Category: Happiness

People significantly underestimate how happy they were in the past.

When you look back over your life, can you remember how happy you used to be, say, five years ago?

The chances are that you were much happier than you recall.

Research suggests that people were usually happier than they remember.

In other words, we seem to forget how happy we used to be.

Confusing past and present

The conclusions come from a study which looked at data from tens of thousands of people in Germany, France, the U.S. and the U.K..

The results showed that people’s present feelings interfered with their evaluation of the past.

Dr Alberto Prati and Professor Claudia Senik, the study’s authors, explained:

“Happy people tend to overstate the improvement of their life satisfaction over time, whereas unhappy ones tend to overstate the deterioration of their level of happiness.

This indicates a certain confusion between feeling happy and feeling better.”

People were asked at regular intervals about their current feelings of happiness every year.

But, when they tried to remember their past levels of happiness, their present feelings got in the way of an accurate assessment.

Dr Prati and Professor Senik said:

“People are able to recall how they used to feel about their life, but they also tend to mix this memory with the way they currently feel.”

Upgrade the present

In contrast to downgrading their past happiness, people seem to consistently upgrade the happiness they feel in the present.

On average, people feel they have been steadily getting happier over their lifetimes, despite their own yearly happiness ratings suggesting otherwise.

The study’s authors write:

“It thus seems that feeling happy today implies feeling better than yesterday.

This recall structure has implications for motivated memory and learning and could explain why happy people are more optimistic, perceive risks to be lower, and are more open to new experiences.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Science (Prati & Senik, 2022).

How the triumphs and tragedies of our age affect national happiness.

The unhappiest period in the United States in the last two hundred years was in the early 1970s, during the Vietnam War.

In the UK, the unhappiest period was during the 1978-79 ‘Winter of Discontent’ caused by strikes, bitter cold and a worsening economy.

However, national happiness quickly bounces back and people soon forget the triumphs and tragedies of the age in which they live.

The conclusions come from a study that measured national happiness over the last 200 years by analysing millions of books and newspapers published at the time.

The study also found that increases in national income make people a little happier, but it takes a huge rise in income to have any measurable effect.

Avoiding one year of war, though, gave the equivalent boost to happiness of a 30 percent rise in GDP.

Researchers created a happiness index for the US, UK, Italy and Germany using linguistic analysis.

Professor Thomas Hills, the study’s first author, said:

“What’s remarkable is that national subjective well-being is incredibly resilient to wars.

Even temporary economic booms and busts have little long-term effect.

We can see the American Civil War in our data, the revolutions of 48′ across Europe, the roaring 20’s and the Great Depression.

But people quickly returned to their previous levels of subjective well-being after these events were over.

Our national happiness is like an adjustable spanner that we open and close to calibrate our experiences against our recent past, with little lasting memory for the triumphs and tragedies of our age.”

The Italians suffered most during fascism and in recent years following the financial crisis, said Professor Eugenio Proto, study co-author:

“Looking at the Italian data, it is interesting to note a slow but constant decline in the years of fascism and a dramatic decline in the years after the last crisis.”

National happiness has only been measured for a maximum of 50 years, and even then only in a few countries.

That is why researchers used data from Google Books, which contains 8 million books, over 6 percent of the books ever published.

Professor Daniel Sgroi, study co-author, said:

“Aspirations seem to matter a lot: after the end of rationing in the 1950s national happiness was very high as were expectations for the future, but unfortunately things did not pan out as people might have hoped and national happiness fell for many years until the low-point of the Winter of Discontent.”

Changes in word meaning had to be controlled for, said Dr Chanuki Seresinhe, study co-author:

“It was really important to ensure that the changing meaning of words over time was taken into account.

For example, the word “gay” had a completely different meaning in the 1800s than it does today.

We processed terabytes of word co-occurrence data from Google Books to understand how the meaning of words has changed over time, and we validate our findings using only words with the most stable historical meanings.”

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The study was published in the journal Nature: Human Behaviour (Hills et al., 2019).

The long-term goals linked to life satisfaction and happiness.

Setting realistic and modest goals makes people happier in the long-term.

People feel most satisfied with their lives if they have control over achieving their goals.

Fascinatingly, the importance of the goal does not matter so much.

In other words, modest goals that can be achieved make people happier than grand goals which are difficult to feel in control of.

It also matters to happiness what types of goals people set for themselves.

For example, people are happier when they set themselves goals related to social relationships or health, the researchers found.

Younger people, though, prefer goals related to work and status.

