Category: Happiness

Scientific and interesting facts about happiness reveal the thoughts and behaviours that are proven to make people happier.

People taught the basics of happiness science consistently report better mental health, research finds.

University students who did an online ‘Science of Happiness’ course fared better mentally than their peers who did not take the course, the study found (Hobbs et al., 2022).

Facts about happiness

There is a longer description of the study at the bottom of this article, but here are the facts about happiness taught on the course, (relevant studies are linked):

It is based on the latest research into the thoughts and behaviours that are proven to make people happier.

1. Talking to strangers makes us happier, despite a majority of us shying away from such encounters (see: why you should talk to strangers).
2. Social media is not bad for everyone, but it can be bad for those who focus on their reputation (1, 2).
3. Loneliness is linked to a weakened immune system.
4. People who are optimistic tend to live longer.
5. Giving gifts to others activates our own reward centres in the brain—often providing more of a happiness boost than spending money on yourself (why spending money on others promotes your happiness).
6. Sleep deprivation impacts how well we are liked by others (people feel socially unattractive when they don’t get enough sleep).
7. Walking in the countryside deactivates part of the brain related to negative ruminations, which are associated with depression (As little as 10 minutes spent in nature is enough to make people feel happier).
8. Kindness and happiness are correlated (acts of kindness really do boost happiness).

More facts about happiness

Here are some more interesting facts about happiness, as revealed by psychological research.

9. Most people are happy most of the time

Maybe you don’t need to do anything at all to feel happy…

People are, on average, in a mildly good mood most of the time all around the world, a study finds.

Researchers have reviewed evidence drawn from many different nations — rich and poor, stable and unstable.

As long as people have not just experienced a strong emotional event, even those in poor circumstances are likely to be in a mild positive mood.

10. The mid-life dip is normal

Life satisfaction dips in middle age, after which it starts going up again beyond the age of 54, a study of worldwide well-being finds.

The dip in life satisfaction occurs around the age of 45 until 54, and is seen across many wealthy English-speaking countries, including the United States, Canada, the UK and Australia.

Professor Angus Deaton, one of the study’s co-authors, said:

“This finding is almost expected.

This is the period at which wage rates typically peak and is the best time to work and earn the most, even at the expense of present well-being, so as to have increased wealth and well-being later in life.”

11. Take a tip from seniors

With increasing age, people get more pleasure out of everyday experiences; while younger people define themselves more by extraordinary experiences, a study finds.

The study asked over 200 people between the ages of 19 and 79 about happy experiences they’d had that were both ordinary and extraordinary.

It was older people who managed to extract more pleasure from relatively ordinary experiences.

They got more pleasure out of spending time with their family, from the look on someone’s face or a walk in the park.

12. Prioritise positivity for happiness

An approach to life called ‘prioritising positivity’ has been linked to increased well-being.

Prioritising positivity is all about organising your everyday life around activities which bring pleasure.

The authors explain:

“Perhaps people high on prioritizing positivity reserve Saturday afternoons for watching college football or taking their family to a local park.

Maybe others start their weekdays running or drinking tea while reading the New York Times.

Some people may consistently seek out activities that elicit calm and contentment whereas others may seek out excitement and vigor.

The exact behaviors or choices may differ drastically from one person to the next…”

13. Fact about happiness: walk happy, feel happy

It’s well-known that when we’re in a good mood, our style of walking tends to reflect how we feel: we bounce along, shoulders back, swinging our arms in style.

Sometimes, just from our gait, it’s more obvious to other people how we feel than to ourselves.

Well, a study finds that it also works the other way around: people who imitate a happy style of walking, even without realising it, find themselves feeling happier.

14. Act like an extrovert (even if you’re not)

Acting like an extrovert — even if you are an introvert — makes people all around the world feel happier, research suggests.

The findings come from surveys of hundreds of people in the US, Venezuela, the Philippines, China and Japan

Across the board, people reported that they felt more positive emotions in daily situations where they either acted or felt more extroverted.

