Psychology Today Blogs - How of Happiness

No, Middle-Aged People Are Not Really Less Happy Than Anyone Else

Sonja Lyubomirsky — Wed, 14 May 2008 10:24:10 -0700

I am currently teaching a seminar on “positive psychology,” which deals mostly with research on happiness. To date, I have assigned several papers about happiness written by economists, and most of the class, it seems, has found these papers a bit hard to read. Clearly, psychologists and economists approach the same problems quite differently, and here I’d like to offer one example. It involves a fundamental misunderstanding that has been circulating in the media about a recent economics paper reporting that middle-aged people are less happy than younger or older folks.

In the article in question, economists Blanchflower and Oswald reported a “U-shaped” relationship between happiness and age — namely, that middle-aged people are less happy than their younger and older counterparts. (If you think of changes in happiness over time to form the shape of the letter “U,” then younger and older people are at the top two parts of the “U” and the middle-aged are at the trough.) How did these two economists reach this conclusion? Well, if you look at the paper carefully, they actually compared the happiness of the young and old only after statistically controlling for a host of circumstantial factors. In other words, the question they asked is not whether middle-aged people differ in their happiness from others, but whether middle-aged people who are in the same life circumstances as younger and older people differ from others. To be sure, relative to those who are much younger or older, people between ages 40 and 50 are reaching the height of their careers, financially better off, and enjoying their families. Because all of these factors contribute somewhat to happiness, studies that simply compare how happy people are at various ages have found midlife to be one of life’s happier periods. What Blanchflower and Oswald found is that if we assumed that people in their 20s and 70s had the same income, education level, employment, and marital status as the middle-aged, then they’d be happier than those in their 40’s. This might be thought of as the “pure” effect of age. Do you have a hard time grasping what that even means? Then you’ve got company!

Is "The Secret" Just a Giant Placebo Effect?

Sonja Lyubomirsky — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:17:06 -0700

I’ve been traveling so much lately that I’ve started to play a little game by guessing what reading material people tend to bring on airplanes. The most frequently sighted book? The Secret. No surprise there. Rhonda Byrne’s book, which followed a popular DVD, will be celebrating its one-and-a-half-year anniversary atop the bestseller lists on May 28. I’ve been told about it, gushingly, not only by my new agey crunchy granola friends (OK, I live in LA), but by my more ordinarily skeptical friends as well.

“OK,” they say, “We know that the law of attraction [which argues that you can manifest or attract whatever your heart desires, from Prada bags to husbands] sounds ridiculous. But it works! It has truly, sincerely, and genuinely made me happier.”

I am a psychological scientist who conducts randomized controlled experiments that test what strategies make people happier over the long term (and how and why). But I cannot argue with the claim that faithfully using the law of attraction has made particular individuals happy. Of course, such anecdotal evidence can be strongly biased. For example, people may try to convince themselves that something into which they have put a lot of effort is truly valuable, or they may selectively recall successes versus failures. However, my guess is that if we test The Secret’s recommendations in a randomized controlled experiment, it would likely be shown to “work.” Why? Because, as my new graduate student, Matthew Della Porta, announced to me the other day in an inspired understatement, “You know, The Secret is just a giant placebo effect.”

A placebo effect occurs when a pill, procedure, or behavior has the intended salutary outcome – for example, relief of headache or lifting of depression – simply because the person believes that it will have that outcome. The placebo effect is truly mind-over-body, or mind-over-mind, in action. The pill may be a sugar pill and the strategy may be completely worthless, but if you think that it’s going to work, it just might work.

Placebo effects aren’t trivial. A sugar pill or sham treatment (even sham surgery) can lead people to feel less anxious, to show reduced inflammation, to witness declines in blood pressure, and even to build muscle mass. In the case of psychological “sham” treatments, such as those described in Rhonda Byrne’s film and book, people may benefit and become genuinely happier for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they are pursuing a significant, committed, and absorbing life goal (simply having such goals is associated with happiness) and the fact that they are engaged with the world and other people (social bonds are also associated with happiness). And the list goes on.

Here’s a study that I plan to do with my students. Half the participants will be asked to practice faithfully the law of attraction. The other half will be asked to practice an alternate “law of attraction” that we have randomly scrambled and reversed beyond recognition. All will be given a reasonable-sounding rationale for why their assigned exercises should work. Our prediction is that both groups of participants will become happier over time and more successful in obtaining what they want – simply because they believe in what they’re doing, because they expect to succeed, because they are putting effort into the strategy, and because they are pursuing it in an engaged and committed fashion.

I can’t wait to learn what we find from this study. Of course, scientific experiments take much longer to conduct than the time it takes to read a book. By the time the results are in – and if they show that the law of attraction isn’t any more effective than a nonsense collection of exercises – maybe The Secret mania will have blown over and no one will care.

