Happiness and Well-being PDF

Happiness and Well- being Courtney Stavely NOBA Copyright Copyright © 2024 by Diener Education Fund. This material is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http...

Happiness and Well- being Courtney Stavely NOBA Copyright Copyright © 2024 by Diener Education Fund. This material is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/deed.en_US. The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a Website does not indicate an endorsement by the authors or the Diener Education Fund, and the Diener Education Fund does not guarantee the accuracy of the information presented at these sites. Contact Information: Noba Project www.nobaproject.com [email protected] Contents About Noba & Acknowledgements 5 Happiness and well-being 6 1 Emotion Experience and Well-Being 7 Brett Ford & Iris B. Mauss 2 Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 23 Edward Diener Index 40 About Noba The Diener Education Fund (DEF) is a non-profit organization founded with the mission of re- inventing higher education to serve the changing needs of students and professors. The initial focus of the DEF is on making information, especially of the type found in textbooks, widely available to people of all backgrounds. This mission is embodied in the Noba project. Noba is an open and free online platform that provides high-quality, flexibly structured textbooks and educational materials. The goals of Noba are three-fold: To reduce financial burden on students by providing access to free educational content To provide instructors with a platform to customize educational content to better suit their curriculum To present material written by a collection of experts and authorities in the field The Diener Education Fund was co-founded by Drs. Ed and Carol Diener. Ed was a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, and a professor at University of Virginia and the University of Utah, and a senior scientist at the Gallup Organization but passed away in April 2021. For more information, please see http://noba.to/78vdj2x5. Carol Diener is the former director of the Mental Health Worker and the Juvenile Justice Programs at the University of Illinois. Both Ed and Carol are award- winning university teachers. Acknowledgements The Diener Education Fund would like to acknowledge the following individuals and companies for their contribution to the Noba Project: Robert Biswas-Diener as Managing Editor, Peter Lindberg as the former Operations Manager, and Nadezhda Lyubchik as the current Operations Manager; The Other Firm for user experience design and web development; Sockeye Creative for their work on brand and identity development; Arthur Mount for illustrations; Chad Hurst for photography; EEI Communications for manuscript proofreading; Marissa Diener, Shigehiro Oishi, Daniel Simons, Robert Levine, Lorin Lachs and Thomas Sander for their feedback and suggestions in the early stages of the project. Happiness and well-being 1 Emotion Experience and Well-Being Brett Ford & Iris B. Mauss Emotions don’t just feel good or bad, they also contribute crucially to people’s well-being and health. In general, experiencing positive emotions is good for us, whereas experiencing negative emotions is bad for us. However, recent research on emotions and well-being suggests this simple conclusion is incomplete and sometimes even wrong. Taking a closer look at this research, the present module provides a more complex relationship between emotion and well-being. At least three aspects of the emotional experience appear to affect how a given emotion is linked with well-being: the intensity of the emotion experienced, the fluctuation of the emotion experienced, and the context in which the emotion is experienced. While it is generally good to experience more positive emotion and less negative emotion, this is not always the guide to the good life. Learning Objectives Describe the general pattern of associations between emotion experience and well-being. Identify at least three aspects of emotion experience beyond positivity and negativity of the emotion that affect the link between emotion experience and well-being. How we feel adds much of the flavor to life’s highest—and lowest—moments. Can you think of an important moment in your life that didn’t involve strong feelings? In fact, it might be hard to recall any times when you had no feeling at all. Given how saturated human life is with feelings, and given how profoundly feelings affect us, it is not surprising that much theorizing and research has been devoted to uncovering how we can optimize our feelings, or, “emotion experiences,” as they are referred to in psychological research. Emotion Experience and Well-Being 7 Feelings contribute to well-being So, which emotions are the “best” ones to feel? Take a moment to think about how you might answer this question. At first glance, the answer might seem obvious. Of course, we should experience as much positive emotion and as little negative emotion as possible! Why? Because it is pleasant to experience positive emotions and it is unpleasant to experience negative emotions (Russell & Barrett, 1999). The conclusion that positive feelings are good and negative feelings are bad might seem so obvious as not to Although we tend to think we should always strive for “positive” even warrant the question, much less or “feel-good” emotions, in some situations a negative emotion bona fide psychological research. In fact, might be best. For example feeling disappointment when the very labels of “positive” and “negative” experiencing a failure might help motivate you for future success. imply the answer to this question. [Image: CC0 Public Domain, https://goo.gl/m25gce] However, for the purposes of this module, it may be helpful to think of “positive” and “negative” as descriptive terms used to discuss two different types of experiences, rather than a true value judgment. Thus, whether positive or negative emotions are good or bad for us is an empirical question. As it turns out, this empirical question has been on the minds of theorists and researchers for many years. Such psychologists as Alice Isen, Charles Carver, Michael Scheier, and, more recently, Barbara Fredrickson, Dacher Keltner, Sonja Lyubomirsky, and others began asking whether the effects of feelings could go beyond the obvious momentary pleasure or displeasure. In other words, can emotions do more for us than simply make us feel good or bad? This is not necessarily a new question; variants of it have appeared in the texts of thinkers such as Charles Darwin (1872) and Aristotle (1999). However, modern psychological research has provided empirical evidence that feelings are not just inconsequential byproducts. Rather, each emotion experience, however fleeting, has effects on cognition, behavior, and the people around us. For example, feeling happy is not only pleasant, but is also useful to feel when in social situations because it helps us be friendly and collaborative, thus promoting our positive relationships. Over time, the argument goes, these effects add up to