The study, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, also found that people tended to behave in a more upbeat way when they felt most free.

15. Mindful dishwashing and happiness

Mindful dishwashing can decrease stress and calm the mind, a study finds.

People in the study focused on the smell of the soap, the feel and shape of the dishes to help them enter a mindful state.

Doing the dishes in a mindful way also increased the pleasurable feeling of time slowing down, the researchers found.

16. Seek out the feeling of awe

That jaw-dropping moment when coming across something surprising, powerful, beautiful or even sublime can have a transformative effect.

Awe makes people more patient, less materialistic and more open to helping out others.

This may happen because awe slows down our subjective experience of time.

Awe, the authors write, has two components (in case you want to seek it out scientifically!):

“First, awe involves perceptual vastness, which is the sense that one has encountered something immense in size, number, scope, complexity, ability, or social bearing (e.g., fame, authority).

Second, awe stimulates a need for accommodation; that is, it alters one’s understanding of the world.”

Scientific facts about happiness study details

The study, which was carried out during the start of the pandemic, included 166 students who took the course over one semester — they were compared to a control group.

The results showed that while well-being and anxiety declined in the control group as the pandemic continued, those who had taken the course maintained their good humour.

Professor Bruce Hood, study co-author, said:

“The results were a welcome sign that the course is achieving its aims.

It was also pleasing to see it working with all content and interactions conducted online.”

One of the students, Izzy Bond, who took the course and went on to become a student mentor, said:

“One of the things that really stood out from the course is when we did a quiz which ranked what we felt were our strengths and weaknesses.

Studies have shown that those who do jobs that match their strengths have higher life satisfaction—all of my strengths suggested I would enjoy being an academic, which really confirmed my decision to pursue becoming a lecturer.”

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Surveys carried out over 30+ years reveal the age at which people are happiest.

People get happier as they get older, research finds.

Surveys of Americans carried out between 1972 and 2004 show that older people are the nation’s happiest.

Across the different generations, around 50 percent of people over the age of 80 said they were ‘very happy’.

It may be because older, more mature people are likely to be more at ease with themselves and to have higher self-esteem.

Dr Yang Yang, the study’s author, said:

“Understanding happiness is important to understanding quality of life.

The happiness measure is a guide to how well society is meeting people’s needs.”

Happiness by age research

For the series of surveys a representative cross-section of Americans was asked the following question:

“Taken all together, how would you say things are these days–would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?”

The responses also teased out some interesting wrinkles.

The so-called ‘baby boomer’ generation, those born between 1946 and 1964, were less happy than other equivalent generations.

Dr Yang said:

“This is probably due to the fact that the generation as a group was so large, and their expectations were so great, that not everyone in the group could get what he or she wanted as they aged due to competition for opportunities.

This could lead to disappointment that could undermine happiness.”

What age are people happiest?

The study also found that African Americans are, on average, less happy than whites.

Among 18-year-olds, just 15 percent of black men said they were very happy in comparison to 33 percent of white women.

In fact, women were more happy than men overall, across racial and class divides.

Over the years, needless to say, having a significant other and having your health make you much more happy.

One surprise, to some perhaps, is that having no children increases the chances of being happy over the lifetime.

The study was published in the journal American Sociological Review (Yang, 2008).

Feeling that life is meaningful is crucial for good psychological and physical health.

People who feel that life is more meaningful tend to have more purpose, stronger values, greater efficacy and self-worth.

Psychologists repeatedly find that feeling that life is meaningful is important:

• People who feel life is meaningful are more likely to be in both good psychological and good physical health.
• People who feel life isn’t meaningful are more likely to be depressed, to require therapy and even feel suicidal.

Meaning in life is particularly important to people in their 20s and 60s, although most adults can feel when it is missing.

So, below are 7 psychology studies, some from the members-only section of PsyBlog, that reveal how to increase meaning in life.

(If you are not already, find out how to become a PsyBlog member here.)

