Happiness Lecture Slides

Happiness

LIVING WELLWHAT IS IT?HOW CAN WE HAVE IT?WHAT DOES IT INCLUDE?

Boston Happiness Videohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_8I_w5v18I

HappinessToday, you willLearn about the explosion of research and popular interest in happiness studies.

See why leaders in the field of Positive Psychology, including Martin Seligman, consider happiness studies crucial for advancing the sciences of human nature and human welfare.

Examine an important effort by positive psychologists to establish commonly valued human strengths.

Learn about the Harvard Grant Study, one of the most ambitious scientific projects ever undertaken to examine what a successful and happy life entails.

OutlineHappiness: The ProblemHappiness Studies and Positive PsychologyStudying Human StrengthsMartin Seligmans 2004 Ted TalkThe Harvard Grant StudyHPS Point The roles of values in research

1. Happiness: The ProblemLets start with some basic questions

and some interesting answersIs it important?

Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.~ Aristotle

The Constitution only guarantees you the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.~ Benjamin Franklin

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.~ The 14th Dalai Lama

Alternative views exist:

Is it better to be Socrates dissatisfied or a pig satisfied?

If people are very happy, do they have much motivation to do anything worthwhile that requires struggle, discomfort, and sacrifice?

In a world filled with so much human and non-human suffering, isnt being happy about your life a sign of at least deep ignorance and, even worse, profound selfishness?

But what is it?

The ultimate happiness is doing nothing.~ Zhuangzi

Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling, enduring, and accomplishing.~ George Sheehan

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.-- Mahatma Gandi

What produces it?

If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows like a shadow.~ Buddha

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.~ William James

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.~ Johann Wolfang von Goethe

Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasnt arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and Im going to be happy in it.~ Groucho Marx

Can We Study Happiness Scientifically?

With so many different views about if its important, what it is, and what produces it, perhaps we need the human sciences to step in?

But how so?

With what methods of investigation? Experiment? Field studies? Questionnaires? Case Studies?

Could we possible learn something important that we dont already know, based on historical studies, philosophical inquiries, the arts (literature, poetry, theater, film), and personal experiences?

Effective Applications?If so, could we apply scientific knowledge about happiness?

To develop effective, tested measures that will promote happiness in our personal lives and society - in the work place, schools, families, sports teams, community neighborhoods, even around the world?

2. Happiness Studies and Positive PsychologyAll the questions raised so far are, in fact, central to a field of study called Positive Psychology.

This field focuses, as its name suggests, on studying and promoting the positive dimensions of human experience and living.

Martin Seligman is a central figure in these developments.

Martin Seligmanb. 1942

Pioneer of Positive Psychology, considered its father/founder

Professor of psychology at University of Pennsylvania, and Director of UPs Center for Positive Psychology

Elected APA president in 1998 In his 1998 APA presidential address he proposed that psychologists should study what factors make happy people happy

Repeatedly emphasizes importance of using scientific methods of study to explore happiness and a huge array of related subjects

Seligmans Historical PerspectiveHappiness is a topic of long-standing importance,

discussions are found throughout history, going back to probably all ancient civilizations many distinguished commentators some scattered scientific studies

but no cumulative scientific research tradition

Seligmans view of 20th-century PsychologyHe says:

3 main streams in psychology (in the U.S.) before WWII: studying and treating mental illnessstudying and promoting high talentmaking peoples lives more fulfilling

But development during WWII and in the postwar developments produced a dominant focus on mental problems studying, classifying, and treating a wide range of psychological problems, with little attention to the positive dimensions of human experiences. When psychologists talk about mental health, wellness, or well-being, they mean little more than the absence of disease, distress, and disorder, as if falling short of diagnostic criteria should be the goal for which we all strive.