have tangible effects on people’s well-being (good mental and physical health). Emotion Experience and Well-Being 8 A variety of research has been inspired by the notion that our emotions are involved in, and maybe even causally contribute to, our well-being. This research has shown that people who experience more frequent positive emotions and less frequent negative emotions have higher well-being (e.g., Fredrickson, 1998; Lyubomirksy, King, & Diener, 2005), including increased life satisfaction (Diener, Sandvik, & Pavot, 1991), increased physical health (Tugade, Fredrickson, & Barrett, 2004; Veenhoven, 2008), greater resilience to stress (Folkman & Moskowitz, 2000; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004), better social connection with others (Fredrickson, 1998), and even longer lives (Veenhoven, 2008). Notably, the effect of positive emotion on longevity is about as powerful as the effect of smoking! Perhaps most importantly, some research directly supports that emotional experiences cause these various outcomes rather than being just a consequence of them (Fredrickson, Cohn, Coffey, Pek, & Finkel, 2008; Lyubomirsky et al., 2005). At this point, you might be tempted to conclude that you should always strive to experience as much positive emotion and as little negative emotion as possible. However, recent research suggests that this conclusion may be premature. This is because this conclusion neglects three central aspects of the emotion experience. First, it neglects the intensity of the emotion: Positive and negative emotions might not have the same effect on well- being at all intensities. Second, it neglects how emotions fluctuate over time: Stable emotion experiences might have quite Not only do the emotions we feel vary by the context, but also different effects from experiences that the emotions we should feel depend on the circumstances, too. change a lot. Third, it neglects the context [Image: puppywind, https://goo.gl/BQKhKK, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, in which the emotion is experienced: The https://goo.gl/h9gK3o] context in which we experience an emotion might profoundly affect whether the emotion is good or bad for us. So, to address the question “Which emotions should we feel?” we must answer, “It depends!” We next consider each of the three aspects of feelings, and how they influence the link between feelings and well-being. The intensity of the emotion matters Emotion Experience and Well-Being 9 Experiencing more frequent positive emotions is generally beneficial. But does this mean that we should strive to feel as intense positive emotion as possible? Recent research suggests that this unqualified conclusion might be wrong. In fact, experiencing very high levels of positive emotion may be harmful (Gruber, 2011; Oishi, Diener, & Lucas, 2007). For instance, experiencing very high levels of positive emotion makes individuals more likely to engage in risky behaviors, such as binge eating and drug use (Cyders & Smith, 2008; Martin et al., 2002). Furthermore, intense positive emotion is associated with the experience of mania (Gruber et al., 2009; Johnson, 2005). It appears that the experience of positive emotions follows an inverted U-shaped curve in relation to well-being: more positive emotion is linked with increased well-being, but only up to a point, after which even more positive emotion is linked with decreased well-being (Grant & Schwartz, 2011). These empirical findings underscore the sentiment put forth long ago by the philosopher Aristotle: Moderation is key to leading a good life (1999). Too much positive emotion may pose a problem for well-being. Might too little negative emotion similarly be cause for concern? Although there is limited empirical research on this subject, initial research suggests supports this idea. For example, people who aim not to feel negative emotion are at risk for worse well-being and adaptive functioning, including lower life satisfaction, lower social support, worse college grades, and feelings of worse physical health (Tamir & Ford, 2012a). Similarly, feeling too little embarrassment in response to a social faux pas may damage someone’s social connections if they aren’t motivated by their embarrassment to make amends (Keltner & Buswell, 1997). Low levels of negative emotion also seem to be involved in some forms of psychopathology. For instance, blunted sadness in response to a sad situation is a characteristic of major depressive disorder (Rottenberg, Gross, & Gotlib, 2005) and feeling too little fear is a hallmark of psychopathy (Marsh et al., 2008; Patrick, 1994). In sum, this first section suggests that the conclusion “Of course we should experience as much positive emotions and as little negative emotions as possible” is sometimes wrong. As it turns out, there can be too much of a good thing and too little of a bad thing. The fluctuation of the emotion matters Emotions naturally vary—or fluctuate—over time (Davidson, 1998). We probably all know someone whose emotions seem to fly everywhere—one minute they’re ecstatic, the next they’re upset. We might also know a person who is pretty even-keeled, moderately happy, with only modest fluctuations across time. When looking only at average emotion experience, Emotion Experience and Well-Being 10 say across a month, both of these people might appear identical: moderately happy. However, underlying these identical averages are two very different patterns of fluctuation across time. Might these emotion fluctuations across time— beyond average intensity—have implications for well-being? Overall, the available research suggests that how much emotions fluctuate does indeed matter. In general, greater fluctuations are associated with worse Throughout our lives, our emotions vary such that we experience well-being. For example, higher fluctuation great highs and great lows. However, if you average those of positive emotions—measured either emotions over time, we tend to end up somewhere in the middle. within a single day or across two weeks— [Image: Moazzam Brohi, https://goo.gl/acZniv, CC BY 2.0, https:// was linked with lower well-being and goo.gl/BRvSA7] greater depression (Gruber, Kogan, Quoidbach, & Mauss, 2013). Fluctuation in negative emotions, in turn, has been linked with increased depressive symptoms (Peeters, Berkhof, Delespaul, Rottenberg, & Nicolson, 2003), borderline personality disorder (Trull et al., 2008), and neuroticism (Eid & Diener, 1999). These associations tend to hold even when controlling for average levels of positive or negative emotion, which means that beyond the overall intensity of positive or negative emotion, the fluctuation of one’s emotions across time is associated with well-being. While it is not entirely clear why fluctuations are linked to worse well-being, one explanation is that strong fluctuations are indicative of emotional instability (Kuppens, Oravecz, & Tuerlinckx, 2010). Of course, this should not be taken to mean that we should rigidly feel the exact same way every minute of every day, regardless of context. After all, psychological