1. How To Experience More Meaning In Life
2. These Everyday Interactions Increase Sense Of Purpose In Life
3. The 5 Signs Of Meaningful Work
4. A Sense of Belonging Increases Meaningfulness of Life
5. 20 Movies That Help You Make Sense Of Life
6. An Exercise For Increasingly Meaningfulness
7. The 4 Things That People Say Gives Their Lives Meaning

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For those who find it wasteful, leisure time can be reframed to create more purpose.

Believing that leisure is unproductive and wasteful is linked to higher levels of stress and depression and lower levels of happiness, a study finds.

Many people believe that being productive is the ultimate goal of life and if you’re not serving some greater purpose, then you’re wasting time.

However, people who hold this view are more likely to report poor mental health and enjoy their leisure time the least.

Dr Selin Malkoc, study co-author, said:

“There is plenty of research which suggests that leisure has mental health benefits and that it can make us more productive and less stressed.

But we find that if people start to believe that leisure is wasteful, they may end up being more depressed and more stressed.”

Serving a greater goal

One way for the productive-minded to enjoy leisure more, though, is to see it as part of a greater goal, explained Dr Rebecca Reczek, study co-author:

“If leisure can be framed as having some kind of productive goal, that helps people who think leisure is wasteful get some of the same benefits.”

Dr Malkoc agrees:

“…think about the productive ways that individual leisure activities can serve their long-term goals.

Find ways to make fun activities part of a larger goal in your life.

Think about how it is productive, instrumental and useful.”

The conclusions come from a series of studies, one of which asked people how they celebrated Halloween.

Some activities, such as going to a party, were fun for their own sake while others, like taking children trick-or-treating, served a larger goal.

People subscribing to the popular belief that leisure is wasteful found the party less enjoyable.

However, this was not the case for the trick-or-treating, said Dr Gabriela Tonietto, the study’s first author, said:

“Those who participated in fun activities that fulfilled responsibilities, like trick or treating with your kids, didn’t see such a reduction in how much they enjoyed their Halloween.”

Negative views about leisure are worldwide

It is not just Americans who view leisure time as wasteful — the view is globalised, said Dr Reczek:

“We live in a global society and there are people everywhere that hear the same messages about how important it is to be busy and productive.

And once you believe that, and internalize the message that leisure is a waste, our results suggest you’re going to be more depressed and less happy, no matter where you live.”

Negative views about leisure can be surprisingly damaging, affecting people’s ability to enjoy themselves even in the simplest ways.

In one study, students were invited to do a boring task which had a break in the middle when they watched a funny cat video.

However, people who view leisure as a waste of time couldn’t enjoy the video at all.

Dr Malkoc explained:

“These are students who are coming into the lab to answer surveys, which can be boring.

In the middle of that we give them a funny video to watch, which you would expect would be a nice break – and even then, some participants didn’t enjoy it as much.

They had no way to use the time more productively.

We were giving them a break from other, more boring activities.

And still, those who believe leisure is wasteful didn’t think watching the videos was as fun as others did.”

The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (Tonietto et al., 2021).

Will therapy make you much happier. According to this study, it works 32 times better than money.

Money.

You need enough to live, but loads of it doesn’t make you that much happier.

It’s something we’ve all heard — whether it’s from psych studies or rich people — but do we behave as though it’s true?

I sometimes wonder.

To help convince our inner Mr Burns, here’s a nice statistic from a study done by researchers at the Universities of Manchester and Warwick, who compared the happiness gains from money to that from psychological therapy (Boyce & Wood, 2009).

Therapy makes you 32 times happier than money

They found that therapy was 32 times as cost effective as money in making you happier.

They reached this figure by looking at thousands of people who’d started therapy and compared them with others who’d had large increases in their income.

It turned out that to get the same increase in happiness from $1,300 spent on therapy, a person would have to get a mammoth pay rise of $42,000.

Hardly likely, right?

