Not happy with your selfie? There’s a psychological reason for that…
Time or money, which do you prioritise?
Time or money, which do you prioritise?
Putting greater value on your time than your money is linked to more happiness, a study finds.
Slightly over half of the participants in the study valued their time over their money.
The remainder valued their money over their time.
The conclusions come from six studies with over 4,600 people.
Ms Ashley Whillans, who led the research, said:
“It appears that people have a stable preference for valuing their time over making more money, and prioritizing time is associated with greater happiness.”
The older people were, the more likely they were to value their time.
Ms Whillans said:
“As people age, they often want to spend time in more meaningful ways than just making money.”
People were given a series of scenarios that pitted time against money.
For example, they were asked to choose between having a more expensive apartment and shorter commute or cheaper apartment and longer commute.
Or, they were asked: would you choose a job with longer hours and higher starting salary or lower hours and lower starting salary.
While both of these are major decisions for most people, the time/money split also held for more everyday decisions.
Neither people’s income nor gender affected whether they were more swayed by time or money.
However, people at the very bottom end of the income spectrum were not included in the research.
Some people may have to prioritise money in order to survive.
Ms Whillans said:
“Having more free time is likely more important for happiness than having more money.
Even giving up a few hours of a paycheck to volunteer at a food bank may have more bang for your buck in making you feel happier.”
The study was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science (Whillans et al., 2015).
Social media emerges as a catalyst in the progression towards unhappiness for those with a certain mindset.
The words were also linked to better physical health.
Some clinical trials have shown that weight loss is associated with improved mood, but that is not the whole picture.
The boost to happiness from eating these can kick in over as little as two weeks.
Even something as simple as a meaningful conversation can be savoured and enjoyed again many years later.
Even something as simple as a meaningful conversation can be savoured and enjoyed again many years later.
Learning to savour the good moments in life is one of the keys to being happier, research finds.
Even something as simple as a meaningful conversation can be savoured and enjoyed again many years later.
The key to savouring is being open and present.
Once you notice you are enjoying something pleasant:
With practice, anyone can learn to squeeze more happiness out of the same experiences.
Dr Maggie Pitts, the study’s author, said:
“Savoring is prolonging, extending and lingering in a positive or pleasant feeling.
First, you feel something pleasant, then you feel pleasant about feeling pleasant, and that is where savoring comes in.
It’s not just feeling good; it’s feeling good about feeling good, and then trying to trap that feeling.”
For the study, Dr Pitts asked people about conversations they had savoured.
She found that we savour all types of conversations: everything from inspiring speeches and intimate disclosures to simple physical contact or hand gestures.
Generally, people enjoyed the communication in the moment, but that is not the only way to get pleasure from it.
Dr Pitts said:
“You can time travel through savoring.
I can sit here now and think of something that happened earlier today or yesterday or 25 years ago, and when I recall that savoring moment I physiologically experience savoring, and that makes me feel relaxed and puts me in a good mood and can really boost my moment.
There’s also this idea of anticipatory savoring.
People do this when they plan for a vacation or a honeymoon or the weekend.
We anticipate and we have that good feeling that helps us in the moment.”
→ Read on: 4 life-savouring strategies.
The study was published in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology (Pitts et al., 2018).
These six rules for personal happiness may also help save our environment.
They approach potentially rewarding situations and achieve their ambitions.
They approach potentially rewarding situations and achieve their ambitions.
People with higher self-control are happier because they pursue more rewarding goals, research finds.
Having high self-control is linked to being more positive in life, approaching potentially rewarding situations and achieving ambitions.
People high on self-control are also less likely to focus on the negative, which leads to avoidance.
The result is that people with high self-control are happier:
“…individuals with higher [self-control] are not only happier in that they experience greater life satisfaction, they also do not need to self-regulate as often as one may think.”
In other words, people with high self-control battle with their inner demons less because it is easier for them to make the more virtuous choice.
And, in the long run, more virtuous choices, repeated over many years, make a person happier.
Greater happiness is not the only benefit of self-control, as the study’s authors write:
“…research has also consistently shown higher [self-control] to be associated with more positive outcomes in life such as higher academic achievement, better health, more interpersonal success, and less maladaptive adjustments.
As such, self-control has been heralded as an evolutionary trait to ensure adaptation and survival.”
The results come from a survey of 545 people who were asked about their self-control, levels of happiness and how they made decisions.
The study’s authors explain:
“…individuals with high [self-control] are less likely to encounter motivational conflicts, they are therefore also less obligated to exert avoidance-oriented strategies associated with a prevention focus to resist or counter temptations or vices.
Instead, they are more liberated to pursue their goals, aspirations and ideals by carrying out approach-oriented strategies to actualize their personal ambitions as encouraged by a promotion focus.”
Some might say the results are the opposite of what they expect.
After all, if you are always denying yourself by exerting your self-control, when do you have any fun?
As the authors write:
“One could imagine that constantly self-regulating according to morals, standards, and social expectations would result in living a dull, mundane, and joyless life.”
In fact, the study finds that people high in self-control spend less time regulating themselves and making difficult decisions.
People with high self-control are happier in the long-run and in the short-term.
The rash should beware!
The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology (Cheung et al., 2014).
These are the four psychological pillars of well-being.
These are the four psychological pillars of well-being.
Awareness, connection, insight and purpose are the four pillars of psychological well-being, a study concludes.
In the face of rising mental health problems, these pillars can help everyone improve their emotional well-being.
The researchers focus on areas that can be improved with training or other effortful practice:
Dr Cortland Dahl, the study’s first author, said:
“There are qualities of a healthy mind that many people don’t know are even trainable.
We don’t think of them as skills.
Many of us have thought we are hardwired to be like this or that, but the reality is these qualities are much more trainable and malleable than we think.
It’s a very empowering view of the human mind — we can learn to be in the driver’s seat of our own mind.”
Increasing awareness, for example, helps increase positive emotions and reduce stress.
Awareness also helps to reduce mentally damaging habits like distraction.
A common way to improve awareness is through meditation.
Meditation, though, describes a huge range of different practices, Dr Dahl said:
“Different types of meditation do different things for your brain, just as different sports trigger different changes in your body.
You can train your mind in different pillars that go beyond mindfulness or even gratitude practices.”
Cultivating insight, meanwhile, explained Professor Richard Davidson, study co-author, is…
“…about getting curious about your own preconceived thoughts and opinions.
Your brain is not set.
You can question your own assumptions and biases, and this has tremendous potential to heal the division and ‘othering’ that we see in today’s society.”
Even if our circumstances are difficult to change, our minds can be trained, said Dr Dahl:
“This work is parallel with what we’re learning about human biology.
We’re just at the beginning of understanding that our biology is also malleable.
We are not born a certain fixed way.
Our brains and nervous systems and biology can be shaped.
That’s such a hopeful view to have — there are many ways we can influence our minds, brains and bodies for the better.”
The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Dahl et al., 2020).
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