flexibility—or the ability to adapt to changing situational demands and experience emotions accordingly—has generally demonstrated beneficial links with well-being (Bonanno, Papa, Lalande, Westphal, & Coifman, 2004; Kashdan, & Rottenberg, 2010). The question remains, however: what exact amount of emotional fluctuation constitutes unhealthy instability and what amount of emotional fluctuation constitutes healthy flexibility. Again, then, we must qualify the conclusion that it is always better to experience more positive emotions and less negative emotions. The degree to which emotions fluctuate across time plays an important role. Overall, relative stability (but not rigidity) in emotion experience appears to be optimal for well-being. Emotion Experience and Well-Being 11 The context of the emotion experience matters This module has already discussed two features of emotion experiences that affect how they relate to well-being: the intensity of the emotion and the fluctuation of the emotion over time. However, neither of these features takes into account the context in which the emotion is experienced. At least three different contexts may critically affect the links between emotion and well-being: (1) the external environment in which the emotion is being experienced, (2) the other emotional responses (e.g., physiology, facial behavior) that are currently activated, and (3) the other emotions that are currently being experienced. The external environment Emotions don’t occur within a vacuum. Instead, they are usually elicited by and experienced within specific situations that come in many shapes and sizes —from birthday parties to funerals, job interviews to mundane movie nights. The situation in which an emotion is experienced has strong implications for whether a given emotion is the “best” emotion to feel. Take happiness, for example. Feeling happiness at a birthday party may be a great idea. However, having the exact same experience of happiness at a funeral would likely not bode well for your well-being. Feeling an emotion that matches the person’s context (e.g., When considering how the environment experiencing happiness at a birthday party) is typically the most influences the link between emotion and functional or beneficial emotion to feel. [Image: OakleyOriginals, well-being, it is important to understand https://goo.gl/IxfIsq, CC BY 2.0, https://goo.gl/BRvSA7] that each emotion has its own function. For example, although fear is a negative emotion, fear helps us notice and avoid threats to our safety (öhman & Mineka, 2001), and may thus the “best” emotion to feel in dangerous situations. Happiness can help people cooperate with others, and may thus be the best emotion to feel when we need to collaborate (e.g., Van Kleef, van Dijk, Steinel, & van Beest, 2008). Anger can energize people to compete or fight with others, and may thus be advantageous to experience it in confrontations (e.g., Tamir & Ford, 2012b; Van Kleef et al., 2008). It might be disadvantageous to experience Emotion Experience and Well-Being 12 happiness (a positive emotion) when we need to fight with someone; in this situation, it might be better to experience anger (a negative emotion). This suggests that emotions’ implications for well-being are not determined only by whether they are positive or negative but also by whether they are well-matched to their context. In support of this general idea, people who experience emotions that fit the context at hand are more likely to recover from depression and trauma (Bonanno et al., 2004; Rottenberg, Kasch, Gross, & Gotlib, 2002). Research has also found that participants who want to feel emotions that match the context at hand (e.g., anger when confronting someone)—even if that emotion was negative—are more likely to experience greater well-being (Tamir & Ford, 2012a). Conversely, people who pursue emotions without regard to context—even if those emotions are positive, like happiness—are more likely to experience lower subjective well- being, more depression, greater loneliness, and even worse grades (Ford & Tamir, 2012; Mauss et al., 2012; Mauss, Tamir, Anderson, & Savino; 2011; Tamir & Ford, 2012a). In sum, this research demonstrates that regardless of whether an emotion is positive or negative, the context in which it is experienced critically influences whether the emotion helps or hinders well-being. Other emotional responses The subjective experience of an emotion— what an emotion feels like—is only one aspect of an emotion. Other aspects include behaviors, facial expressions, and physiological activation (Levenson, 1992). For example, if you feel excited about having made a new friend, you might want to be near that person, you might smile, and your heart might be beating faster as you do so. Often, these different responses travel together, meaning that when we feel an emotion we typically have corresponding If we experience the emotion of amusement (from seeing behaviors and physiological responses (e. something funny), we often have the physiological response to g., Ekman, 1972; Levenson, 1992). The laugh. This is an example of emotion coherence, where we express a particular behavior associated with a particular degree to which responses travel together emotion. [Image: Ed Schipul, https://goo.gl/7NUYmR, CC BY-SA has sometimes been referred to as 2.0, https://goo.gl/rxiUsF] emotion coherence (Mauss, Levenson, Emotion Experience and Well-Being 13 McCarter, Wilhelm, & Gross, 2005). However, these different responses do not co-occur in all instances and for all people (Bradley & Lang, 2000; Mauss et al., 2005; for review, see Fridlund, Ekman, & Oster, 1987). For example, some people may choose not to express an emotion they are feeling internally (English & John, 2013), which would result in lower coherence. Does coherence—above and beyond emotion experience per se—matter for people’s well- being? To examine this question, one study measured participants’ emotion coherence by showing them a funny film clip of stand-up comedy while recording their experience of positive emotion as well as their behavioral displays of positive emotion (Mauss, Shallcross, et al., 2011). As predicted, participants differed quite a bit in their coherence. Some showed almost perfect coherence between their behavior and experience, whereas others’ behavior and experience corresponded not much at all. Interestingly, the more that participants’ behavior and experience cohered in the laboratory session, the lower levels of depressive symptoms and the higher levels of well-being they experienced 6 months later. This effect was found when statistically controlling for overall intensity of positive emotions experienced. In other words, experiencing high levels of positive emotion aided well-being only if it was accompanied by corresponding positive facial expressions. But why would coherence of different emotional responses predict well-being? One of the key functions of an emotion is social communication (Keltner & Haidt, 1999), and arguably, successful social communication depends on whether an individual’s emotions are