Psychological Research on Happiness

Two general approaches to happiness research:

• Hedonic approach

  • Focuses on pleasure attainment and pain avoidance

• Eudaimonic approach

  • Focuses on meaning and self-realization (the degree to which a person is fully functioning)

Maslow’s theory of self actualization

• Early pioneer of eudaimonic approach

• Maslow thought psychology should study the healthiest, most productive and creative people – not just troubled clinical cases

• Developed hierarchy of needs, self-actualization forming top

  • Defined as drive to realize one’s talents and fulfill one’s potentials, express one’s true self and develop “a sense of connectedness with the broader universe”

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

• Lower levels focus more on physical and affective components of happiness

  • Lower needs must be met before people are prompted to try and meet higher needs

• Higher levels include more cognitive components

• Levels (high to low):

  • Self-actualization needs

    • Need to live up to one’s fullest and unique potential

  • Esteem needs

    • Need for self-esteem, achievement, competence, independence

    • Need for recognition and respect from others

  • Belongingness and love needs

    • Need to love and be loved, belong and be accepted, avoid loneliness and alienation

  • Safety needs

    • Need to feel that the world in organized and predictable, need to feel safe, secure, stable

  • physiological needs

    • Need to satisfy hunger and thirst

• Research supporting Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

  • Financial satisfaction is more strongly predictive of subjective well-being in poorer nations; home-life satisfaction and self-esteem matter more in wealthy nations

  • Changes in function of marriage over time follow hierarchy

    • Before 1850– main function of marriage revolved around things like food production, shelter and protection from violence

    • 1850-1965–nation became wealthier, social institutions stronger, people had luxury of looking to marriage primarily for love and companionship rather than mere survival

    • 1965 on– marriage viewed less as an essential institution and more as elective means of achieving personal fulfillment, love become in large “the mutual exploration of infinitely rich, complex and exciting selves”

Characteristics of self-actualizing people (Maslow research)

• Self-aware and self-accepting, open and spontaneous, loving and caring, not paralyzed by others’ opinions

• Tend to focus energies on particular task one often regarded as one’s mission in life

• Most enjoy a few deep relationships rather than many superficial ones

• Interests are problem centered rather than self centered

• Most have been moved by spiritual or personal peak experiences that surpass ordinary consciousness

  • Peak experience: moments of ecstasy and bliss in which one experiences a sense of “oceanic oneness” and a transcendence of the small sense of self

• ***self-transcendence, important component of self-actualization

  • To be motivated by values that transcend the self

  • Idea later taken by positive psychologists (Martin Seligman) who emphasized importance of meaning for well-being

  • Cosmic consciousness

    • Maslow’s theory of self-actualization taken from R.M. Bucke’s Cosmic Consciousness

      • The book contains detailed biographies of some of the greatest “helpers of humanity” that have ever lived, people who were exceptional in their moral, as well as intellectual, stature and had undergone illumination experiences

      • Bucke’s main thesis is that human beings are slowly evolving towards a higher state of being

Hedonia vs. Eudaimonia

• Tal Ben-Shahar describes two main problems with hedonistic approach to happiness

  • Focuses solely on present, hedonist will do things potentially detrimental (and ultimately result in negative emotions) if they afford immediate gratification

    • If drugs produce pleasant experience, he takes them, if he finds work difficult, he avoids it

  • Happiness requires meaning, as well as happiness

    • Even while enjoying himself, happiness of hedonist is limited

      • Without a long-term purpose, devoid of challenge, life ceases to feel meaningful to us

    • We cannot find happiness if we exclusively seek pleasure and avoid pain

External vs. Internal Sources of Happiness

• One key flawed happiness premise is that happiness depends primarily on external circumstances

  • Often imagine that reaching future destination will make us happy

    • Once i graduate from college, I'll be happy etc 

  • But success is a moving target

    • As soon as you hit your target, you raise it again

      • Happiness that results from success is fleeting

  • If we are normally anxious and stressed, those feelings likely to return soon after reaching goal we thought would change our lives

    • Known in psychology as hedonic adaptation:

      • In vast majority of cases, shortly after reaching our destination we return to base level of well-being

        • Those with salaries under $30,000 per year claim that $50,000 would thrill them, whereas those who earn more that $100,000 say they need $250,000 to be satisfied (Daniel Kahneman)

• Related flawed premise: happiness is highly dependent on the state of our bank account

  • People generally assume that one of the primary things they need in order to be happier is more money

    • However, research does not support that view

      • Daniel Kahneman analyzed 450,000 responses from daily surveys of US residents, found that people with higher incomes

        • Report being somewhat more satisfied with their lives

          • But… are more likely to experience daily anxiety and anger

          • Don’t spend time in any more enjoyable activities than less prosperous peers

      • Once rush of euphoria wears off, state lottery winners typically find overall happiness unchanged

        • When interviewed 5 years later, 90% claim they wish they had never won

      • Money does make us happy but…

        • We think money will bring lots of happiness for a long time, actually it brings a little happiness for a short time (Dan Gilbert)

