Category: Happiness

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, new research finds.

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

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

The drink activates the ‘feel-good’ dopamine receptors in the brain.

A component found in beer, quite apart from alcohol, also stimulates the brain’s reward centre, new research finds.

Hordenine, which is found in beer and malted barley, stimulates the brain’s dopamine receptors in the same way as dopamine.

Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that gives us that feel-good effect.

It makes us want to carry on consuming a food or beverage long after we are satiated.

The conclusions come from research that went through a database of 13,000 chemicals to find those that stimulate the dopamine pathway.

Out of all these chemicals, hordenine was found to be the most promising.

Professor Pischetsrieder, one of the study’s authors, said:

“It came as a bit of surprise that a substance in beer activates the dopamine D2 receptor, especially as we were not specifically looking at stimulant foodstuffs.”

The researchers are now looking at whether the levels of hordenine are sufficient to account for some of the mood-enhancing effects of drinking beer.

For the future, the advantage of hordenine may be that its effects are more long-lasting than other ways of boosting dopamine.

Drugs that stimulate dopamine could eventually be used to treat conditions like Parkinson’s and schizophrenia.

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Sommer et al., 2017).

…and the 12 linked to the least satisfaction with life.

The clergy are the happiest and most satisfied workers in America, a large US survey finds.

87% of them reported being very satisfied with their work.

They are closely followed by physical therapists, 80% of whom were very satisfied with their work and firefighters, 78% of whom were very satisfied.

Dr Tom W. Smith, the study’s author, explained the common thread in these different jobs:

“The most satisfying jobs are mostly professions, especially those involving caring for, teaching, and protecting others and creative pursuits.”

Here is the full list of the top 12 most satisfying jobs:

1. Clergy
2. Physical Therapists
3. Firefighters
4. Education Administrators
5. Painter, Sculptors, Related
6. Teachers
7. Authors
8. Psychologists
9. Special Education Teachers
10. Operating Engineers
11. Office Supervisors
12. Security & Financial Services Salespersons

Rev. Cynthia Lindner, Director of Ministry Studies at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, said:

 “Persons engaged in ministry have great opportunity to live and work out of their deepest convictions, oftentimes in the midst of communities of faith who share their concern for meaning, compassion and justice.

This congruence of belief, values, and actions in one’s daily work can be immensely satisfying.”

Across all the occupations, 47% of people reported being very satisfied with their jobs and 33% said they were very happy with their lives in general.

Down at the bottom of the list, the 12 least satisfying jobs were:

1. Roofers
2. Waiters/Servers
3. Laborers, Except Construction
4. Bartenders
5. Hand Packers and Packagers
6. Freight, Stock, & Material Handlers
7. Apparel Clothing Salespersons
8. Cashiers
9. Food Preparers
10. Expediters
11. Butchers & Meat Cutters
12. Furniture/Home Furnishing Salespersons

These jobs are generally low-paid and often involve manual labour.

Customer service and food/beverage preparation was also particularly unsatisfying, according to the survey.

Over 27,000 people were interviewed for the survey across a wide variety of social classes and occupations.

The study was published by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago (Smith, 2007).

The real reason some people enjoy listening to sad music.

Music that makes you cry gives pleasure, new research finds.

This might help to explain the enduring popularity of sad music.

The results come from a study that tested the cathartic effect of sad music.

Participants in the study were divided into two groups based on their responses to four questions:

“While listening to music, how frequently do you (1) get goose bumps, (2) feel shivers down your spine, (3) feel like weeping, and (4) get a lump in your throat?”

The researchers dubbed these the chills group (first two questions) and the tears groups (second two questions).

Then both groups listened to music that invoked their favourite feeling: either the chills or the tears.

The study’s authors explained the results:

“A song that induced chills was perceived as being both happy and sad whereas a song that induced tears was perceived as sad.

A tear-eliciting song was perceived as calmer than a chill-eliciting song.

These results show that tears involve pleasure from sadness and that they are psychophysiologically calming…”

It’s pretty easy to see why music that invokes chills would be pleasurable.

However, the study’s authors were slightly at a loss to explain what is so special about sad music:

“…sad songs induced strong pleasure.

It is difficult to account for why people feel sad music as pleasurable; however, the current results suggested that the benefit of cathartic tears might have a key role in the pleasure generated by sad music.”

One answer could be that music is such an ambiguous form, that it is easy to see your own life reflected in it.

The authors write:

“…listeners could identify with the sad character of the sad song and felt as if the singer knew their own sad experiences, making them feel understood and bringing pleasure…”

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Mori & Iwanaga, 2017).

The study compared TV show genres to see which makes people happiest.

Watching nature documentaries — like being out in nature itself — can help you feel happier.

