December 29, 2006
Have a Nice Day?
Are you happy? According to this article from Slate, that question is harder to answer than you might think.
[W]hen you ask people how happy they are, the answer you get will depend on whether the sun is shining or whether they have just found a dime on the floor. ([Psychologist Norbert] Schwarz used to plant coins where people would find them.)That just shows how vulnerable people’s views of their own satisfaction with life are. Kahneman argues that measures of life satisfaction are based on heavily edited memories of actual experiences. People recall the peaks, gloss over the troughs, and are influenced by recent events, including sunshine and serendipitous dimes. The kind of person who says she is happy with her life, then, is the kind of person who is experiencing lots of intense, positive emotion, even if there is a lot of anxiety thrown in there, too. High-powered city types remember the excitement of the deal but forget the misery of the long commute.
This theory intrigues me. Is it a bad thing if it’s true? It sounds like people tend to focus on the joys in life and dismiss their hardships as momentary. That seems like an honorable and practical way to live. Considering the impact of the sunshine and the coins (both temporary circumstances) on the way people answer, it sounds like many of us gauge our happiness by living in the moment.
One thing the article doesn’t mention is what happens when people step in a mudpuddle or have their wallets stolen right before they’re asked whether they’re happy. If sunshine and coins lead to happiness, where to wet clothes and empty pockets lead?
While we’re on the subject of happiness, did you know that this fellow owns the smiley face?
[Image source: http://www.schwimmerlegal.com/2006/07/have_a_nice_day.html]
![Rob Robinson](http://thinktrain.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/02/Rob.jpg")
Hazel said,
December 31, 2006 @ 8:02 am
I remember reading a study showing that holding a pencil in one’s mouth horizontally triggers a feeling of happiness. Something about using smile muscles and muscle memory tricking one’s brain. We are so easy!
Rob Robinsonhttp://thinktrain.blogspot.com said,
January 1, 2007 @ 4:07 pm
Hmmm. I’ll have to try that one. I have heard that smiling even when you don’t feel like it can improve your mood. Thanks, Hazel.
oldude59 said,
March 3, 2007 @ 7:24 am
I wrote a post on can Happiness be Taught this is from that piece - the blog site is http://changedlifeltd.org/oldude59
What Is Happiness?
And the answer is . . .
It depends. (Dan Haybron of St Louis University a philosopher.) What exactly are you asking? The word ‘happiness’ has lots of meanings, and this question probably means one of two things:
1. What is this state of mind that so many people seek in life? (“psychological” happiness)
2. What is it for my life to go well for me? (“well-being” or “prudential” happiness)
Psychological happiness
The most common usage, and the one I and empirical researchers employ. Here ‘happiness’ simply denotes a broad psychological condition, resembling words like ‘depression’ or ‘tranquility’. It should not be confused with the emotion or mood of joy or feeling happy: many think we can be happy without feeling happy at all, say by being satisfied with our lives or achieving tranquility. And Aristotle had no theory of happiness in this sense of the term.
What is happiness in the psychological sense? Most writers identify it either with pleasure or life satisfaction, or some combination (e.g., subjective well-being theories). I think ordinary usage centers on matters of emotional state (see below), but “life satisfaction” uses are also common.
Well-being (“prudential”) happiness
Here the word is basically a synonym for ‘well-being’, ‘flourishing’, or ‘welfare’, which are my preferred terms. It refers to what benefits a person, is in her interest, or makes her life go best for her. A natural reading of talk about leading a happy life, as opposed simply to being happy. When people talk about Aristotle’s theory of “happiness,” this is what they mean.
What is “happiness” in the well-being sense? This is a question of value, not psychology. Aristotelian think it’s a life of virtuous or excellent activity, some think it is getting what you want, others simply value pleasure, etc. For an excellent survey of the literature, see: ttp://plato.stanford.edu/entries/well-being/
The short answer, according to me
Happiness is best understood as catalysis to a person’s overall condition of thriving. This includes moods, many emotions, and a person’s mood propensity, or tendency to experience various moods (which varies considerably over time) along with is contribution to society’s thriving. To be happy is roughly for one’s emotional condition to be solidly positive, with a heavy predominance of positive over negative affect as experienced in society.
So this is what I know about happiness - it is gauge I use to assist me in charting my way into the state of thriving. What makes it all that more important is that for me to thrive I have to contribute to your general thriving as well. In the next post I will move from happiness to taught. As you may or may not know, Changed Life uses primarily online or virtual methods to convey it treatments. So it is natural for me to only discuss those methods as we will use.