset because someone criticized you• Depressed or very unhappy

Other techniques

• Measure it with a one time survey

• Measure it in diary format– Have people rate their happiness everytime a

pager or alarm goes off throughout the day– Can subtract the negative feelings from the

positive ones to get an overall level of happiness (or unhappiness)

Rating happiness

• Observations seem to find that most people are unhappy– Counselors rate that 10-20 percent of

Americans are truly happy– Up to 33% are depressed

• If you ask people directly, only 1/10 say “not too happy”

• More than 80% rate themselves as more satisfied than dissatisfied

Can we trust people’s perceptions of themselves?

• People suffer from two major biases according the Myers– People focus and overreport good things– “pollyanna syndrome”– College students rate themselves as far more likely

than their classmates to get a good job, draw a good salary, and own a house

• Rate themselves as less likely to get divorced, have cancer, be fired, and drop out

• Only 2% say there is a good chance they’ll drop out, but only ½ of students entering a 4 year institution will graduate within 5 years

So… what if people are always painting a rosy picture?

• Well, we can still compare across people; if everyone seems to look at things in a better view than they really are, we are still comparing “like” responses– Imaging a thermometer that always was 10

degrees to high; it still could be useful to tell whether you were hotter or colder than normal

Another effect on people’s perceptions of themselves

• People’s momentary moods– If people are in a good mood, they see the

world through rose-colored glasses– Depressed adults are more likely to recall

parents as rejecting, punitive, and guilt-promoting

– Formerly depressed adults see their parents positively

Two reassuring facts

• People’s reports retain consistency at various points in time– Those that report happiness and satisfaction

are likely to report the same a year from now

• People that report happiness show more signals of happiness than those that don’t– Smile more, laugh more, more happy

memories, report more joy, observed as happy by friends and family

Does money buy happiness?

• Asked what would improve quality of life- the first answer often is “more money”

• Many people believe earning 10-20% more money would make them happier

From 1970 to 1990…

• Importance of– “being very well off financially” rated as very

important or essential increased from 39-74% of people’s ratings

– “develop a meaningful philosophy of life” dropped from 76-43%

Are people in wealthier countries happier?

• Some small correlation between national affluence and well-being

• Not perfectly consistent– Ireland is considerably poorer than West

Germany (nearly 1/3 of GNP per person) yet rates happier

• Maybe stability is more important?

Are the richest people in a country the happiest?

• Modestly• Important for people to have enough money to

buy necessities– Having more than enough does little for happiness

• Some studies find it isn’t how much money you make, but how satisfied you are with how much money you make

• “Satisfaction isn’t so much getting what you want as wanting what you have”

» David Myers in The Pursuit of Happiness

Ed Diener (University of Chicago)

• Surveyed 49 of the wealthiest Americans- they were only slightly happier than average

• There are many examples of wealthy people that are unhappy

Does happiness rise with affluence?

• Between 1950-1990, buying power doubled– Twice as many cars per capita in 1990– One in three say they are very happy

• Between 1956 and 1988, percentage of Americans that were “pretty satisfied with your present financial situation” dropped from 42-30%

1960’s teens vs 1980’s teens

• 1980’s: had declining family poverty, smaller families, increased parental education, doubled per pupil expenditures, 11% drop in class size– Delinquency rate doubled, suicide rate tripled,

homicide rate tripled

Satisfaction is little affected by the events in our lives

• Able-bodied students– Describe themselves as 50% of the time

happy, 22% of the time unhappy, 29% of the time neutral

• Disabled students describe their emotions identically (within one point)

• Car accident victims say they have more happiness than not 3 weeks after the accident

Catastrophe victims and lottery winners

• Cancer patients report benefiting from their experience

• Lottery winners report brief euphoria– Other pleasures in life don’t seem quite as

pleasurable

• Raises in income causes small temporary jumps in happiness

Happiness is relative

• To prior experience– Opponent process principle for emotions– Emotions trigger opposing emotions

• After happiness, many get the blues

• After terror, many feel elated

– Some theories state that as you have more pleasure, it gets diminished and you are more likely to have pain

– Having experienced sorrow, people report more pleasure in the “good times”

Happiness is relative

• To others’ attainment– As societies get richer, happiness does not increase

• These people have a higher standard to compare themselves to

– To those making $10,000 / year, $50,000 / year is rich– To those making $500,000 / year, $1 million is rich– On average people say 21% of Americans are rich

• Virtually none perceive themselves as rich

Interesting application

• To be at a Harvard– How do you feel about yourself and your

achievement compared to your classmates?