-- Dahlsgaard, Peterson, & Seligman, 2005, p. 203

What about Humanistic Psychology?Influential movement in psychology and popular culture during the 1960s and 1970s

Leaders included some prominent psychologists, such as Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow

Heres whats interesting:

Humanistic psychologists were very critical of dominant approaches to psychology at the time, especially psychoanalysis and behaviorism. They said these two approaches didnt devote much attention to the positive aspects of human psychology, including efforts by individuals to achieve psychological growth and to lead fulfilling lives.

The more we learn about mans natural tendencies, the easier it will be to tell him how to be good, how to be happy, how to be fruitful, how to respect himself, how to love, how to fulfill his highest potentialities The thing to do seems to be to find out what one is really like inside; deep down, as a member of the human species and as a particular individual.-- Abraham Maslow, 1987Maslows Hierarchy of Needs

Seligmans takeHe mentions the humanistic psychologists.

He even notes that the term positive psychology was coined by Abraham Maslow.

But Seligman says their effort, unfortunately, didnt produce a substantial body of empirical research and didnt inspire the next generation of scholars to pursue serious work in this area.

Dramatic recent expansion of happiness studies

Also Lots of Happiness Advice Based on Scientific Findings?

And A Global Happiness Movement!March 20, 2015 New International Day of Happiness

As United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moonsaid, Social, economic and environmental well-being are indivisible. Together they define gross global happiness.

The Happiness Movement, a heady combination of positive psychology, personal development, social justice, and simple joyfulness, has been growing steadily in the past decade.

By designating March 20 as International Day of Happiness, the United Nations has codified the movement into a bonified global phenomenon.

As conflict and turmoil seem to dominate the news, a focus on positivity is not just a matter of turning away from reality, it is a way of changing reality.

3. Studying Human StrengthsSeligman claims that studying human strengths is crucial to understanding and finding ways to promote happiness and, more generally, the good life.

Based on extensive research with questionnaires (self-reports), Seligman says he has discovered the following:

people who are the most satisfied and upbeat are the people who have a good understanding of their signature strengths and who then apply these strengths in their lives.

He says such strengths include humanity, temperance and persistence.

Strengths and Seligmans 3 Dimensions of HappinessThe centrality of human strengths also appears in his discussion of three dimensions of happiness. These correspond to three different types of lives.

The Pleasant Life people learn to appreciate the basic pleasures of life, from the body (eating a good meal), from social interactions (companionship), and from experiences with the natural environment. But there are deeper types of happiness, found in

The Good Life people discover their unique set of virtues and strengths, and then use them to enhance their lives.

The Meaningful Life

the final stage, where people find the deepest sense of fulfillment by using their unique strengths to connect with and to promote some purpose greater than themselves.

Dahlsgaard, Peterson, & Seligman, 2005The assigned article provides another approach (besides questionnaires) to studying human strengths and happiness.

Our goal in this article is to extend what the DSMIV and ICD have begun by proposing a foundation for the study of what is right about people, specifically the strengths of character that contribute to fulfillment and thereby enable the good life (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). We follow the example of the DSMIV and ICD by proposing a classification scheme. The crucial difference is that our domain is not psychological illness but rather psychological strength.

Note: the DSM-IV and the ICD are two major diagnostic manuals for mental disorders and diseases. Historical and cross-cultural analysis

Positive psychology needs an agreed-upon way of classifying positive traits as a backbone for research, diagnosis, and intervention. As a 1st step toward classification, the authors examined philosophical and religious traditions in China (Confucianism and Taoism), South Asia (Buddhism and Hinduism), and the West (Athenian philosophy, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) for the answers each provided to questions of moral behavior and the good life. FindingsThe authors found that 6 core virtues recurred in these writings: courage, justice, humanity, temperance, wisdom, and transcendence. This convergence suggests a nonarbitrary foundation for the classification of human strengths and virtues. -- Dahlsgaard, Peterson, & Seligman, 2005, p. 203

4. Martin Seligman 2004 Ted TalkThe Harvard Grant Study:What does it mean to lead a good life? How is leading a good life related to happiness?

