Look at happiness research from another angle: it is shown we are unhappy when we blame others for our mis-fortune. How logical is it that I am unhappy because of something that might have happened? Later, I became unhappy when I found out I could have bought what may have been a better car for a lower price. Let me give you an exapmle: I bought a car because I liked it. Logically, Adam is doing the same thing that unhappy people do: focus on things that are not happening instead of things that are. Even the concept of being able to control my happiness, if only slightly, makes me happier. I can consiously change the way I think, focusing on what I have rather than what I do not have. How logical is it that we judge our own happiness by comparing ourselves with others? As silly as it sounds, I know it is true from my own experience.īy thinking through the rational for unhappiness, I believe I can control it. I appreciate reading the research on happiness because it illustrates just how illogical we are. Happiness is much too important to be left to the mush-heads in the New Age/Self-Help section. The bottom line is that I’m glad that smart, careful scholars like F&L are hard at work on this topic because I want the answers. But they diverge from Arnold in taking a constructive attitude toward happiness – separating the wheat from the chaff, noting areas with mixed results, and pointing out better approaches. They inventory a long list of inadequacies in existing research. Have I ever felt unhappy for long about something without blaming another person? I’m drawing a blank.Īrnold could point out a lot of flaws in this literature, but F&L have beaten him to the punch. In one study, “ictims of severe accidents who blamed themselves for the accident were coping more successfully eight to twelve months afterward than those who did not, and… victims who blamed other people (as opposed to some nonspecific external cause) displayed especially low coping scores.” This rings so true to me that my head is still spinning. If and who you blame for bad events matters too. And – expected utility theory notwithstanding – people adapt more easily to 100% certain bad events than to 95% certain bad events. It helps to have advance notice: You get over the death of a loved one more easily if you have some time to get used to the idea. It helps the bereaved and the handicapped to socialize with people with similar problems. Paraplegics and quadriplegics aren’t miserable, but (contrary to a number of misleading summaries I’ve read) they don’t fully adapt either – they report an average happiness score of 2.96/5, versus 3.82/5 for a control group.į&L also provide a fascinating discussion of the forces that moderate hedonic adaptation. People get used to higher income, but not noise. Unlike a lot of people who work at the intersection of psychology and economics, F&L don’t pretend that all the research points in the same direction. We may have seen footage of malnourished children playing happily in garbage dumps or know of severely handicapped people who maintain a cheerful disposition in spite of their disabilities… This chapter examines both the extent and limits of hedonic adaptation – processes that attenutate the long-term emotional or hedonic impact of favorable and unfavorable circumstances. Most of us are familiar with striking examples of people who seem to be adapting well to circumstances that are extremely adverse. If you think this is a pipe dream, check out one of the most eye-opening articles I’ve read in years: “Hedonic Adaptation” by Shane Frederick and George Loewenstein. ![]() The point of happiness research is to apply the careful methods of social science to a new subject. If we followed this advice, unfortunately, there would be no reason to read these books, because they would be written by low-quality authors for low-quality readers. Books that tell you how to be happy belong in the New Age/Self-Help section. Arnold has curtly dismissed happiness research:īooks that are based on research designed to predict behavior belong in the Social Science section.
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