      • For a human being, the ultimate currency is not money, nor any external measure (fame, fortune, power). Ultimate currency is happiness (Tal Ben-Shahar)

• Looking for happiness in the wrong direction not only ineffectual, but produces negative effects

  • Those for whom making money is the primary objective generally:

    • Experience more distress

    • More likely to be depressed and anxious

    • Less healthy, less vital

  • College freshmen at elite colleges who expressed materialistic aspirations as freshmen (making money as primary goal) more likely to suffer from a variety of mental disorders by the time they were 37

• One possible reason having more money doesn’t tend to make people significantly happier – research finding that income is negatively correlated with empathy

  • Study by Kraus, Cote, Keltner (2010) found that individuals from lower social class:

    • Scored higher on tests of empathetic accuracy, identifying emotions on photos of faces (from MSCEIT) and on a Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test

    • Judged the emotions of a partner in a mock job interview more accurately

  • Another study showed high and low income participants photos of objects or human faces with accompanying stories:

    • On social-info trials, brains of low income participants demonstrated more activity in areas associated with theory of mind and empathy than wealthy participants

  • Even just thinking about money can make people act more selfishly

    • Researcher primed participants with images of money by:

      • Showing screensavers depicting floating cash

      • Asked them to unscramble lists of words that included terms like “cash” or “bill”

      • Primed participants significantly less likely than controls to give money to a hypothetical charity or provide assistance to another person who had “accidentally” dropped a box of pencils

  • Lack of empathy may impair social relationships

    • Social relationships probably the strongest factor influencing happiness

      • Negative impact of focusing on money may be mediated by effects on empathy

• There is a correlation between income and happiness, it just isn’t nearly as big a factor as most people think

  • Kahneman & Deaton (2010), the lower a person’s annual income falls below $75,000, the unhappier he or she feels

  • Making more than the 75k doesn’t really increase happiness

• Shawn Achor points out:

  • If we know everything about a person’s external world, we can only predict 10% of their long-term happiness

• Changing external circumstances doesn’t contribute much to happiness, but positive emotions do increase external success

  • Shawn Achor calls this “Happiness Advantage”

    • Researchers applied “happiness interventions” to raise people’s level of positivity, resulting in

      • Businesspeople 37% better at sales

      • Doctors 19% faster and more accurate at coming up with a correct diagnosis

    • Managers increased their praise and recognition of employees, once a day, for 21 business days

      • Employees’ productivity levels increased by 31% over a control group of employees

    • Meta-analysis of 225 academic studies found strong evidence of bi-directional causality between life satisfaction and successful business outcomes

Researchers have found that happy people tend to...

• Have high self-esteem

• Be optimistic, outgoing, and agreeable

• Have close friendships or a satisfying marriage

• Have work and leisure that engage their skills

• Have meaningful religious faith or spiritual life

• Sleep well and exercise

• Subjectively healthy (what you think about your health)

However, happiness seems not much related to other factors, such as

• Age

• Physical attractiveness

• Gender (women are more often depressed, but also more often joyful)

• Educational level

• Parenthood (having children or not)

• Objective health (what doctors say)

Top factors influencing happiness according to research literature:

• 1) Social relationships

  • Pretty much all researchers agree this is single biggest predictor of happiness

    • Ex: Study of college students found that correlation between happiness and Simet’s social support scale was 0.71 (correlation between smoking and cancer is .37)

  • Quality matters, not quantity

    • How accepted you feel within key relationships

      • How much depth and honesty within your relationships

      • Extent to which you can relax and be seen for who you truly are

• 2) optimism 

  • Hopefulness or confidence about the future or successful outcome of something

  • Associated with left prefrontal activity

  • Highest level of left-prefrontal dominance ever recorded has been found in long-term meditators (tens of thousands of meditation practice)

    • Suggests hemispheric dominance and explanatory style can be changed, this is very important

• 3) Self-esteem

  • Confidence in one’s own worth

    • Associated with self-acceptance and connecting with one’s own integrity/authenticity

  • Self esteem one of the biggest predictors (negatively) of negative affect

  • Cultivating self-esteem reduces tendency to engage in social comparison (which is highly correlated with negative affect)

• 4) Locus of control

  • Happiness is positively correlated with an internal locus of control (perception that one is a master of one’s own destiny, rather than a helpless pawn of fate)

• 5) Sense of meaning and purpose to life

• 6) Sleep and exercise

When we change our minds and rewire our brains that we are able to sustain a sense of well-being and flourishing (as opposed to looking at external factors)

• One of world record holders for highest level of left prefrontal dominance (Matthieu Ricard) says 

  • Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment, not the gratification of inexhaustible desires for outward things

• Most people seem to know this already but think that they don’t have the time to effect inner change

  • Many evidence-based techniques for enhancing happiness takes only a minute to do or no time at all

  • Primarily about shifting one’s focus of attention and beliefs/attitudes