being accurately communicated to others. When someone’s emotional behavior doesn’t match their experience it may disrupt communication because it could make the individual appear confusing or inauthentic to others. In support of this theory, the above study found that lower coherence was associated with worse well-being because people with lower coherence felt less socially connected to others (Mauss, Shallcross, et al., 2011). These findings are also consistent with a large body of research examining the extent to which people mask the outward display of an emotional experience, or suppression. This research has demonstrated that people who habitually use suppression not only experience worse well being (Gross & John, 2003), but they also seem to be particularly worse off with regard to their social relationships (Srivastava, Tamir, McGonigal, John, & Gross, 2009). These findings underscore the importance of examining whether an individual’s experience is traveling together with his or her emotional responses, above and beyond overall levels of subjective experience. Thus, to understand how emotion experiences predict well-being, it is important not only to consider the experience of an emotion, but also the other emotional responses currently activated. Other emotions Emotion Experience and Well-Being 14 Up until now, we have treated emotional experiences as though people can only experience one emotion at a time. However, it should be kept in mind that positive and negative emotions are not simply the opposite of one another. Instead, they tend to be independent of one another, which means that a person can feel positive and negative emotions at the same time (Larsen, McGraw, Mellers, & Cacioppo, 2004). For example, how does it feel to win a prize when you expected a greater prize? Given “what might have been,” situations like this can elicit both happiness and sadness. Or, take “schadenfreude” (a German term for deriving pleasure from someone else’s misfortune), or “aviman” (an Indian term for prideful, loving anger), or nostaligia (an English term for affectionate sadness about something from the past): these terms capture the notion that people can feel both positively and negatively within the same emotional experience. And as it turns out, the other emotions that someone feels (e. g., sadness) during the experience of an emotion (e.g., happiness) influence whether that emotion experience has a positive or negative effect on well-being. Importantly, the extent to which someone experiences different emotions at the same time—or mixed emotions—may be beneficial for their well-being. Early support for this theory was provided by a study of bereaved spouses. In the study, participants were asked to talk about their recently deceased spouse, which undoubtedly elicited strong negative emotions. However, some participants expressed positive emotions in addition to the negative ones, and it was those participants who recovered more quickly from their loss (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997). A recent study What experiences can you recall where you felt mixed emotions? provides additional support for the Happiness and disappointment? Hope and fear? Admiration and benefits of mixed emotions, finding that envy? [Image: Ron Cogswell, https://goo.gl/JKuzmU, CC BY 2.0, adults who experienced more mixed https://goo.gl/BRvSA7] emotions over a span of 10 years were physically healthier than adults whose experience of mixed emotions did not increase over time (Hershfield, Scheibe, Sims & Carstensen, 2013). Indeed, individuals who can experience positive emotions even in the face of negative emotions are more likely to cope successfully with stressful situations (Larsen, Hemenover, Norris, & Cacioppo, 2003). Why would mixed emotions be beneficial for well-being? Stressful situations often elicit negative emotions, and recall that negative emotions have some benefits, as we outlined Emotion Experience and Well-Being 15 above. However, so do positive emotions, and thus having the ability to “take the good with the bad” might be another key component of well-being. Again, experiencing more positive emotion and less negative emotion may not always be optimal. Sometimes, a combination of both may be best. Conclusion Are emotions just fleeting experiences with no consequence beyond our momentary comfort or discomfort? A variety of research answers a firm “no”—emotions are integral predictors of our well-being. This module examined how, exactly, emotion experience might be linked to well-being. The obvious answer to this question is: of course, experiencing as much positive emotions and as little negative emotions as possible is good for us. But although this is true in general, recent research suggests that this obvious answer is incomplete and sometimes even wrong. As philosopher Robert Solomon said, “Living well is not just maximizing the good feelings and minimizing the bad. (…) A happy life is not necessarily filled with happy moments” (2007, p. 86). Emotion Experience and Well-Being 16 Outside Resources Journal: If you are interested in direct access to research on emotion, take a look at the journal Emotion http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/emo/index.aspx Video: Check out videos of expert emotion researchers discussing their work http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNew731mjIZn43G_Y5otqKzJA Video: See psychologist Daniel Gilbert and other experts discussing current research on emotion in the PBS series This Emotional Life http://video.pbs.org/program/this-emotional-life/ Discussion Questions 1. Much research confirms the relative benefits of positive emotions and relative costs of negative emotions. Could positive emotions be detrimental, or could negative emotions be beneficial? Why or why not? 2. We described some contexts that influence the effects of emotional experiences on well- being. What other contexts might influence the links between emotions and well-being? Age? Gender? Culture? How so? 3. How could you design an experiment that tests…(A) When and why it is beneficial to feel a negative emotion such as sadness? (B) How is the coherence of emotion behavior and emotion experience linked to well-being? (C) How likely a person is to feel mixed (as compared to simple) emotions? Emotion Experience and Well-Being 17 Vocabulary Emotion An experiential, physiological, and behavioral response to a personally meaningful stimulus. Emotion coherence The degree to which emotional responses (subjective experience, behavior, physiology, etc.) converge with one another. Emotion fluctuation The degree to which emotions vary or change in intensity over time. Well-being The experience of mental and physical health and the absence of disorder. Emotion Experience and Well-Being 18 References Aristotle. (1999). Nicomachean ethics (M. Ostwald, Trans.). 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Positive emotion dissociation, social connectedness, and psychological functioning. