Psych of Happiness Test 1

differential salience

we focus on different information beforehand than when we are actually in the situation 

inadequate intuitive theories, usually wrong

people make predictions about future feelings based on theories they have on how people function 

diversification bias

the assumption that we will desire more variety in things than we actually do 

resilience

ability to spring back from adversity like abuse, war ,or natural disasters 

complete mental health

a combination of high emotional well-being, high psychological well-being, and high social well-being, along with low mental illness

hedonism

the belief that the pursuit of well-being is fundamentally the pursuit of individual sensual pleasures and the avoidance of harm, pain, and suffering

neuroplasticity

our brains can change throughout our lives as a result of our experiences

happiness set point

 most people have an average level of happiness—or a set point—after temporary highs and lows in emotionality

• eventually everyone returns to an average or baseline level of well-being—a level set by genetics

non zero sum goals

person involved as well as others can benefit, everybody wins

zero sum goals

those in which one person gains advantage at the expense of others

affective forecasting

predicting how they will feel when they reach their goals, people are bad at this 

autonomous motivation

self-chosen and is congruent with one’s true self

• the more a person’s behavior is autonomously motivated, the greater the increase in well-being 

controlled motivation

driven by external rewards or guilt and is not congruent with a person’s core values

- Doing something in order to get an external reward can eventually lead to acquiring desirable skills and competencies

self determination theory

1. Competence: the need for mastery experiences that allow a person to deal effectively with her or his environment

• initial difficulties of learning translated into more happiness and life satisfaction later

1. Relatedness: the need for mutually supportive interpersonal relationships

2. Autonomy: the need to make independent decisions about areas in life that are important to the person

• if those needs are met, then people show better adaptive functioning and higher well-being

authentic happiness

pleasant life, good life, meaningful life

undoing hypothesis

positive emotions help both the body and the mind regain a sense of balance, flexibility, and equilibrium after the impact of negative emotions, fredrickson 

• positive emotions helped shorten the aftereffects of stress reactions in a shorter period of time

desirability bias

people may complete the questionnaires in a way that makes them “look good,”

sustainable happiness model

long-term happiness is a function of

 (a) one’s genetically determined set point, cannot really modify 

(b) circumstantial factors, such as where a person lives, age, gender, and past life events (for example, previous traumas), difficult to change 

(c) intentional activity, or how people choose to spend their time, interact with others, and think about situations.

is frequency or intensity of positive emotions more useful?

frequency

quality of life therapy

CASIO

happiness training program

change your activities, change your thinking, nurture relationships, value personal growth, decrease negative emotions, Lower expectations and aspirations, People should place the pursuit of happiness first in their lives 

wellness

states of optimal physical, mental, and emotional health

polyvgal theory

activity of the vagus nerve to the heart is involved in social behavior

vitality

the energy available to the self and defined it as a “positive feeling of aliveness and energy” 

Psychoneuroimmunology

examines the relationships between psychological processes (especially emotion), the functioning of the nervous system, and the body’s immune system, Adar 

Experiment- conditioned the immune system of rats to respond to saccharin as if it were an immunosuppressant drug, 

•  provided evidence that the immune system could “learn,” which suggests a direct influence between the brain and immune responses

attention restoration theory

nature is not only restorative for people emotionally but cognitively beneficial too, you also may not need to be actually immersed in nature for it to work 

Experiment- college students exposed to nature photos did better on an attentional task than peers presented with urban photos, recovered more quickly from a tiring computer task (Berto) 

the nun study

Nuns cecilia and marguerite- both lived the same way, cecilia lived and marguerite died of a stroke 

• Cecila noted that she was happier throughout her life and that led to her living longer 

• They all eat roughly the same bland diet. They don’t smoke or drink. They have the same reproductive and marital histories. They don’t get sexually transmitted diseases. They are in the same economic and social class, and they have the same access to good medical care.