The study’s lead author, Chris Boyce, said:

“Often the importance of money for improving our well-being and bringing greater happiness is vastly over-valued in our societies.

The benefits of having good mental health, on the other hand, are often not fully appreciated and people do not realise the powerful effect that psychological therapy, such as non-directive counselling, can have on improving our well-being.”

Getting richer, but no happier

If this is true, why are many governments so obsessed with economic growth and apparently so little concerned with mental health?

Take the Chinese, for example, who are getting much richer, but no happier. That’s just one of many, many examples.

Although economic growth in many major economies is less dramatic than in China, the effects on happiness are about the same: zilch, or close enough.

Any idiot knows the answer to this one: it’s because money makes the world go round, world go round, world go round…

And yet it makes me think we’re all idiots for nodding our heads sagely that money can’t make you happy, then off we all go to put in another 12 hour day, or whatever it is.

Think how much happier the world would be if, instead of annual pay rises or bonuses, we were all sent off to talk to a sympathetic stranger for a few hours.

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Job satisfaction is hard to find, but pay attention to these 10 factors and you’ll be well on your way to your dream job.

If some job satisfaction surveys are to be believed then as many as a third of us are considering a change of job in search of the dream that will provide satisfaction and happiness.

Clearly many are finding it hard to get that feeling of satisfaction from work that a dream job might provide.

Job satisfaction and happiness is important not just because it boosts work performance but also because it increases our quality of life.

Many people spend so much time at work that when it becomes dissatisfying, the rest of their life soon follows.

Everyone’s dream job is different but here are 10 factors that psychologists regularly find are important in how satisfied people are with their jobs.

1. Little hassles spoil a dream job

If you ask doctors what is the worst part of their jobs, what do you think they say?

Carrying out difficult, painful procedures?

Telling people they’ve only got months to live?

No, it’s something that might seem much less stressful: administration.

When thinking about a dream job, we tend to downplay day-to-day irritations, thinking we’ve got bigger fish to fry.

But actually people’s job satisfaction in a potential dream job is surprisingly sensitive to daily hassles.

It might not seem like much but when it happens almost every day and it’s beyond our control, it hits job satisfaction and happiness hard.

This category is one of the easiest wins for boosting employee satisfaction.

Managers should find out about those little daily hassles and address them—your employees will love you for it.

2. Fair pay and job satisfaction

Whatever your dream job, for you to be satisfied the pay should be fair.

The bigger the difference between what you think you should earn and what you do earn, the less satisfied you’ll be.

The important point here is it’s all about perception.

If you perceive that other people doing a similar job get paid about the same as you then you’re more likely to be satisfied with your job than if you think they’re getting more than you.

3. Achievement and employee happiness

People feel more satisfied with their job if they’ve achieved something.

In some jobs achievements are obvious, but for others they’re not.

As smaller cogs in larger machines it may be difficult to tell what we’re contributing and hard to think of it as a dream job.

That’s why the next factor can be so important…

4. Feedback boosts employee satisfaction

There’s nothing worse than not knowing whether or not you’re doing a good job.

When it comes to job satisfaction, no news is bad news.

Getting negative feedback can be painful but at least it tells you where improvements can be made.

On the other hand, positive feedback can make all the difference to how satisfied people feel.

It can turn a routine job into a dream job.

5. A dream job has complexity and variety

People generally find jobs more satisfying if they are more complex and offer more variety.

People seem to like complex (but not impossible) jobs, perhaps because it pushes them more.

Too easy and people get bored.

To be satisfied people need to be challenged a little and they need some variety in the tasks they carry out.

It sounds easy when put like that but many jobs offer neither complexity nor variety.

6. Control enhances job satisfaction

You may have certain tasks you have to do, but how you do them should be up to you.

The more control people perceive in how they carry out their job, the more satisfaction they experience and the more likely it fits the profile of their dream job.

If people aren’t given some control, they will attempt to retake it by cutting corners, stealing small amounts or finding other ways to undermine the system.