However, these tend not to be satisfying in the long-term.

Internal locus of control

The study used data from 973 people in Switzerland, many of whom were followed for around 4 years.

They were asked about their life goals across many areas, including social relationships, image, wealth, family and health.

Realistic goals are the key to happiness, the study’s authors write:

“…the attainability of intrinsic goals was positively linked to later well-being.

Goal attainability might be conducive for subjective well-being given that it reflects a person’s feeling of control and perceived sphere of influence.

…people are more satisfied if they feel they have this internal locus of control, and that a greater feeling of goal attainability might yield more opportunities
for goal achievement.”

Age had some influence over what types of goals people pursued.

Younger people were naturally more interested in work, status and personal growth.

Both status and work goals were only linked to satisfaction in the short-term, but not in the long-term.

Perhaps it is no surprise that older people, with greater experience of life, focus more on social relationships and their health.

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The study was published in the European Journal of Personality (Bühler et al., 2019).

How to formulate your New Year’s resolutions (if you want them to stick).

Step 1

The first step in keeping a New Year’s resolution is to rephrase it.

Do not use New Year’s resolutions that contain the words “I will quit…,” or “I will avoid…”

Instead, use “I will start to….”

When people phrase resolutions positively, in terms of what they will do, instead of what they are trying to avoid, they are more likely to carry through.

Study co-author, Professor Per Carlbring, explains:

“In many cases, rephrasing your resolution could definitely work.

For example, if your goal is to stop eating sweets in order to lose weight, you will most likely be more successful if you say ‘I will eat fruit several times a day’ instead.

You then replace sweets with something healthier, which probably means you will lose weight and also keep your resolution.

You cannot erase a behavior, but you can replace it with something else.

Although, this might be harder to apply to the resolution ‘I will quit smoking,’ which is something you might do 20 times a day.”

The conclusions come from a study of 1,066 people who made resolutions at the end of 2017.

The researchers tested the effects of providing different levels of support to people in their attempts to change their behaviour.

Surprisingly, providing people support had little effect, explained Professor Carlbring:

“It was found that the support given to the participants did not make much of a difference when it came down to how well participants kept their resolutions throughout the year.

What surprised us were the results on how to phrase your resolution.”

Step 2

The second step is to think carefully about a resolution that will satisfy the three most basic psychological needs.

People find it much easier to stick to resolutions that tap directly into basic human needs.

These three basic psychological needs are for:

• autonomy: activities that you find personally valuable.
• competence: feeling effective and enjoying a sense of accomplishment.
• and relatedness: feeling connected to others.

Professor Richard Ryan, whose theory of motivation is highly influential, suggests adopting a resolution that involves giving to others.

He says:

“If you want to make a New Year’s resolution that really makes you happy, think about the ways in which you can contribute to the world.

All three of these basic needs are fulfilled.

The research shows it’s not just good for the world but also really good for you.”

We can help ourselves, says Professor Ryan, by helping others:

“Think of how you can help.

There’s a lot of distress out there: If we can set goals that aim to help others, those kinds of goals will, in turn, also add to our own well-being.”

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE (Oscarsson et al., 2020).

These films help people make sense of problems in life and accept the human condition.

“Meaningful movies actually help people cope with difficulties in their own lives, and help them want to pursue more significant goals.”

“We found that people felt better able to make sense of difficulties in their own life when they recalled a movie that focused on values that were important to them.”

• “Feel like struggles in life are for a reason.”
• “More easily handle difficult situations with grace and courage.”

• “Both happy and sad experiences give meaning to our life.”
• “Gains and losses are part of life.”

“That happened even when the movie was classified as one of the less meaningful films.The findings suggest why many people see movies as more than just entertainment.Some films may help people cope and grow through difficult periods in their life.And people may recognize this effect years after they have seen a particular movie.”

20 meaningful films

• The Shawshank Redemption
• Forrest Gump
• The Pursuit of Happyness
• Into the Wild
• The Green Mile
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Schindler’s List
• A Beautiful Mind
• The Pianist
• Slumdog Millionaire
• Gran Torino
• Rain Man
• Good Will Hunting
• Saving Private Ryan
• Dead Poet’s Society
• Braveheart
• Hotel Rwanda
• Million Dollar Baby
• Gladiator
• Up

• Pulp Fiction
• Casino
• Blood Diamond
• The Departed
• The Big Lebowski
• Mystic River
• The Usual Suspects
• Catch Me if You Can
• Snatch1
• There will be blood
• No Country for Old Men
• Crimes and Misdemeanors
• Trainspotting
• LA Confidential
• The Princess Bride
• Se7en
• V for Vendetta
• Sin City
• Fight Club
• Ratatouille

The simple pleasures like a delicious meal or enjoying nature make most people happy, but the psychological mature often need more.