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 738–748. Mauss, I. B., Tamir, M., Anderson, C. L., & Savino, N. S. (2011). Can seeking happiness make people unhappy? Paradoxical effects of valuing happiness. Emotion, 11, 807–815. Oishi, S., Diener, E., & Lucas, R.E. (2007). Optimal level of well-being: Can people be too happy? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 346–360. Patrick, C. J. (1994). Emotion and psychopathy: Startling new insights. Psychophysiology, 31,319– 330. Peeters, F., Berkhof, J., Delespaul, P., Rottenberg, J., & Nicolson, N. A. (2003). Diurnal mood variation in major depressive disorder. Emotion, 6, 383–391. Rottenberg, J., Gross, J. J., & Gotlib, I. H. (2005). Emotion context insensitivity in major depressive Emotion Experience and Well-Being 21 disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 114, 627–639. Rottenberg, J., Kasch, K. L., Gross, J. J., & Gotlib, I. H. (2002). Sadness and amusement reactivity differentially predict concurrent and prospective functioning in major depressive disorder. Emotion, 2, 135–146. Russell, J. A., & Barrett, L. F. (1999). Core affect, prototypical emotional episodes, and other things called emotion: Dissecting the elephant. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 805-819. Solomon, B. C. (2007). True to our feelings: What our emotions are really telling us. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Srivastava, S., Tamir, M., McGonigal, K. M., John, O. P., & Gross, J. J. (2009). The social costs of emotional suppression: A prospective study of the transition to college. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96, 883–897. Tamir, M., & Ford, B. Q. (2012a). Should people pursue feelings that feel good or feelings that do good? Emotional preferences and well-being. Emotion, 12, 1061–1070. Tamir, M., & Ford, B. Q. (2012b). When feeling bad is expected to be good: Emotion regulation and outcome expectancies in social conflicts. Emotion, 12, 807–816. Trull, T. J., Solhan, M. B., Tragesser, S. L., Jahng, S., Wood, P. K., Piasecki, T. M., & Watson, D. (2008). Affective instability: Measuring a core feature of borderline personality disorder with ecological momentary assessment. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 117, 647–661. Tugade, M., Fredrickson, B. L., & Barrett, L. F. (2004). Psychological resilience and positive emotional granularity: Examining the benefits of positive emotions on coping and health. Journal of Personality, 72, 1161–1190. Tugade, M. M., & Fredrickson, L. L. (2004). Resilient individuals use positive emotions to bounce back from negative emotional experiences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 320–333. Veenhoven, R. (2008). Healthy happiness: Effects of happiness on physical consequences for preventive health care. Journal of Happiness Studies, 9, 449–469. van Kleef, E., van Dijk, G., Steinel, W., & van Beest, I. (2008). A social functional approach to emotions in bargaining: When communicating anger pays and when it backfires. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 600–614. Öhman, A., & Mineka, S. (2001). Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning. Psychological Review, 108, 483–522. 2 Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being Edward Diener Subjective well-being (SWB) is the scientific term for happiness and life satisfaction—thinking and feeling that your life is going well, not badly. Scientists rely primarily on self-report surveys to assess the happiness of individuals, but they have validated these scales with other types of measures. People’s levels of subjective well-being are influenced by both internal factors, such as personality and outlook, and external factors, such as the society in which they live. Some of the major determinants of subjective well-being are a person’s inborn temperament, the quality of their social relationships, the societies they live in, and their ability to meet their basic needs. To some degree people adapt to conditions so that over time our circumstances may not influence our happiness as much as one might predict they would. Importantly, researchers have also studied the outcomes of subjective well-being and have found that “happy” people are more likely to be healthier and live longer, to have better social relationships, and to be more productive at work. In other words, people high in subjective well-being seem to be healthier and function more effectively compared to people who are chronically stressed, depressed, or angry. Thus, happiness does not just feel good, but it is good for people and for those around them. Learning Objectives Describe three major forms of happiness and a cause of each of them. Be able to list two internal causes of subjective well-being and two external causes of subjective well-being. Describe the types of societies that experience the most and least happiness, and why they do. Describe the typical course of adaptation to events in terms of the time course of SWB. Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 23 Describe several of the beneficial outcomes of being a happy person. Describe how happiness is typically measured. Introduction When people describe what they most want out of life, happiness is almost always on the list, and very frequently it is at the top of the list. When people describe what they want in life for their children, they frequently mention health and wealth, occasionally they mention fame or success—but they almost always mention happiness. People will claim that whether their kids are wealthy and work in some prestigious occupation or not, “I just want my kids to be happy.” Happiness appears to be one of the most important goals for people, if not the most important. But what is it, and how do people get it? If you had only one gift to give your child, what would it be? In this module I describe “happiness” or Happiness? [Image: mynameisharsha, https://goo.gl/216PFr, CC subjective well-being (SWB) as a process BY-SA 3.0, https://goo.gl/eLCn2O] —it results from certain internal and external causes, and in turn it influences the way people behave, as well as their physiological states. Thus, high SWB is not just a pleasant outcome but is an important factor in our future success. Because scientists have developed valid ways of measuring “happiness,” they have come in the past decades to know much about its causes and consequences. Types of Happiness Philosophers debated the nature of happiness for thousands of years, but scientists have recently discovered that happiness means different things. Three major types of happiness are high life satisfaction, frequent positive feelings, and infrequent negative feelings (Diener, Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 24 1984). “Subjective well-being” is the label given by scientists to the various forms of happiness taken together. Although there are additional forms of SWB, the three in the table below have been studied extensively. The table also shows that the causes of the different types of happiness can be somewhat different. Table 1: Three Types of Subjective Well-Being You can see in the table that there are different causes of