Psychologists have found that people who work in jobs where they have little latitude—at every level—find their work very stressful and consequently unsatisfying.

7. Organisational support

Workers want to know their organisation cares about them: that they are getting something back for what they are putting in.

This is primarily communicated through things like how bosses treat us, the kinds of fringe benefits we get and other subtle messages.

If people perceive more organisational support, they experience higher job satisfaction and are more likely to feel they are in their dream job.

Remember: it’s not just whether the organisation is actually being supportive, it’s whether it appears that way.

The point being that appearances are really important here.

If people don’t perceive it, then for them it might as well not exist.

That’s why great managers need a politician’s touch.

8. Keeping work and home separate

Low job satisfaction isn’t only the boss’ or organisation’s fault, sometimes it’s down to home-life.

Trouble at home breeds trouble at the office.

Some research, though, suggests that trouble at the office is more likely to spill over into the family domain compared with the other way around (Ford et al., 2007).

Either way finding ways of distancing yourself from work while at home are likely to boost job satisfaction (Sonnentag et al., 2010).

9. Honeymoons and hangovers

Job honeymoons and hangovers are often forgotten by psychologists, but well-known to employees.

People experience honeymoon periods after a month or two in a new job when their satisfaction shoots up.

But then it normally begins to tail off after six months or so.

The honeymoon period at the start of a new job tends to be stronger when people were particularly dissatisfied with their previous job (Boswell et al., 2009).

So, hangovers from the last job tend to produce more intense honeymoons in the next job.

10. Job satisfaction comes with age

Some of us are more easily satisfied (or dissatisfied) than others, no matter how good (or bad) the job is.

To misquote a famous cliché: You can’t satisfy all the people all the time.

Still, some jobs do seem better suited to certain types of people.

A lot of work has been done on person-environment fit but because jobs vary so much it’s difficult to summarise.

One generalisation we can make, though, is that people get more satisfied with their jobs as they get older.

Perhaps this is because the older people are, the more likely they are to have found their dream job.

There’s little evidence for this but I’d certainly like to think it was true.

On my darker days, though, I tend to think it’s because young people have sky-high expectations (which are soon dashed) and older people have learned to live with their lot, however uninspiring it is.

Why can’t we all be satisfied at work?

When you look at this list of what makes for a satisfying job, you might wonder why everyone can’t have one.

With a little thought, most of the predictors of satisfaction can be provided.

The answer is probably quite simple.

Organisations pay lip-service to keeping their employees satisfied, but many don’t really believe it makes a difference.

What this research shows is that it can make a huge difference.

If you’re a manager looking to improve satisfaction at your workplace then start with point number 1: find out about people’s little hassles and address them.

It might not look like much but people will really appreciate it.

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Smiling has many more uses that just displaying happiness: here ten ways to use them to your advantage.

People are always smiling, especially in groups, but it doesn’t just signal that they’re happy, far from it.

We use smiling for specific social purposes because they can send out all sorts of signals that can be useful for us.¹

Here are ten ways smiling can be used to our advantage by sending out messages about our trustworthiness, attractivity, sociability and more.

1. Smiling for trust

In a world where everyone is out for themselves, who should we trust?

One signal that suggests we are trustworthy is smiling.

Genuine smiling sends a message that other people can trust and cooperate with us.

People smiling are rated higher in both generosity and extraversion and when people share with each other they tend to display genuine smiles (Mehu et al., 2007).

Economists even consider that smiling has a value.

In one study by Scharlemann et al. (2001) participants were more likely to trust another person if they were smiling.

This study found that smiling increased people’s willingness to trust by about 10 percent.

2. Smiling for leniency

When people do bad things they often smile when they are caught.

Is this to their benefit?

According to a study conducted by LaFrance and Hecht (1995), it can be.

We treat people who’ve broken the rules with more leniency if they are smiling afterwards.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a false smile, a miserable smile or a real felt smile, they all work to make us want to give the transgressor a break.

This seems to work because we find people who are smiling after breaking the rules more trustworthy than those who don’t.