What Influences Our Happiness The Most?

Sonja Lyubomirsky — Sun, 04 May 2008 16:20:30 -0700

I have two friends, Seth and Michael, and one of them is a lot happier than the other.

Seth is chronically unhappy. He is often glum, frequently irritable, and sometimes hopeless, though he has never been clinically depressed. By contrast, Michael is a remarkable happy person. Although he has his low moments and periodic stress, he manages to find joy in his days and is quite content with the way his life is going. To understand why these two men are so different, let me tell you a little bit about them.

Both are in their early 40s and doing well in their careers. Michael is a professor of psychology at a prestigious university, who has reasonably bright students, a fair amount of autonomy in his work, and many opportunities for travel. His research program has been successful, garnering attention from all over the U.S. Seth is a deputy city attorney in a small but beautiful city right on the Pacific Ocean. He specializes in landlord-tenant disputes and other civil matters, and his success as a litigator has led to occasional media appearances, in which he is asked to speak about his latest cases. He gets a kick out of doing that.

Both have close-knit families. Seth is married to Allison, whom he met while on sabbatical in the Netherlands, and they have 5-year old twin boys. Michael is married to Holly. They started dating in law school, and now have a boy (age 6) and a girl (age 3).

Both men own homes in the suburbs of a major metropolitan area, about half an hour from the city and their jobs.

So, why is Michael happier than Seth? Was he simply lucky to be born with a sunnier disposition? Or, is he more fortunate with regard to the events and circumstances of his life?

Knowing them, I would be hard-pressed to assert that the life situation of one is clearly superior to the other. On balance, neither seems to have the better job, wife, kids, house, or car. Furthermore, scientific research has shown that prosperity, health, and physical attractiveness are only minimally related to one’s overall happiness. For example, a study by Ed Diener from the University of Illinois demonstrated that the richest Americans – those earning more than $10 million annually – report levels of personal happiness only slightly greater than the people who work for them. So, even if Seth had fewer of life’s “goods,” this shortfall wouldn’t explain his acute unhappiness.

What about genetics? Growing research done with identical and fraternal twins suggests that each person is born with a particular “happiness set point” – that is, a baseline or potential for happiness to which he or she is bound to return, even after major setbacks or triumphs. The set point for happiness is similar to the set point for weight. Some people are blessed with a “skinny disposition.” Even when they’re not trying, they easily maintain their weight. By contrast, others have to work extraordinarily hard to keep their weight at a desirable level and the moment they slack off even a bit, the pounds creep back on. So, Michael may simply possess a higher set point for happiness, a higher potential for well-being. He doesn’t have to work hard at it – he just is happy.

So if Michael’s happiness is due to genetics, what is left for Seth to do? Are we all doomed to obey the directives of our genes?

The answer is “no.” I am an experimental social psychologist who has conducted the first controlled experimental intervention studies to increase and maintain a person’s happiness level over and above his or her set point. In broadest terms, this research suggests that sustainable happiness is attainable regardless of genetics, if one is prepared to do the work. Much like permanent weight loss and fitness, becoming lastingly happier demands making some permanent changes, requiring effort and commitment every day of one’s life.

My two colleagues – Ken Sheldon at the University of Missouri and David Schkade at UC San Diego – and I developed a theory that describes the most important factors determining happiness. (This theory lies at the heart of my book, The How of Happiness.) In sum, we argue that the set point determines just 50% of happiness, while a mere 10% can be attributed to differences in people’s life circumstances – that is, whether they are rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy, married or divorced, etc. This leaves a surprising 40% of our capacity for happiness within our power to change. This means that Seth can be a great deal happier and Michael could be even happier too.

Is It Possible To Become Lastingly Happier?

Sonja Lyubomirsky — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:31:15 -0700

“To change one’s life, start immediately, do it flamboyantly,

no exceptions.”
– William James

Why are some people happier than others? What are the benefits (and costs) of happiness? And is it possible to become permanently happier?

These are some of the questions that I hope to address in my new blog – the very questions that I tackled in my recent book, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want. My other goal is to comment on how research on emotions and well-being can inform our understanding of current events, as well as our own behavior.

I am an experimental social psychologist who has been doing research on happiness for almost 20 years. Along with my students and my collaborator Ken Sheldon, I have conducted the first experiments (called “randomized controlled experimental intervention studies”) that try to increase and maintain people’s happiness. In broadest terms, my research suggests that lasting happiness is attainable, if you are prepared to do the work. Much like with permanent weight loss and fitness, becoming lastingly happier demands making some permanent changes, requiring effort and commitment every day of your life.

