We get over bad moods much sooner than we predict, thanks to the covert work of the psychological immune system.
One of the most incredible things about the human mind is its resilience. Let’s face it, life can be pretty depressing at times, and yet people generally push on much the same as they always have, sometimes even with a spring in their step and a smile on their face.
Experiential purchases like restaurant trips or theatre tickets are likely to beat material purchases like clothes or electronics for our long-term happiness.
If you decided to spend $100 on your happiness, would you buy something experiential like a meal out or something material like an item of clothing? Research covered here recently suggested that for long-term happiness experiences tend to beat possessions. But Leonardo Nicolao and colleagues at the University of Texas argue in the Journal of Consumer Research that this research doesn’t tell us the whole picture (Nicolao et al., 2009).
Continue reading “How to Choose Between Experiential and Material Purchases”
Explore the psychology of the emotions with these 12 laws.
We tend to think of our emotions as having laws unto themselves, but one psychological researcher has suggested that our emotions do follow certain general rules.
Professor Nico Frijda puts forward twelve laws of the emotions (Fridja, 2006). As with most laws there are exceptions, but these have been synthesised from years of psychological research and hold true much of the time.
The first law is simply that emotions derive from situations. Generally the same types of situation will elicit the same types of emotional response. Loss makes us grieve, gains make us happy and scary things make us fearful (mostly anyway – see all the other laws).
We feel because we care about something, when we have some interest in what happens, whether it’s to an object, ourselves, or another person. Emotions arise from these particular goals, motivations or concerns. When we are unconcerned we don’t feel anything.
Whatever seems real to us, can elicit an emotional response. In other words how we appraise or interpret a situation governs the emotion we feel (compare with laws 11 & 12). The reason poor movies, plays or books don’t engage us emotionally is because, in some sense, we fail to detect truth. Similarly it’s difficult to get emotional about things that aren’t obvious, right in front of us. For example grief may not strike when we are told about the death of loved one, but only once it becomes real to us in some way – say when we pick up the phone to call them, forgetting they are gone.
The law of habituation means that in life we get used to our circumstances whatever they are (mostly true, but see laws 7 & 8). The emotions, therefore, respond most readily to change. This means that we are always comparing what is happening to a relatively steady frame of reference (what we are used to). As a result our emotions tend to respond most readily to changes that are relative to this frame of reference.
There are certain awful circumstances to which we can never become accustomed. If things are bad enough, it is impossible to escape negative feelings like fear or anxiety. On the other hand positive emotions always fade over time. No matter how much we are in love, how big the lottery win, or how copious the quantities of drugs consumed, positive emotions like pleasure always slip away.
Time doesn’t heal all wounds – or if it does, it only does so indirectly. Events can retain their emotional power over the years unless we re-experience and re-evaluate them. It’s this re-experiencing and consequent re-definition that reduces the emotional charge of an event. This is why events that haven’t been re-evaluated – say, failing an exam or being rejected by a potential lover – retain their emotional power across the decades.
The way we respond to our emotions tends to be absolute. They often lead immediately to actions of one kind or another, and they will brook no discussion (but see laws 10, 11 & 12). In other words emotional responses are closed to goals other than their own or judgements that can mitigate the response. An emotion seizes us and send us resolutely down one path, until later that is, when a different emotion sends us down the opposite path.
People naturally consider the consequences of their emotions and modify them accordingly. For example anger may provoke violent feelings towards another, but generally people refrain from stabbing each other willy-nilly. Instead they will shout, hit their head on the wall or just silently fume. Emotions may absolutely dictate a type of response, but people do modulate the size of that response (usually!).
The emotional impact of an event or situation depends on its interpretation. Putting a different ‘spin’ on a situation can change the feeling. The law of the lightest load means people are particularly motivated to use re-interpretations to reduce negative emotions. For example we might reduce the fear of the credit crunch by generating the illusion we won’t be affected. The exact reverse is also true: whenever a situation can be reinterpreted for a positive emotional gain, it will be. For example anger can be used to make others back down, grief attracts help and fear may stop us rashly attempting difficult or dangerous tasks.
You may not agree with all of these ‘laws’, for example this is quite an individually based account of emotion, and tends to downplay the social aspects of emotion. Nevertheless it is an excellent starting point which provides a very useful way of thinking about emotions, and helps pave the way for examining individual emotions.
[Image credit: Victor Bezrukov]
Around two-thirds of workers say the most stressful aspect of their jobs is their immediate boss or line manager.
Around two-thirds of workers say the most stressful aspect of their jobs is their immediate boss, their line manager (Hogan, 2006
). While this will come as no surprise to most, this statistic suggests a massive number of unhappy working relationships. So, does this mean that leadership is failing on a massive scale? Well, not exactly…
Surely sunshine and blue skies lift the spirits while black clouds and torrential rain send them plummeting? Research suggests the answer might not be so intuitive.
Some psychological questions appear so obvious they are barely worth asking. Take the link between the weather and average mood. Surely sunshine and blue skies lift the spirits while black clouds and torrential rain send them plummeting?
It seems only common sense that happiness should be good for our physical health, but psychological research has sent mixed signals in recent years.
It seems only common sense that happiness should be good for our physical health, but psychological research has sent mixed signals in recent years. Some studies have found it is, while others have found no effect, and some even a negative effect.
In a new article published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, Professor Ruut Veenhoven of Erasmus University offers a possible solution to this question. In reviewing 30 studies, he finds that the neutral and negative findings for the effects of happiness on health are in studies on people who were ill at the time.
Continue reading “Happiness Could Add 10 Years to Your Life”
There are two requirements for decision-making that will bring happiness in the future.
There are two requirements for decision-making that will bring happiness in the future. First we need to know how a particular decision will make us feel in the future. To do this accurately we need to avoid the systematic biases that affect how we predict our future emotional states.
This is no mean feat in itself – the distinction bias, projection bias, impact bias, memory bias and belief biases are tricky customers.
Choosing happiness can be hard work, but the effort often pays off.
“Life is the sum of all your choices.” –Albert Camus
Happiness is in our hands if only we could make the right decisions in life. Decisions often rely on making accurate predictions of how we will feel in the future. Unfortunately for us psychologists have shown that there are five major biases in the way we predict our future emotional states.
Continue reading “How to Choose Happiness: Combat 5 Decision-Making Biases”
The Wealth List, Power List, Influence List, Celebrity List… almost every week some publication or other is worshipping at the shrine of the wealthy and famous.
As an antidote to ‘rich lists’, the Independent on Sunday has produced a ‘Happy List’:
“The Wealth List, Power List, Influence List, Celebrity List… almost every week some publication or other is worshipping at the shrine of the wealthy and famous. Today, ‘The Sunday Times’ produces its famous Rich List, an entire magazine devoted to the moneyed. About time, then, we thought, that someone produced an antidote. So here it is: the Happy List, celebrating those Britons who have given back, enhanced the lives of others and realised that in an acquisitive society there’s a crying need for values other than mere materialism.”
The rapidly developing Chinese economy has a hard lesson to teach developed nations about the happiness of the majority.
The rapidly developing Chinese economy has a hard lesson to teach developed nations about the happiness of the majority.
We all have an intuitive sense that the society we live in has a huge effect on our lives. It’s almost impossible not be influenced by the way other people treat us, the values they hold and the way they behave.
Continue reading “Why The Chinese Are Getting Richer But Not Happier”
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