Lecture 5: Happy people, Stability and Change Flashcards
Who is happy?
- Most people
- Especially in Canada (there is variation cross-culturally, but most developed/western cultures tend to be happy)
- Example of ‘locked in’ patients (the people who have been locked in patients for longer tended to say they were more happy than people who had just recently been paralysed)
- Yet, substantial variation
Is SWB heritable?
- Substantial heritability (40-50%)
- We are not blank slates, BUT… Many individual genes (and poorly understood)
- Twin studies: Only applies to groups (not individuals), The estimates vary (for good reasons) E.g., single nation vs. multi-nation, Degree of environmental variation
- Heritability is not immutable, the environment can modify genes
- Plenty of room for change C.f., height, intelligence, and happiness per se
Is SWB stable or unstable over time?
- Relatively stable over time
What is the Big five model of personality?
- Conscientiousness
- Openness
- Agreeableness
- Neuroticism (Among the best predictors of lower subjective well being)
- Extraversion (sociability, assertiveness, activity level- Among the best predictors of high subjective well being)
- Big means broad
What are the associations between SWB and demographics?
- Gender (there are no major or consistent differences across studies)
- Age (no tremendous age difference on subjective well being)
- Intelligence ( no consistent link)
- Education (small positive link between education and happiness, seems to be stronger when people are poor i.e., because the poor are less educated they are less happy)
- Physical health (is positively associated with happiness, but the link is much stronger for subjective ratings of health, compared to objective health)
- Marriage (people tend to be somewhat happier than those who have never married or who have
become divorced. Modest increase in happiness after marriage but does not last more than 2 years on average) - Parenting (single young moms are on average less happy than older, married parents)
What matters in terms of SWB?
- Cross national differences are large
- Life events matter (even with adaptation)
- Goals and efforts matter
- ‘well doing’ vs. ‘well being’
- Working on intrinsically valued projects
Is it good to be happy?
Is it good to be happy?
– Consider (some) demographics and causal
direction
• Marriage (does marriage make people more happy or are happy people more likely to get married), health, income
–Other correlates
• Productivity, pro-social behaviours, creativity,
delay of gratification
• State and trait suggestions here
Is it possible to be too happy?
- State vs. trait again: When people are in good moods they don’t pay attention to detail and there are negotiations when this is disadvantageous (e.g., negotiation)
- Social bonds vs. productivity: Longer romantic relationships seem to indicate that the longer it is the happier they are. The very happiest people were not the ones who made the most money, their salary was more in middle.
What was the very happy people study (diener and seligman, 2002)?
-Goal: collaborated on a study designed to characterize the happiest people.
-To begin, they recruited relatively unremarkable sample
of 222 students
-Methods: Extensive SWB measurement to find top 10% (Including ESM for daily emotions). Compare happiest to others with: Personality measures, Social life measures, Other lifestyle measures and activities.
What were the results of the very happy people study?
- High Extraversion, low on neuroticism, high on agreeableness: MMPI pathology
- Daily emotion: full range for all (but lots more positive)
- No major effects of circumstances/activities (physical attractiveness, exercise, diet, religiosity, grades, sleep)
- Although the very happy people experienced more positive emotions in day-to-day life (by definition), they were not immune from unpleasant emotions—they experienced the full range. The most striking differences were found in social behaviour. The very happy people seem to have more and better social relationships when assessed by global self-reports (close friends, family, romantic), with peer ratings, and in daily time use
- These seem necessary to be in the very happy people group, but not sufficient because there were people in the unhappy group who had good social relationships(i.e., on its own it doesn’t seem to make people happy)
- All with caveat of study limitations… (small sample and limited because it is students at the Illinois university)
Does happiness change?
- Consider substantial roles of heritability and personality
- Consider rank-order stability over time
- But what about major life events?
- The notion of adaptation (we notice changes when they happen but they tend to not last very long, E.g., salt on food)
What did the study by Brickman, Coates, & Janoff-Bulman (1978) on adaption/the hedonic treadmill find?
- Lotto winners, controls, accident victims
- Not large sample (22, 58, 29) but huge impact
- Rated past, present, and future happiness
- Rated pleasure from everyday activities
- This study is sometimes incorrectly cited with regard to the accident victims—they were not actually equivalent to lottery winners. The victims reported significantly less happiness than both the controls and winners. On the other hand, victims’ happiness was still above the midpoint of the happiness scale—this group was not miserable (cf. the locked-in patients described earlier).
Moreover, accident victims reported levels of pleasure from mundane events that were similar to the control group and lottery winners. This study had a large impact because it conflicted with people’s intuitions. It suggested that major events had only a modest influence on people’s
happiness - Study might contradict intuitions (?)
- Yet, results often overstated (Spinal cord injury is not easy)
- Issues around remembered and predicted
happiness - People seem to adapt to even major events
What is the hedonic treadmill?
When it comes to bigger events and longer-term changes in subjective well-being (i.e. beyond daily moods), people also react. Yet, people often return to their ‘personal normal’ after a period of adaptation. This idea has been called the hedonic treadmill. Hedonic refers to the pleasantness of experience, and the treadmill implies that we are not really going anywhere.
What is the modern view of adaptation?
- ‘Setpoints’ are not neutral (even under poor
circumstances) - Substantial individual differences in setpoints (recall
strong personality & SWB links) - Probably multiple set points
– PA, NA, SWLS, stability & trajectory differences - Happiness can change
– major events (figure) - Individual differences in adaptation
– E.g., trajectories after marriage
– BUT these hard to predict
What are some additional considerations about happiness and change?
- Cross-cultural happiness differences (E.g., new data on immigration. immigrants happiness seems to go up if they come to a better country whereas immigrants who go to a worse country seem to have decreases in happiness- all this to say, broader cultural context does effect happiness)
- Intentional change (Happiness exercises, therapy)
