Category: Happiness

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

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

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.

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.

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, new research finds.

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).

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 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.