The survey of 7,500 people around the world found they felt happier after viewing clips from BBC nature documentaries.

The study compared watching the documentary to the news or a popular drama show.

People reported that after viewing the nature documentary they felt more:

• joy,
• amazement,
• awe,
• and curiosity.

At the same time it reduced feelings of anger, tiredness and stress.

Professor Dacher Keltner, who teamed up with the BBC for the study, said:

“I have long believed that nature and viewing sublime and beautiful nature in painting, film and video shifts how we look at the world, and humbles us, brings into focus our core goals, diminishes the petty voice of the self and strengthens our nervous system.

When the BBC approached me about working together, it was a no-brainer.

I think their video content inspires green tendencies in viewers.”

Here is taster of the study:

Professor Keltner said:

“The importance of the Real Happiness study is that brief exposures to Planet Earth II content bring greater awe, positive emotion, and wellbeing to people in six countries.

The results also show that younger people are highly stressed out, and that viewing videos about the natural world reduces their stress, which tells me that we can turn to other kinds of new social media content to find calm during these highly stressful times.”

The study was part of the Real Happiness Project.

Why Americans are getting unhappier and the 10 happiest countries in the world.

Norway is the happiest country in the world, closely followed by Denmark and Iceland.

The United States, though, has become 5% unhappier over the past 10 years, despite people earning more money.

The trend in happiness is the reverse for most countries, which have become happier.

The US came 14th on the list and the United Kingdom ranked 19th.

Canadians lived up to their reputation by ranking at number 7 on the list, while Australia came 9th.

Dr John Helliwell, the study’s first author, said the problem for the US was too much focus on money and not enough on social factors:

“It’s the human things that matter.

If the riches make it harder to have frequent and trustworthy relationship between people, is it worth it?

The material can stand in the way of the human.”

Dr Jeffrey Sachs, study co-author, also thinks the US has a problem:

“We’re becoming more and more mean spirited.

And our government is becoming more and more corrupt. And inequality is rising.

It’s a long-term trend and conditions are getting worse.”

Meik Wiking, chief executive officer of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, commented on Norway beating Denmark (the previous number 1):

“Good for them.

I don’t think Denmark has a monopoly on happiness.

What works in the Nordic countries is a sense of community and understanding in the common good.”

Here is the full list of the 10 happiest countries in the world:

1. Norway 7.54
2. Denmark 7.42
3. Iceland 7.5
4. Switzerland 7.49
5. Finland 7.47
6. Netherlands 7.38
7. Canada 7.32
8. New Zealand 7.321
9. Australia 7.28
10. Sweden 7.28

And here are the saddest countries:

• Yemen 3.59
• South Sudan 3.59
• Liberia 3.53
• Guinea 3.51
• Togo 3.49
• Rwanda 3.47
• Syria 3.46
• Tanzania 3.35
• Burundi 2.91
• Central African Republic 2.69

It is no accident that the unhappiest countries in the world are also the poorest.

But many researchers agree that above a certain level, more money doesn’t equal more happiness.

The research was published in the World Happiness Report 2017.

An easy, everyday activity that makes people feel confident, comfortable, appreciative and reflective.

Taking selfies and sharing them with friends makes people happier, new research finds.

Participants in the study took smiling selfies every day over a couple of ordinary weeks.

Selfies were not the only types of pictures that cheered people up.

The researchers found that sharing images that made the taker feel happy also worked.

So did sharing photos that the taker knew would make other people happy.

Yu Chen, the study’s first author, said:

“Our research showed that practicing exercises that can promote happiness via smartphone picture taking and sharing can lead to increased positive feelings for those who engage in it.

This is particularly useful information for returning college students to be aware of, since they face many sources of pressure.”

The research was carried out on college students, who often feel the strain going to college for the first time.

Ms Chen said:

“The good news is that despite their susceptibility to strain, most college students constantly carry around a mobile device, which can be used for stress relief.

Added to that are many applications and social media tools that make it easy to produce and send images.”

More confident, comfortable and reflective

The three types of photos people were told to take had subtly different effects:

• Taking selfies was linked to feeling more confident and comfortable.
• Taking photos of things that made them happy was linked to a more appreciative and reflective state of mind.
• Photos that would make others happy made the taker feel calmer and less stressed as well as strengthening social connections with friends.

All the different types, though, made people feel happier.

Professor Gloria Mark, a study co-author, said:

“You see a lot of reports in the media about the negative impacts of technology use, and we look very carefully at these issues here at UCI.

But there have been expanded efforts over the past decade to study what’s become known as ‘positive computing,’ and I think this study shows that sometimes our gadgets can offer benefits to users.”

The study was published in the journal Psychology of Well-Being  (Chen et al., 2016).