Positivity

Question 1

Importance of happiness

Answer 1

1. Longer life (35% less likely to die in next 5 yrs)
2. Increased self worth
3. Sexually selected trait
4. Contagious - people who are happy boost chances that people around them are.

Question 2

Norman Cousins

Answer 2

Laughed himself better from ankylosing spondylitis

Question 3

What makes us happy

Answer 3

1. Marriage for women
2. Education above high school
3. IQ between 120 and 129
4. Money only when you don’t have a lot of it.

Question 4

Money and happiness

Answer 4

People with above-average income are barely happier in moment-to-moment experience; people with under 20k a year, however, are a lot less happy than people who earn 90k+. People who earn a lot do not spend more time in particularly enjoyable activities and are stressed. People exaggerate effects of $$$ because that’s how they evaluate lives.
Money makes people happiest when they have more of it than others in their bracket

Question 5

Who we spend our money on

Answer 5

Spending money on others makes us happier than on ourselves

Question 6

Speaking about ourselves

Answer 6

Makes us happy, so much so that we pay for it

Question 7

Optimism bias

Answer 7

Causes people to believe that they are less at risk of experiencing a negative event than others. Think positively about future events. Can be bad as it prevents people from taking measures to protect health.

Question 8

Traumatic events

Answer 8

After a year, lottery winner and paraplegic are about the same. That is because of the psychological immune system, which protects people from experiencing extreme negative emotions for long periods of time. Impact bias makes people overestimate the length and intensity they will feel a certain way. They also feel “focalism” - ignore influences of other factors that will minimize the event’s impact. Mechanisms of psychological immune system act without conscious awareness

Question 9

Impact bias for memories

Answer 9

We overestimate the impact of past events on our happiness - overstate how happy we were over certain events

Question 10

Lust and happiness

Answer 10

Viewing pictures of lovers increases activity in reward areas.
In male ejaculation, activity in the ventral segmental area increases.

Question 11

Babies and happiness

Answer 11

The cuter the baby, the more area in reward areas. May to be to promote human caregiving regardless of kinship

Question 12

Benefits of laughter

Answer 12

1. A signal of trust/cooperation
2. Health - cardiovascular and immune systems
3. Sexually selected - attractive
4. Socially beneficial

Question 13

Suls’ Incongruity Theory

Answer 13

Humor arises when logic and familiarity are replaced by things that don’t normally come together (expectancy violation)

Question 14

Zygomatic major

Answer 14

Laughter is associated with this muscle - activating this muscle can affect the feedback loop going back to your brain, making you feel happier

Question 15

Neurology of Laughter

Answer 15

Can stimulate reward centers to make people laugh. Laughter activates the same brain regions as cocaine.

Question 16

Personality differences in laughter

Answer 16

Higher frequency of laughter can be linked to extroversion, smiling more, well-being, being able to tell jokes

Question 17

Sex differences and laughter

Answer 17

Women like funny men while men like women who will laugh at jokes. Differences in male and female laughter: women are slower to laughter as they have increased activity in control areas such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which evaluates a joke more. Men on the other hand just laugh

Question 18

Regulation of emotion

Answer 18

Systems involved in control of emotions are PFC - include the control of attention and reappraisal or suppression of emotional stimuli. Dorsolateral and ventrolateral PFC

Question 19

Death by Laughter

Answer 19

People have actually died because of laughing too hard for too long. Also it can be dangerous in the case of cataplexy.

Question 20

Cataplexy

Answer 20

A subset of narcolepsy. Too few orexins mean that you can’t really sleep. Strong emotions such as terror and laughter make the hypothalamus shut down; basically the person passes out.