Science of wellbeing Flashcards
What is the G.I. Joe fallacy?
To change behavior you, simply “knowing” what is good for us is not enough. You have to change habits, practicing regularly
Thinking we want things that won’t actually make us happy is called ________
miswanting
Our minds don’t think in terms of absolutes, they think in terms of _____ points
reference points
Give 2 examples of reference points
Watching The Kardashians on TV
Social media
Neighbors
What is “hedonic adaptation”?
Our minds get used to stuff that gives us pleasure
Jobs, money, cars, houses
True or False: You will always want / think you deserve more money
True
Our belief that events are going to have a more intense and longer duration emotional reaction is called ______ ______
impact bias
Basically, we’re not good at predicting our emotional reactions
To overcome hedonic adaptation, buy ____ instead of ____
experiences
material items
You won’t get used to experiences because they’re short-term
Vacations, classes, travel
List 3 ways to amp up your savoring
Talking to another person about how good it felt
Sharing the experience with other people
Thinking about how lucky you are
Telling yourself how proud you are of yourself
Thinking about the present
Replaying happy memories in your mind
How do you do the “negative visualization exercise”?
Imagining how your life might’ve been if you didn’t have X good thing
Writing for 15 min about it
Or “pretend as if this day is your last day of _____”
Data suggests that ____ every day does these things:
1. improves your overall life outlook by 1 whole point
2. Motivates you to exercise
3. Makes you feel better if you’re sick
4. Can mend rocky relationships
5. Motivates others to work harder
gratitude
When things get hard, one thing you can do is remind yourself of ____ reference points
Old
Think back to a previous job or who you were before this, how you were dreaming for this moment
True or False: Pausing an enjoyable experience and coming back to it stops hedonic adaptation.
True
If you’re doing something you don’t enjoy, should you:
A. stop and come back to it
B. do it all in one sitting
B
True or False: Variety causes hedonic adaptation
False: it stops hedonic adaptation
With social comparison, how do you do the “CBT Stop Think”?
When you find yourself ruminating about how great someone else’s life is, literally tell your brain to stop
The best way to improve your well-being in your career and life is to choose one that uses your _____ ________. And how many?
Signature strengths (character strengths)
at least 4 of your highest 7 strengths
Using your signature strengths every day dramatically improves ____________
depression/sadness
What is “flow”?
The state in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed and enjoying it
What are the key features of “flow”?
- Complete focus on the activity itself
- Challenging but manageable
- Activity is intrinsically rewarding
- Losing track of time
- Lack of awareness of physical needs
Among other things
To achieve flow, you have to max out your ___ at the right _____ level.
Skills
Challenge
Flow can also be used to “relax”. What’s an example of using Flow in a leisure activity?
Doing a puzzle (instead of mindlessly scrolling through social media)
Give examples of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation
Extrinsic: grades, money rewards
Intrinsic: love of learning, enjoying the work, enjoying the process, joy, fun, etc.
Extrinsic motivation can [positively/negatively] affect intrinsic motivation
negatively. It can briefly increase enjoyment, but when you return to intrinsic motivation, it reduces that pure enjoyment.
MEANING: you don’t enjoy things you used to like when you switch to doing them for external motivation
WHY: as you become motivated by external things, it strips away your original pure motivations and love of X
What does extrinsic motivation do to a growth mindset?
Eliminates it because now a fixed mindset is promoted
Is this a growth mindset or a fixed mindset?
- Focus on performance, external things
- Effort = I am bad at this
- Induces self-shaming
- Encourages people to hide mistakes and failures
- Loss of confidence/self-worth
- More rumination
Fixed
Is this a growth mindset or a fixed mindset?
- Good performances takes effort
- Use your mistakes to learn
- No decrease in intrinsic motivation
growth
Does fixed mindset or growth mindset have better performance?
Trick question.
For gaining skill, doing complex tasks, continuing intrinsic motivation and enjoyment –> growth
For keeping skills and doing simple tasks –> fixed
True or false: Happier people have less motivation to do acts of kindness and recognize kindness less easily.
False
Liz Dunn’s study found that spending money on other people was [more/less] impactful than spending money on yourself.
More
Amount, location, and culture don’t matter.
Give some examples of simple social connection with strangers
Smiling at someone
Eye contact
Small talk
True or False: The amount of social connection in your life can correlate to how “happy” you feel.
True
True or False: Doing activities with other people around decreases the amount of pleasure we feel in the activity.
False
What is “time affluence”?
The feeling that you have the time to do what you want to do
True or False: People who prioritize time over money are happier
True
Because social connection often fills that time
What is the “Default Mode Network”?
The parts of the brain that turn on really fast when you’re not “doing” or focusing on a task
They help us think outside of the here and now (tend to fixate on past and future)
Some benefits of meditation in the brain
- more connections to other parts of the brain (not default mode network)
- slows or stops default mode network
- correlated with more positive emotion
- increases gray matter (strengthens the brain tissue)
- helps with test perofrmance
- helps increase social connection and kindness
_____ 3x a week can help us as much as taking an SSRI AND boosts brain function/cognition.
Exercising
_____ affects mood
Sleep
What are some ways you can purposefully create good habits?
Put what you want in sight and what you don’t want out of sight.
E.g. vegetables on the counter, not cookies
Notes and reminders
Other people doing the same things
What is WOOP? What are the stages?
Wish (your goal)
Outcome (best possible)
Obstacles (Inner obstacles)
Plan (if, then)
A 5 min visualization of a goal, it’s potential inner obstacles, and plans to reach it.
True or False: Humans are designed to be resilient and get used to negative things so they don’t affect us as much as we think they will.
True
The Dalai Lama once said, “A disciplined mind leads to happiness. An undisciplined mind leads to suffering.”
There’s no question. Just a reminder!