happiness, and that these causes are not identical for the various types of SWB. Therefore, there is no single key, no magic wand —high SWB is achieved by combining several different important elements (Diener & Biswas- Diener, 2008). Thus, people who promise to know the key to happiness are oversimplifying. Some people experience all three elements of happiness—they are very satisfied, enjoy life, and have only a few worries or other unpleasant emotions. Other unfortunate people are missing all three. Most of us also know individuals who have one type of happiness but not another. For example, imagine an elderly person who is completely satisfied with her life— she has done most everything she ever wanted—but is not currently enjoying life that much because of the infirmities of age. There are others who show a different pattern, for example, who really enjoy life but also experience a lot of stress, anger, and worry. And there are those who are having fun, but who are dissatisfied and believe they are wasting their lives. Because there are several components to happiness, each with somewhat different causes, there is no magic single cure-all that creates all forms of SWB. This means that to be happy, individuals must acquire each of the different elements that cause it. Causes of Subjective Well-Being Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 25 There are external influences on people’s happiness—the circumstances in which they live. It is possible for some to be happy living in poverty with ill health, or with a child who has a serious disease, but this is difficult. In contrast, it is easier to be happy if one has supportive family and friends, ample resources to meet one’s needs, and good health. But even here there are exceptions—people who are depressed and unhappy while living in excellent circumstances. Thus, people can be happy or unhappy because of their personalities and the way they think about the world or because of the external circumstances in which they live. People vary in their propensity to happiness—in their personalities and outlook—and this means that knowing their living conditions is not enough to predict happiness. Table 2: Internal and External Causes of Subjective Well-Being Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 26 In the table below are shown internal and external circumstances that influence happiness. There are individual differences in what makes people happy, but the causes in the table are important for most people (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999; Lyubomirsky, 2013; Myers, 1992). Societal Influences on Happiness When people consider their own happiness, they tend to think of their relationships, successes and failures, and other personal factors. But a very important influence on how happy people are is the society in which they live. It is easy to forget how important societies and neighborhoods are to people’s happiness or unhappiness. In Figure 1, I present life satisfaction around the world. You can see that some nations, those with the darkest shading on the map, are high in life satisfaction. Others, the lightest shaded areas, are very low. The grey areas in the map are places we could not collect happiness data—they were just too dangerous or inaccessible. Figure 1 Can you guess what might make some societies happier than others? Much of North America Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 27 and Europe have relatively high life satisfaction, and much of Africa is low in life satisfaction. For life satisfaction living in an economically developed nation is helpful because when people must struggle to obtain food, shelter, and other basic necessities, they tend to be dissatisfied with lives. However, other factors, such as trusting and being able to count on others, are also crucial to the happiness within nations. Indeed, for enjoying life our relationships with others seem more important than living in a wealthy society. One factor that predicts unhappiness is conflict—individuals in nations with high internal conflict or conflict with neighboring nations tend to experience low SWB. Money and Happiness Will money make you happy? A certain level of income is needed to meet our needs, and very poor people are frequently dissatisfied with life (Diener & Seligman, 2004). However, having more and more money has diminishing returns—higher and higher incomes make less and less difference to happiness. Wealthy nations tend to have higher average life satisfaction than poor nations, but the United States has not experienced a rise in life satisfaction over the past decades, even as income has doubled. The goal is to find a level of income that you can live with and earn. Don’t let your aspirations continue to rise so that you always feel poor, no matter how much money you have. Research shows that materialistic people often tend to be less happy, and putting your emphasis on relationships and other areas of life besides just money is a wise strategy. Money can help life satisfaction, but when too many other valuable things are sacrificed to earn a lot of money—such as relationships or taking a less enjoyable job—the pursuit of money can harm happiness. There are stories of wealthy people who are unhappy and of janitors who are very happy. For instance, a number of extremely wealthy people in South Korea have committed suicide recently, apparently brought down by stress and other negative feelings. On the other hand, there is the hospital janitor who loved her life because she felt that her work in keeping the hospital clean was so important for the patients and nurses. Some millionaires are dissatisfied because they want to be billionaires. Conversely, some people with ordinary incomes are quite happy because they have learned to live within their means and enjoy the less expensive things in life. It is important to always keep in mind that high materialism seems to lower life satisfaction —valuing money over other things such as relationships can make us dissatisfied. When people think money is more important than everything else, they seem to have a harder time being happy. And unless they make a great deal of money, they are not on average as happy as others. Perhaps in seeking money they sacrifice other important things too much, such as Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 28 relationships, spirituality, or following their interests. Or it may be that materialists just can never get enough money to fulfill their dreams—they always want more. To sum up what makes for a happy life, let’s take the example of Monoj, a rickshaw driver in Calcutta. He enjoys life, despite the hardships, and is reasonably satisfied with life. How could he be relatively happy despite his very low income, sometimes even insufficient to buy enough food for his family? The things that make Monoj happy are his family and friends, his religion, and his work, which he finds meaningful. His low income does lower his life satisfaction to some degree, but he finds his children to be very rewarding, and he gets along well with his neighbors. I