• Sister Cecilia used the words “very happy” and “eager joy,” both expressions of effervescent good cheer. Sister Marguerite’s autobiography, in contrast, contained not even a whisper of positive emotion.

experience machine study

would stimulate your brain and give you any positive feelings that you desire 

• most people who are offered this turn it down 

• We don’t just want positive feelings, we want to be entitled to our positive feelings 

• To be entitled to those feelings you need to exercise personal strengths and virtues 

• You cannot take shortcuts to feel the same thing 

superreplicators

Genes tend to be transmitted when they make us do the things that transmit genes

Ex- 50 people have orgasm gene, 50 people don’t. In a million years, everyone would end up having the gene. This is because the gene made people want to have sex more so it ended up transmitting the gene even more 

how to solve the superreplicator false belief issue

1. find someone who is having the experience we are contemplating and ask them how they feel.

• people never do this because they think they’re more unique than they really are and that other peoples experiences won’t be similar to theirs 

2. You should abandon imagination altogether and use concrete info 

Surragators

never told what the prize was but shown someones report of how they felt. this always made them have more accurate predictions

three shortcomings of imagination

1. its tendency to fill in and leave out without telling us (we remember the good and forget the bad)

2. tendency to project the present onto the future, fills in gaps with what it borrows from the present (picking food when you’re hungry)

3. failure to recognize that things will look different once they happen

disease modal

• Focuses on mental illness, views psych conditions as diseases instead of individual failings 

• Motivated to look for a cure since its a disease 

components of emotions

feelings, physiological response, motivation, action

8 basic emotions

• Anger, sadness, happiness, fear, disgust, surprise, contempt, embarrassment 

• Everyone can read these facial expressions 

Papua new guinea- asked people to make facial expression to reveal emotions

• Made the same faces that we would 

emotion display rules

• Cultures have display rules of when it is appropriate 

• Ekman Compared japanese and american faces while watching films with disgusting scenes like amputation

• When participants thought they were alone, both groups showed the same facial expressions

• When an authority figure was present, Japanese masked their disgust with a smile because negative emotions are seen as impolite in their culture 

duchenne smile

uses facial muscles that can only be used when experiencing genuine happiness

autonomic nervous system

Located mainly in the spinal cord and brain stem and its role is to control bodily organs.

- Prepares the body for action. Once action is no longer required, it inhibits activation of bodily organs.

- E.g., fear -> an increased heart rate, our hands and face feel warm, palms sweat and we have a queasy feeling in the stomach

does making a face make you actually happy?

• Making a particular face tended to produce corresponding autonomic arousal 

• Tended to feel the corresponding emotion, 78% felt the emotion for the face that they made 

• The better job that people did, the more likely they were to experience that emotion 

• Implication: you can make yourself feel better by mimicking a duchenne smile as closely as possible 

right hemisphere

negative emotions and withdrawal behaviors, behavioral inhibition system 

left hemisphere

positive emotions and approach behaviors (reward seeking), behavioral approach system 

cognitive measures

how someone thinks about their life

affective measures

how someone feels about their life

Experience sampling method

People given programmable wristwatch set to signal at random moments 8 times a day from 7:30 am to 10:30 pm for a week

Day reconstruction method

• Asks how people spend their time and how they feel about the activities, where are they doing it and who are they doing it with

• Fill out a diary and questionnaire detailing everything they did the day before and how long they did it for 

• Also where they were and who was there 

• Also rate positive and negative moods, happy, warm, friendly, hassled, annoyed, pushed around, angry 

• better than experience sampling, less invasive, less time

3 factors predicting subjective well being

life circumstances, intentional activities, genetics (biggest)

self concordanance

intentional activities are more successful if they fit someones personality and values. For example an introvert is going to enjoy different activities than an extrovert. 

relationship between positive and negative emotions

relatively independent

eudaimonia

 the emotions were to be tamed, by rigorous self-discipline, to accept the dictates of reason, valued poise, harmony, and the avoidance of emotional extremes

• Looked for golden mean between extremes 

• If you achieve this balance you life in eudaimonia: condition of flourishing and completeness that constitutes true and enduring joy, life lived a certain way 

divine command theory

happiness is found by living in accord with the commands or rules set down by a Supreme Being