The search for meaning in life promotes greater happiness in those with high levels of psychological maturity, a study suggests.

People with advanced ego development tend to seek out more opportunities for personal growth, the nurturing of others and overcoming challenges.

However, the simple pleasures in life also play an important role in happiness for people at all levels of psychological maturity.

It is the psychologically mature, though, that benefit most from the search for meaning in life.

Paths to happiness

These conclusions come from a study that looked at how people’s paths to happiness change along with their psychological maturity.

The researchers used a theory of ego development introduced by the American psychologist Jane Loevinger.

As people mature psychologically, Loevinger proposed, they attain new strategies for establishing relationships, making sense of life experiences and regulating the self.

Essentially, people move from a preoccupation with their own desires and emotions to understanding how they differ to others, cope with their feelings and make difficult decisions.

In other words, people slowly learn that they are not the only person in the world and everything does not revolve around what they want, feel or think.

Higher ego development

The researchers tested the ego development, or psychological maturity, of 360 people by using a projective sentence completion task.

These were then assessed by experts.

Dr Evgeny Osin, the study’s first author, explained the test:

“For example, completed sentences such as ‘Being with other people is cool’, ‘… is something I enjoy’ or ‘… is awful’ indicate an early stage of ego development.

In contrast, sentences like ‘Being with other people can be tiresome but often useful’ or ‘…means observing their personality and learning from them’ suggest a more advanced stage of ego development and higher complexity of self-perception.”

Participants were also asked about their levels of happiness and life satisfaction.

This provides an insight into people’s happiness, but only a limited one, explained Dr Osin:

“Emotional well-being functions like a thermometer: we can measure a person’s temperature to assess their overall state—does their life go well? —but the temperature alone is insufficient to make a diagnosis—what kind of life is it?”

Accepting new challenges

The results revealed that people at higher levels of ego development continue to seek out hedonic pleasures, such as pleasure (say, from eating, travelling, entertainment etc.) and comfort.

However, unlike those with lower levels of ego development, they also sought out more meaning in life.

They had a greater desire for personal development; to reach out and accept new challenges for themselves and explore.

Age, though, was no barrier to psychological immaturity, Dr Osin said:

“Interestingly, in adults, the level of ego development is no longer contingent upon age.

While some individuals progress to higher levels of psychological maturity as they age, others remain at the impulsive or self-protective stages without further advancement.

The study demonstrates that the meaning of life is not an abstract notion, but a real-life challenge that individuals encounter as they attain a higher level of personal maturity.

It is highly likely that everyone, at some point in their life, will confront this challenge.”

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The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Osin et al., 2023).

Giving makes us feel connected to others and reinforces a positive self-image.

The joy of giving does not fade like the joy of getting.

Usually when people repeat pleasant experiences, happiness fades after each one.

However, when people keep on giving to others, the happy feeling remains powerful.

In fact, people in the study were just as happy giving money away after the fifth time as they were the very first time.

It may be because giving makes us feel connected to others and reinforces a positive self-image.

Dr Ed O’Brien, the study’s first author, said:

“If you want to sustain happiness over time, past research tells us that we need to take a break from what we’re currently consuming and experience something new.

Our research reveals that the kind of thing may matter more than assumed: Repeated giving, even in identical ways to identical others, may continue to feel relatively fresh and relatively pleasurable the more that we do it.”

For the study, people were asked to either spend $5 per day on themselves or to give it away to others.

Those that spent the money on themselves saw a pattern familiar to psychologists.

The first day they got a kick out of it, but that quickly faded as the days past (this is called ‘hedonic adaptation’).

But, for those that gave their money away, the joy was just as strong on the fifth day as it was on the first.

Dr O’Brien said they tested all sorts of alternative explanations for their results.

For example, perhaps people thought longer and harder when giving the money away.

This did not explain the effect, though:

“We considered many such possibilities, and measured over a dozen of them.

None of them could explain our results; there were very few incidental differences between ‘get’ and ‘give’ conditions, and the key difference in happiness remained unchanged when controlling for these other variables in the analyses.”

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The study is to be published in the journal Psychological Science (O’Brien & Kassirer, 2018).