also suspect that Monoj’s positive temperament and his enjoyment of social relationships help to some degree to overcome his poverty and earn him a place among the happy. However, Monoj would also likely be even more satisfied with life if he had a higher income that allowed more food, better housing, and better medical care for his family. Besides the internal and external factors that influence happiness, there are psychological influences as well—such as our aspirations, social comparisons, and adaptation. People’s aspirations are what they want in life, including income, occupation, marriage, and so forth. If people’s aspirations are high, they will often strive harder, but there is also a risk of them falling short of their aspirations and being dissatisfied. The goal is to have challenging aspirations but also to be able to adapt to what actually happens in life. Manoj, a happy rickshaw driver in Calcutta. One’s outlook and resilience are also always very important to happiness. Every person will have disappointments in life, fail at times, and have problems. Thus, happiness comes not to people who never have problems —there are no such individuals—but to people who are able to bounce back from failures and adapt to disappointments. This is why happiness is never caused just by what happens to us but always includes our outlook on life. Adaptation to Circumstances Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 29 The process of adaptation is important in understanding happiness. When good and bad events occur, people often react strongly at first, but then their reactions adapt over time and they return to their former levels of happiness. For instance, many people are euphoric when they first marry, but over time they grow accustomed to the marriage and are no longer ecstatic. The marriage becomes commonplace and they return to their former level of happiness. Few of us think this will happen to us, but the truth is that it usually does. Some people will be a bit happier even years after marriage, but nobody carries that initial “high” through the years. People also adapt over time to bad events. However, people take a long time to adapt to certain negative events such as unemployment. People become unhappy when they lose their work, but over time they recover to some extent. But even after a number of years, unemployed individuals sometimes have lower life satisfaction, indicating that they have not completely habituated to the experience. However, there are strong individual differences in adaptation, too. Some people are resilient and bounce back quickly after a bad event, and others are fragile and do not ever fully adapt to the bad event. Do you adapt quickly to bad events and bounce back, or do you continue to dwell on a bad event and let it keep you down? An example of adaptation to circumstances is shown in Figure 3, which shows the daily moods of “Harry,” a college student who had Hodgkin’s lymphoma (a form of cancer). As can be seen, over the 6-week period when I studied Harry’s moods, they went up and down. A few times his moods dropped into the negative zone below the horizontal blue line. Most of the time Harry’s moods were in the positive zone above the line. But about halfway through the study Harry was told that his cancer was in remission—effectively cured—and his moods on that day spiked way up. But notice that he quickly adapted—the effects of the good news wore off, and Harry adapted back toward where he was before. So even the very best news one can imagine—recovering from cancer—was not enough to give Harry a permanent “high.” Notice too, however, that Harry’s moods averaged a bit higher after cancer remission. Thus, the typical pattern is a strong response to the event, and then a dampening of this joy over time. However, even in the long run, the person might be a bit happier or unhappier than before. Outcomes of High Subjective Well-Being Is the state of happiness truly a good thing? Is happiness simply a feel-good state that leaves us unmotivated and ignorant of the world’s problems? Should people strive to be happy, or are they better off to be grumpy but “realistic”? Some have argued that happiness is actually a bad thing, leaving us superficial and uncaring. Most of the evidence so far suggests that Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 30 Figure 3. Harry’s Daily Moods Table 3: Benefits of Happiness Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 31 happy people are healthier, more sociable, more productive, and better citizens (Diener & Tay, 2012; Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). Research shows that the happiest individuals are usually very sociable. The table below summarizes some of the major findings. Although it is beneficial generally to be happy, this does not mean that people should be constantly euphoric. In fact, it is appropriate and helpful sometimes to be sad or to worry. At times a bit of worry mixed with positive feelings makes people more creative. Most successful people in the workplace seem to be those who are mostly positive but sometimes a bit negative. Thus, people need not be a superstar in happiness to be a superstar in life. What is not helpful is to be chronically unhappy. The important question is whether people are satisfied with how happy they are. If you feel mostly positive and satisfied, and yet occasionally worry and feel stressed, this is probably fine as long as you feel comfortable with this level of happiness. If you are a person who is chronically unhappy much of the time, changes are needed, and perhaps professional intervention would help as well. Measuring Happiness SWB researchers have relied primarily on self-report scales to assess happiness—how people rate their own happiness levels on self-report surveys. People respond to numbered scales to indicate their levels of satisfaction, positive feelings, and lack of negative feelings. You can see where you stand on these scales by going to https://eddiener.com/scales/9 or by filling out the Flourishing Scale below. These measures will give you an idea of what popular scales of happiness are like. The self-report scales have proved to be relatively valid (Diener, Inglehart, & Tay, 2012), although people can lie, or fool themselves, or be influenced by their current moods or situational factors. Because the scales are imperfect, well-being scientists also sometimes use biological measures of happiness (e.g., the strength of a person’s immune system, or measuring various brain areas that are associated with greater happiness). Scientists also use reports by family, coworkers, and friends—these people reporting how happy they believe the target person is. Other measures are used as well to help overcome some of the shortcomings of the self-report scales, but most of the field is based on people telling us how happy they are using numbered scales. There are scales to measure life satisfaction (Pavot & Diener, 2008), positive and negative feelings, and whether a person is psychologically flourishing (Diener et al., 2009). Flourishing has to do with