•  true happiness was related to a religious piety based on submission to God’s supreme authority

• Early hebrews, ten commandments, prohibitions

virtue theory

the cultivation and development of certain virtues lead a person toward the greatest well-being and, therefore, toward the good life

- positive psychology is partially defined as the search for human strengths and virtues.

hedonic calculus

jeremy Bentham asserted that it was possible to quantify happiness by examining the ratio of positive to negative experiences in one’s life

• all pleasures should be given equal value

utilitarianism

If you want to know whether a certain behavior is right or ethical or fosters the good life, then you must show that it leads to the enhancement of happiness for the greatest number of people

3 components of subjective well being

1. Hedonic component: the pursuit of pleasure 

• We can increase positive emotions about past present and future 

• Past: gratitude and forgiveness 

• Present: savoring experiences and practicing mindfulness (being aware of what going on)

• Future: building hope and optimism, look forward to things 

• Gratification component: participating in activities that engage us fully, using our most cherished talents, skills, and virtues 

The meaning component: using our strengths to serve something bigger than ourselves 

Oxford happiness inventory

reverse coded questions

dynamic model of affect

when people are under stress or uncertainty, then positive and negative emotions “fuse” and become dependent

fredricksons theory of negative emotions

• They restrict our attention 

• make the thought action repertoire more narrow, they restrict the range of thoughts that you have 

• When you’re afraid, that all that you can think about 

• we have evolved and use negative emotions for protection

fredericksons theory of positive emotions

Broadening- experiencing positive emotions expands the thoughts and actions we are willing to consider 

Building- when we are in a positive mood, we tend to build more important physical, intellectual, and social resources and skills 

Examples: one group got candy, one got none. Given three words, they had to find a word to link them together. If they were in a positive mood from the candy, they were more likely to figure out a linking word (they were more creative and had more knowledge to pull from) 

impact bias

People expect certain events to have a much longer duration and larger impact than they actually end up having

psychological immune system

 a set of nonconscious cognitive processes that help change a person's views of the world so that they can feel better about the world. It seems to work at its best when we feel completely trapped. For example, if you’re already trapped in a marriage, you find a way to find your partner's quirks cute and loving. Otherwise you’d grow to hate your world. 

natural happiness

occurs when we get what we wanted

• freedom is helpful, allows you to choose your future

synthetic happiness

something that we create when we did not get what we wanted, just as real as natural happiness

• can’t do this when you have freedom of choice

• If you are not feeling stuck and are able to make choices, you won’t have the ability to alter your world view

free choice paradigm

paintings, convince themselves that what they got is great and what they didn’t get was bad. They create synthetic happiness to validate their choice of painting.

• even worked with amnesia patients who didn’t remember owning a painting, its a real affective reaction change

photography experiment

in the condition where they could change their mind, they ended up second guessing their decision and not being happy with it. This is because in the reversible condition, you have the freedom to choose and therefore are not creating synthetic happiness. 

• when asked which condition they’d choose, over half pick the returnable condition because having choices is comfortable

how should stores design their return policies if they want customers to be most satisfied with their purchases?

don’t allow returns so they’re forced to create synthetic happiness and convince themselves they made good decisions

How should they design return policies if they want customers to be most likely to shop at that store?

give them the option to return, this is more comfortable and would make them more likely to shop. They are also more likely to return something, making them go back into the store to do more shopping.

How did inducing positive emotions affect visual scanning patterns in the eye tracking study? fredrick

• If you inject positive emotions, people are more likely to step back and see the big picture and see the similarities 

• More likely to look around at all the different aspects of a complicated array, if no positive emotions, they just stay looking at the center

• Positive emotions widen the scope of what people are scanning for in the environment 

According to the study fredrickson cited, how were children able to improve their performance on a math test?

• They were asked to sit and think about a positive memory before the test 

what does the prefrontal cortex do

acts as an “experience simulator”. Humans are able to play out experiences entirely in their mind before actually carrying them out within the real world.

For example, you can think about a flavor combination and know you would not like it without actually trying it.