• What about at a no-name college?– Turns out that Harvard University and Hope

College (where is that even?) had the same amount of male graduates go on to get PhDs

More examples

• After watching sexually attractive women, men tend to see their partners as less appealing

• Women that have had lumpectomies (for breast cancer) compare themselves with those that had mastectomies– We feel better when we look at others that

have it worse

Random fact

• People often believe that if they made more money they would be happier and more generous– People earning $50,000-60,000 give 1.7%– Those earning over $100,000 give 2.9%– Seems to possibly be true until you find out

that:• People with incomes under $10,000 give 5.5% to

charity

Experiment on expectations

• Adults were asked to write down a low moment in their lives or a high moment from their lives– Although the high memories are more

pleasant, people feel better about their present life after remember the lows

Rabbi Story- pg 65 PoH• Jewish fable

– A farmer seeks a rabbi’s counsel because his wife nags him, his children fight, and his surroundings are in chaos. The good rabbi tells him to go home and move the chickens into the house. “Into the house!” cries the farmer. “But what good will that do?” Nevertheless, he complies and two days later returns, more frantic than before. “Now my wife nags me, the children fight, and the chickens are everywhere, laying eggs, dropping feathers, and eating our food. What am I to do?” The rabbi tells him to go home and bring the cow into the house. “The cow!” cries the distraught man. “That can only worsen things!” Again, the rabbi insists, the man complies, and then returns a few days later more harried than ever. “nothing is helping. The chickens are into everything and the cow is knocking over the furniture. Rabbi, you have made things worse.” The rabbi sends the man home to bring in the horse as well. The next day the man returns in despair. “Everything is knocked over. There is no room for my family. Our lives are in shambles. What shall we do?” Now the rabbi instructs, “Go home and take out the horse, cow, and the chickens.” The man does so and returns the next day smiling. “Rabbi, our lives are now so calm and peaceful. With the animals gone, we are a family again. How can I thank you?” The rabbi smiles.

What does it all mean?

• Our “norm” resets all of the time– Once we experience more pleasure, this becomes the

norm to which most other things are compared to– We then need more pleasure than before to feel

pleasure– The bright side is that this happens with sadness too

• Once you experience sadness, that level feels less sad and you adjust what is your “norm”

• Now you need to experience much higher levels of sadness to actually feel sad

Count your blessings

• This may actually lead to more happiness– People that had to complete the sentence “I’m

glad I’m not a …” 5 times reported feeling happy and satisfied more than those that had to complete “I wish I were a …” sentences

When are people happiest?

• Less than 1 percent of the variation in well being is related to age– Across 16 nations

• What about at specific time of life?– Menopause– When children leave the house– Mid-life crisis

Menopause

• Not a bad time– 2/3 of menopausal women agreed with “after

menopause, women generally feel better than they have for years”

– 80% of menopausal women agreed with “women are generally calmer and happier after the change of life than before”

Children leaving home

• Empty nest syndrome– The idea that after children leave home, the

parents are depressed

• Myers refers to it as a “post-launch honeymoon”

• Things that have lead to depression:– Having children return home– Not having a relationship with children after

they have moved out

Midlife Crisis

• Men realize that they will not accomplish all of those things that they had always wanted to do– So they search for life meanings, change

relationships

• Surveys have shown no dip in sense of well-being or any increase in job dissatisfaction, marital dissatisfaction, career changes, divorce, anxiety, depression, or suicide

• No real evidence of any emotional distress in men at any time between 30 and 60 years of age

One major difference across ages

• Teenagers have more extreme but shortly lasting emotions

• Adults have more mild emotions but they typically last longer

Older adults

• Typically report more satisfaction with their work, marriage, standard of living, housing and community

• Typically are unhappy with their health and attractiveness and report being lonelier

• These two seem to balance out

Remember that we compare ourselves with others

• Typically we compare among like groups– Older people compare with older people and

teenagers compare with teenagers– Thus, maybe older people have more chronic

illnesses, but they compare how they are feeling with their sick friend

– They conclude: “I’m not as bad off as so and so…”

What factors matter most to well being?