whether a person feels meaning in life, has close relationships, and feels a sense of mastery over important life activities. You can take the well-being scales created in Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 32 The Flourishing Scale the Diener laboratory, and let others take them too, because they are free and open for use. Some Ways to Be Happier Most people are fairly happy, but many of them also wish they could be a bit more satisfied and enjoy life more. Prescriptions about how to achieve more happiness are often oversimplified because happiness has different components and prescriptions need to be aimed at where each individual needs improvement—one size does not fit all. A person might be strong in one area and deficient in other areas. People with prolonged serious unhappiness Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 33 might need help from a professional. Thus, recommendations for how to achieve happiness are often appropriate for one person but not for others. With this in mind, I list in Table 4 below some general recommendations for you to be happier (see also Lyubomirsky, 2013): Table 4: Self-Examination Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 34 Outside Resources Web: Barbara Fredrickson’s website on positive emotions http://www.unc.edu/peplab/news.html Web: Ed Diener’s website https://eddiener.com/ Web: International Positive Psychology Association http://www.ippanetwork.org/ Web: Positive Acorn Positive Psychology website http://positiveacorn.com/ Web: Sonja Lyubomirsky’s website on happiness http://sonjalyubomirsky.com/ Web: University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center website http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/ Web: World Database on Happiness http://www1.eur.nl/fsw/happiness/ Discussion Questions 1. Which do you think is more important, the “top-down” personality influences on happiness or the “bottom-up” situational circumstances that influence it? In other words, discuss whether internal sources such as personality and outlook or external factors such situations, circumstances, and events are more important to happiness. Can you make an argument that both are very important? 2. Do you know people who are happy in one way but not in others? People who are high in life satisfaction, for example, but low in enjoying life or high in negative feelings? What should they do to increase their happiness across all three types of subjective well-being? 3. Certain sources of happiness have been emphasized in this book, but there are others. Can you think of other important sources of happiness and unhappiness? Do you think religion, for example, is a positive source of happiness for most people? What about age Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 35 or ethnicity? What about health and physical handicaps? If you were a researcher, what question might you tackle on the influences on happiness? 4. Are you satisfied with your level of happiness? If not, are there things you might do to change it? Would you function better if you were happier? 5. How much happiness is helpful to make a society thrive? Do people need some worry and sadness in life to help us avoid bad things? When is satisfaction a good thing, and when is some dissatisfaction a good thing? 6. How do you think money can help happiness? Interfere with happiness? What level of income will you need to be satisfied? Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 36 Vocabulary Adaptation The fact that after people first react to good or bad events, sometimes in a strong way, their feelings and reactions tend to dampen down over time and they return toward their original level of subjective well-being. “Bottom-up” or external causes of happiness Situational factors outside the person that influence his or her subjective well-being, such as good and bad events and circumstances such as health and wealth. Happiness The popular word for subjective well-being. Scientists sometimes avoid using this term because it can refer to different things, such as feeling good, being satisfied, or even the causes of high subjective well-being. Life satisfaction A person reflects on their life and judges to what degree it is going well, by whatever standards that person thinks are most important for a good life. Negative feelings Undesirable and unpleasant feelings that people tend to avoid if they can. Moods and emotions such as depression, anger, and worry are examples. Positive feelings Desirable and pleasant feelings. Moods and emotions such as enjoyment and love are examples. Subjective well-being The name that scientists give to happiness—thinking and feeling that our lives are going very well. Subjective well-being scales Self-report surveys or questionnaires in which participants indicate their levels of subjective well-being, by responding to items with a number that indicates how well off they feel. “Top-down” or internal causes of happiness The person’s outlook and habitual response tendencies that influence their happiness—for Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 37 example, their temperament or optimistic outlook on life. Happiness: The Science of Subjective Well-Being 38 References Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542–575. Diener, E., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2008). Happiness: Unlocking the mysteries of psychological wealth. Malden, MA: Wiley/Blackwell. Diener, E., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Beyond money: Toward an economy of well-being. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5, 1–31. Diener, E., & Tay, L. (2012). The remarkable benefits of happiness for successful and healthy living. Report of the Well-Being Working Group, Royal Government of Bhutan. Report to the United Nations General Assembly: Well-Being and Happiness: A New Development Paradigm. Diener, E., Inglehart, R., & Tay, L. (2012). Theory and validity of life satisfaction scales. Social Indicators Research, in press. Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin, 125, 276–302. Diener, E., Wirtz, D., Tov, W., Kim-Prieto, C., Choi, D., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2009). New measures of well-being: Flourishing and positive and negative feelings. Social Indicators Research, 39, 247–266. Lyubomirsky, S. (2013). The myths of happiness: What should make you happy, but doesn’t, what shouldn’t make you happy, but does. New York, NY: Penguin. Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803–855. Myers, D. G. (1992). The pursuit of happiness: Discovering pathways to fulfillment, well-being, and enduring personal joy. New York, NY: Avon. Pavot, W., & Diener, E. (2008). The Satisfaction with life scale and the emerging construct of life satisfaction. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 3, 137–152. Index adaptation, 29 emotion coherence, 12 emotion fluctuations, 10 emotions, 7 external causes, 23 happiness, 23 internal, 23 life satisfaction, 23 negative feelings, 23 positive feelings, 23 self-report scales, 31 Subjective well-being, 24 well-being, 7