In later blogs, I will discuss how and why this is so and identify for you the major determinants of happiness. Today, I hope to stir your interest in the topic by describing some of the happiness-increasing strategies that researchers have studied and concluded to be most successful. This list won’t make any of you spill your evening tea, but take note that all the strategies have been supported by empirical research. (They are discussed in a lot more detail in The How of Happiness.) Also, as I argue in the book, you do not need to attempt the entire list of happiness activities, but should choose to focus only on the 1 to 4 strategies that “fit” you best – the ones that seem most natural and enjoyable to you

Counting Your Blessings

One way to practice this strategy is with a “gratitude journal” in which you write down the 3 to 5 things for which you are currently thankful – from the mundane (your flowers are finally in bloom) to the magnificent (your child’s first steps). Do this once a week, say, on Sunday night. Keep the strategy fresh by varying your entries and how you express them as much as possible. And if there’s a particular person who has been kind or influential in your life, don’t wait to express your appreciation. Write them a letter now, or, if possible, visit and thank them in person.

Practicing Acts of Kindness

These should be both random (let the dad with the crying baby go ahead of you at the check-out counter) and systematic (read a newspaper to an elderly neighbor). Being kind to others, whether friends or strangers, triggers a cascade of positive effects – it makes you feel compassionate and capable, gives you a greater sense of connection with others and earns you smiles, approval and reciprocated kindness. These are all happiness boosters.

Nurturing Optimism

This strategy involves such practices as looking at the bright side, finding the silver lining in a negative event, noticing what’s right (rather than what’s wrong), feeling good about one’s future and the future of the world, or simply feeling that you can get through the day. One way to practice this strategy is to sit in a quiet place and take 20 to 30 minutes to think about and write down what you expect your life to be 10 years from now. Imagine that everything has gone as well as it possibly could. You have worked hard and succeeded at accomplishing all of your life goals. Think of this as the realization of all of your life dreams. Then, write about what you imagined.

Learning to Forgive

Let go of anger, resentment, and feelings of vengeance by writing – but, not sending – a letter of forgiveness to a person who has hurt or wronged you. The inability to forgive is associated with persistent rumination or dwelling on revenge, while forgiving allows you to move on.

Increasing “Flow” Experiences

When you’re so absorbed in what you’re doing that you don’t notice the passage of time, you are in a state called “flow,” a term coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. So, become fully engaged at work, at home, and at play. Try to increase the number of flow experiences in your life, whether it’s completing a project at the office, playing with your children, or enjoying a hobby. Seek work and leisure activities that engage your skills and expertise.

Investing in Relationships

One of the biggest factors in happiness appears to be strong personal relationships. Indeed, having the support of someone who deeply cares about you is one of the best remedies for unhappiness. Thus, this strategy involves putting effort into healing, cultivating, and enjoying your relationships with family and friends. Act with love, be as kind to the people close to you as you are to strangers, affirm them, share with them, and play together.

Avoiding Overthinking

Remember the book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff? There’s a time to think about the bad stuff in your life, but dwelling on your problems excessively is unhealthy. Very happy people have the capacity – even during trying times like a parent’s chronic illness – to absorb themselves in an engaging activity, stay busy, and have fun. To practice this strategy, pick a distracting, attention-grabbing activity that has compelled you in the past and do it when you notice yourself dwelling.

Savoring Life’s Joys

Pay close attention and take delight in momentary pleasures, wonders, and magical moments. Focus on the sweetness of a ripe mango, the aroma of a bakery, or the warmth of the sun when you step out from the shade. Some psychologists suggest taking “mental photographs” of pleasurable moments to review in less happy times

Taking Care of Your Soul

Studies show that religious and spiritual people are happier and healthier than others, though researchers don’t yet know why. Perhaps the social support of belonging to a close-knit religious group is valuable, as is the sense of meaning and purpose that comes from believing in something greater than yourself. If you are so inclined, join a church, temple, or mosque; read a spiritually-themed book; or volunteer for a faith-based charity.

Committing to Your Goals

People who strive for something significant, whether it’s learning a new craft or raising moral children, are far happier than those who don’t have strong dreams or aspirations. Find a happy person and you will find a project. However, being dedicated to any pursuit won’t make you happy if you’re just doing it for superficial reasons such as making money, boosting your ego, or succumbing to peer pressure.

Using Your Body: Exercise, Meditation, Smiling, and Rest

Getting plenty of sleep, exercising, stretching, meditating, smiling and laughing can all enhance your mood in the short term and promote energy and strong mental health. Practiced regularly, they can help make your daily life more satisfying and increase long-term happiness.

Conclusion for today: The secrets to happiness are simple to learn, but not simple to carry out. However, with determined effort and commitment, anyone can learn practices and habits that will help them achieve higher levels of happiness and – even more important – to maintain those levels. You shouldn’t just “pursue” happiness – you should “construct” or “create” it yourself.