• Depends on the age considered– Young adults report job satisfaction as being

important– Retired adults report that their leisure

activities are most important for whether or not they’re happy

Type A people

• Intense and anger prone

• Middled aged Type A heart attack survivors– Group 1: receive advice on medications, diet

and exercise– Group 2: similar advice plus advice on how to

slow down and relax– After 3 years, group 2 had ½ as many repeat

heart attacks than group 1

Possible positivity enhancers

• Laughter– Releases muscle tension, exercises the lungs

• Aerobic exercise– Increases self-confidence, self-discipline– Decreases anxiousness and depression

What about Gender?

• Gender accounts for less than 1% of well-being– Men and women appear equally likely to

report being very happy and satisfied/very satisfied with life

• Across 39 countries

Do employed married women vary compared to those that are not

employed?• Only slightly

• Employed women are slightly more likely to say they are very happy or fully satisfied compared to those that don’t work

How to explain this?

• Some women find housework repetitive but may find other rewards

• Likewise, a working woman may find more identity at work but have guilt from leaving children at home

• The two balance each other out

Working mothers

• No more or less likely to have problems with their marriage– No more or less satisfied with marriage and

family life– No more of less likely to say they are

understood by their husbands or than they understand their husbands

– No more or less likely to have husbands that are happy with their marriages

What seems to matter?

• Not the role they play (mother, wife, working woman) but instead the quality of their lives within those roles– Work may be important, but it doesn’t have to

be paid work• Anything that enables them to feel productive and

competent

What about sad feelings?

• Women are more vulnerable than men for depression– Housewives and unassertive women are more

vulnerable to depression– The more roles that someone has, the more

they can fend off depression• If things are bad at home, at least they have work

Women are…

• More likely than men to have strong feelings– Both negative and positive feelings– Their average happiness is equal to men’s

average happiness, but women have higher highs and higher lows

– More likely to attempt suicide than males• Although men are 2-3x more likely to succeed

Why do women have stronger emotions?

• They are better at reading emotions– When given a slightly ambiguous facial

expression, they are better at interpreting the true emotion than men are

• Have more empathy than men

Does well-being for women correlate with their menstrual

cycle?• Some research reports that some women

will see a dip in well-being the few days before or after menstruation– Called “late luteal phase disorder (PMS)

• When looked at on a larger scale…– No predictable difference found throughout

their cycle• Yet most women believed that their moods did

vary with their cycle

Other things that don’t seem to matter

• Having children• Where in a country one lives (city vs country life)• Race• Education

– Race and education found to account for less than 2% of well-being

• How can this be?– Most people compare themselves to members from

their own group

Self-help in happiness

• Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) sold more than 2 million hardcover copies in 2 years– “Think yourself to happiness”

• Other movements in self-help– Firewalking

• If you can walk across these coals, your mind must be very powerful- thus you can do anything (including be happy!)

Movements in self help

• Astrology– Unsure of why this is mentioned (MAYBE

DELETE FROM NOTES?

• Subliminal tapes– Present people with things that they are

unaware of getting• These things get to your subconscious and you will

believe it to be true

Do subliminal tapes work?

• Largely, NO• We can prime behavior through subliminal

messages– Showing something subliminally can change small

responses from people later

• Never been shown to change major behaviors such as quitting smoking or increasing positive feelings– Any benefits reported are probably placebo effects– People think it will work so it does…

Subliminal tapes study

• Two groups– Group 1 got a self-esteem tape– Group 2 got a memory enhancement tape– Researchers switched the labels for ½ of the tapes

• The results– No effect of which tape people got– People thought they were better with their memory or

self-esteem (based on which tape they think they got, not which they actually got) but no difference was observed at all

What about hypnosis?

• Some report that hypnosis can help them overcome their negativity and be happier

What are the truths behind hypnosis?

• Memories obtained through hypnosis are not reliable– Most state courts don’t take testimony from

witnesses that have been through hypnosis

• People that have been hypnotically age-regressed are not genuinely age-regressed– These people typically act as they believe

children would act but outperform most children

What about those that are supposed to regress to past lives?

• Nearly all report being their same race unless the hypnotist suggests that changing races is common

• Most report being someone famous• Most don’t know things that would be

known by those people– Wouldn’t know the president at that particular

time, even though the person they “become” would definitely have known that

What else?

• People cannot do anything all that special while hypnotized– Hypnotized people report cutting up American

flags, defacing the Bible, stealing an exam or selling drugs- possibly even throwing “acid” in an experimenter’s face

– People asked to simulate hypnosis will do all of the same things though

What CAN hypnosis do?