Basic idea: study people highly likely to succeed in life, gather data on them over many years, analyze that data in search of insights about the good life and happiness

Origins of the study: Desire to study success and well living, not only pathology

Goals: Study normal undergraduates who Could paddle their own canoeFind out what successful living required and amounted to.

268 students of the classes of 1942, 43, and 44. Uniformity of sex, but not of class, before entering Harvard. Lived through the Great Depression, WWII.Average: 5th generation American. A few immigrants. No African Americans. 10% Jews, 10% Catholics, 80% Protestants.

Stages of the ProjectShifts in:Personnel: lead directors, researchers, and interviewers

Clark Heath, 1938-1954Charles McArthur, 1954-1972George Vaillant, 1972-2004Robert Waldinger, 2004-present

Funding: sources and their interests-W.T. Grant and later Grant Foundation, Macy Foundation, Tobacco Industry, etc.

Advisers: Adolf Meyer, Henry Murray.

Intellectual orientation: From Biology to Psychology

Types of data gathered: interviews, physical exams, family data, personality traits

Harvard Men

Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck Men (started 1939)

Women in Termans Study(1920s). High IQ.PublicationsJonh Monks: College Men at WarVaillant:Adaptation to Life (1977) (Anna Freud: Defense Mechanisms).The Natural History of Alcoholism (1983)Aging Well (2002)Triumphs of Experience (2012)

Some main conclusionsMain conclusions from Vaillant about leading a meaningful and good life and happiness:

-Alcohol, Smoking, exercise, healthy weight.

-What we do affects how we feel as much as how we feel affects what we do.

RELATIONSHIPS

Sibling relationships

Later: Mother

Scientific significance of longitudinal Studies

Importance of narrative analysisTo make sense of lived lives over the long run

Critical role of skillful interpretation analysis of empirical data provides evidence for or against certain claims.

Ex. Importance of body types on success? Data indicates no.

But often the insights reached insights about human strengths, growth of the individual over time, and happiness in the sense of leading a rewarding life -- involve piecing together the scattered pieces of data from individual case studies that were collected over the years.

Ex. The story of Art Miller (in ch. 3)LimitationsProblems of generalization due to selective data base? yes, though this is always the case; some times a bigger problem than other times

Problems of interpretive bias? -- sure, but this problem arise whenever skillful interpretation is required -Selective memory recollection-reconstruction of ones own life story

2-minutes with George Vaillant

https://www.youtube.com/watchv=VyhBZCfIatk

6. HPS Point Roles of Value JudgmentsDistinction between facts and values, between what is and what is good (or bad)

Ex: smoking causes cancer and kills people - fact smoking is a bad thing to do value judgment

A common view: science deals only with what is, the facts, and their objective analysis, without the influence of value judgments about how the world should be or what people should do.

Yet there are (at least) two well-recognized exceptions to this view: 1. values help scientists to select worthwhile research topics obedience to authority, helping other people, happiness 2. determining practical applications of scientific results requires value judgments about what is good to do to lessen the likelihood that people will obey authority blindly, to encourage more helping behavior, to promote more happiness

Yet in the sciences of human nature (leaving aside other areas of science for now), values often play other important roles as well.

3. Researchers study the values that people and societies hold, and they examine how these values influence individual lives and social interactions

Are passive bystanders typically uncaring and callous? Or are they decent, caring people who behaved passively due to other factors?

Regarding happiness, researchers have studied how the pursuit of different values (materialistic, social, spiritual) influences an individuals happiness.

4. Some researchers also include critical evaluation of values and, explicitly or implicitly, promote certain value judgments in their work.

Seligman establishes 3 types of happiness and evaluates their merits. Of course this isnt simply armchair speculation, as he appeals to empirical research. However, in the end, he proposes/argues that a certain type of happiness is in fact better (more profound, deeper) than the others.