Category: Happiness

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 films help people cope with life’s problems. People report that movies like The Shawshank Redemption, Up and Schindler’s List, help them to make sense of problems in life and accept the human condition. Other films rated as meaningful include Hotel Rwanda and Slumdog Millionaire. While these films are not necessarily uplifting, they are all moving and poignant. And that is the key to a meaningful film: having an emotional range, being inspirational and containing both happy and sad moments. People did not report these types of benefits when they watched other well-regarded but not so meaningful films like Catch Me If You Can and The Big Lebowski. Mr Jared Ott, the study’s first author, said:

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

For the study, over 1,000 people rated different films — 20 of which were chosen for being highly meaningful, while the other 20 were not (see below for the full list). Professor Michael Slater, study co-author, explained the results:

“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.”

Films which were more meaningful, people said were more likely to help them:

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

People thinking about meaningful films were also more likely to agree with statements like:

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

The research also showed the importance of individual values. People found more meaning in films that espoused values they themselves believed in. Mr Ott said:

“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

Here is the full list of more meaningful films, in no particular order:

• 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

The less meaningful films used in the study:

• 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 study was published in the journal Mass Communication and Society (Ott et al., 2021).

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.”

Related

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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).

Study on rituals before eating reveals why they should be observed.

Every family has their Christmas rituals: it may be who hands out the presents, what songs are played or sung, what is watched on TV or where you sit at the table.

While these may all have special significance as making it your particular Christmas, are they just regular routines that have evolved over the years or do they have a psychological impact?

In fact, a study finds, rituals performed before eating or drinking can indeed enhance the pleasure we get because they focus our attention on the experience to a greater extent.

Professor Kathleen Vohs, who led the study said:

“Whenever I order an espresso, I take a sugar packet and shake it, open the packet and pour a teeny bit of sugar in, and then taste.

It’s never enough sugar, so I then pour about half of the packet in.

The thing is, this isn’t a functional ritual, I should just skip right to pouring in half the packet.”

In the study some people were given very specific instructions for how they should eat a chocolate bar:

 “Without unwrapping the chocolate bar, break it in half.

Unwrap half of the bar and eat it.

Then, unwrap the other half and eat it.”

Compared with another group who ate the bar how they wanted, those who performed this ritual rated the chocolate more highly and savoured it more.

The reason for this greater enjoyment is that rituals enhance our involvement with the experience.

So perform all those Christmas rituals just as you always have: that way you’ll enjoy and savour them more.

And if your Christmas meal is a little late, then take heart from another part of the study, which found that a longer wait after the ritual and before eating increased the pleasure even more…

…even when people were only eating carrots!

Happy Holidays!

Related

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The research was published in the journal Psychological Science (Vohs et al., 2013).