• Pain relief• Helps patients “harness their own healing

powers”– People have been able to get rid of

headaches, asthma, warts, and even sores– However, people given positive suggestions

without hypnosis see the same benefits– Expectations matter

• Those that expect to be hypnotized may be more easily “hypnotized” than others

What is the best predictor of well-being?

• Previous well-being

• Only child?– Doesn’t matter

• Physical attractiveness?– “Homely” people rated their life satisfaction at

4.8/7– “Strikingly handsome or beautiful” people

rated their life satisfaction at 6.38/7

Does Self Esteem predict well-being?

• Low self-esteem predicts defensive behavior– People that have been put through something

humiliating will respond to attitude questions with more hostility than those that weren’t humiliated

– Those made to feel insecure are more likely to put others down

Best predictor of life satisfaction…

• Satisfaction with the self (self-esteem)– Most people have a fairly high opinion of

themselves– Most people view themselves as above

average• 90% of business managers and college professors

rated their performance as above average• Most high school seniors rate themselves in the

top 10%

– Might not be bad- it protects our self-esteem

Personal control

• Those with an internal locus of control– More likely to achieve more in school, cope with

stress and live happily

• When you raise or lower one’s sense of control– More depression, learned helplessness, stress is

worse, health issues

• NOTE: Remember that stable democracies have higher well-being ratings than other forms of government– Democracies have more self-control

Happy people are…

• Hopeful (remember optimism)

• Extraverted– Possibly because they are more connected to

people, they may enjoy greater social support

Genetic influences

• Since personality traits like outgoingness and optimism affect happiness and personality traits have some genetic component, happiness may have some genetic component

Can you change your attitude?

• Actions affect attitudes– Foot in the door phenomenon

• Can progressively get you to change your attitudes starting small and working up to a large change

• Even getting people to fake a smile makes them more likely to report higher well-being afterward

How does work play a role in happiness?

• Unemployed people are less satisfied with life than employed people – White-collar workers are more satisfied than

manual workers (not a large difference though)

Satisfying work is most important

• Myers discusses– Personal identity

• A career provides us with this• Most people when asked what they do, they go to their

career first

– Community• Colleagues provide a sense of community

– Purpose– Personal control

• Higher satisfaction at places that allow employees to participate in decision making

Don’t forget flow

• When challenges engage our skills, we often become so absorbed in the flow of an activity that we lose consciousness of self and time

Rest from work

• Abnormal amounts of sleep are correlated with depression (too much or too little)

• Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST) – Provide someone with a soundproof dark

room, a bed, food, water, a toilet– Most of the time people report feeling more in

control after these “REST days”

Close Relationships and happiness

• A study of widowed people found their risk of death doubled the week following their partner’s death

• After experiencing a trauma, those that keep it to themselves are more vulnerable to health problems– Of course, the more severe the trauma

(especially sexual), the more problems too, but they are enhanced if they are not discussing it

Does being an individual lead to happiness?

• Actually, just the opposite seems to be true– People in societies that focus on individuals

(Western societies) typically:• Make more money• Take more pride in personal achievements• Are less geographically bound by elderly parents• Are less likely to prejudge those outside their

groups• Enjoy more privacy

BUT…

• They are also:– Lonelier– More alienated– Less likely to feel romantic love– More likely to divorce– More homicidal– More vulnerable to stress related diseases– Depression and meaninglessness

More from Myers

• Those that can name 5 or more friends that they “discussed matters important to you” were 60% more likely to feel “very happy” than those that named 0 people

Other things that relate to relationships and happiness

• Satisfaction with love life

• Having close relationships leads to better coping through tragedy

• One with a group of changing friends is less satisfied than those with a stable group of friends

Self-Disclosure seems important

• Happiness promotes intimacy• Intimacy also leads to happiness though• “Disclosure reciprocity effect”

– Opening up to someone leads them to open up to you and back and forth

• Rogers listed the following as important for well being:– Genuineness– Accepting of others– Empathetic, sensitivity, and reflectivity

Furthermore

• Discussing your problems and thoughts with anyone are more likely to be happy– Therapy seems to lead to increased

happiness– Even psychotherapy, where one is essentially

talking to oneself (when the therapist mirrors their questions with questions) leads to increased happiness