3. Smiling helps recovery from slip-ups

Did you forget to buy your partner an anniversary present?

Has an important client’s name slipped your mind?

Have you accidentally kicked a small child?

If you’ve tripped on a social banana, embarrassment is your go-to emotion.

The function of embarrassment is to get us out of tight social spots (Keltner & Buswell, 1997).

Embarrassed smiling involves looking down and sometimes we emit a silly little laugh.

This is designed to elicit fellow-feeling from other people so they think less of the slip and forgive us more quickly.

So embarrassed smiling helps us get out of jail free(ish).

Once again, the power of smiling.

4. Smiling to avoid feeling bad

Sometimes we smile both because it’s polite and so that we can avoid feeling bad afterwards.

Like when someone enthuses about how they saved a small amount of money with a coupon they found down the back of the sofa.

It hardly seems to warrant smiling but you muster one anyway because it’s polite.

In one study people were asked to remain stony-faced after hearing someone else’s good news (LaFrance, 1997).

They felt bad afterwards and thought the other person would think worse of them as a result.

So we nod and smile politely because otherwise we’ll regret it afterwards.

Women, though, seem to feel this smiling pressure at the happy news of others more than men.

5. Laugh off the hurt

Smiling is one way to reduce the distress caused by an upsetting situation.

Psychologists call this the facial feedback hypothesis.

Even forcing a smile when we don’t feel like it is enough to lift our mood slightly (this is one example of embodied cognition).

A word of warning: smiling at upsetting things may work but it doesn’t look good to others.

When Ansfield (2007) had participants viewing distressing videos, those who smiled felt better afterwards than those who didn’t.

But people who smiled at distressing images were judged less likeable by others.

6. Smiling for insight

When we’re nervous our attention tends to narrow.

We stop noticing what’s going on around the edges and only see what’s right in front of us.

This is true in both a literal and a metaphorical sense: when nervous or stressed we’re less likely to notice ideas that are at the edge of our consciousness.

But to gain insight into a problem, it’s often precisely these peripheral ideas we need.

Cue a smile.

Smiling makes us feel good which also increases our attentional flexibility and our ability to think holistically.

When this idea was tested by Johnson et al. (2010), the results showed that participants who smiled performed better on attentional tasks which required seeing the whole forest rather than just the trees.

So smiling really can help give us a burst of insight.

7. Smiling for sex

A woman’s smile has a magical effect on men, over and above eye contact.

One study examined how men approached women in a bar (Walsh & Hewitt, 1985).

When a woman only established eye contact with a man, she was approached 20 percent of the time.

When the same woman added a smile, though, she was approached 60 percent of the time.

When men smile at women, though, the effect is less magical.

While smiling increases women’s attractiveness to men, it doesn’t work so well the other way around.

Indeed there’s some evidence that men look more attractive to women when displaying pride or even shame, than when they look happy (Tracy & Beall, 2011).

Less smiling makes a man look more masculine.

8. Smiling to hide what you really think

Psychologists used to think that a genuine smile never lies.

Fake smiling involves only the mouth, while real smiles—called Duchenne smiles by psychologists—reach up to the eyes.

Research, though, suggests that 80 percent of people can fake the crinkly eyes central to a Duchenne smile (Krumhuber & Manstead, 2009).

So, smiling can be used to hide what we really think, but it’s still not easy to fake a real smile because they have to be timed correctly.

A key to a trustworthy smile is that it has a slow onset, i.e. it takes about half a second to spread across the face.

One piece of research has found that in comparison to a fast onset smile (about a tenth of a second to spread), slow onset smiles are judged more trustworthy, authentic and even more flirtatious (see: A Slow Smile Attracts).

9. Smiling to make money

We’ve already seen that economists have calculated the value of a smile, but can a smile make us real cash-money?

Apparently the broad smile of a waitress can: Tidd and Lockard (1978) found smiling waitresses made more in tips (there’s no study on waiters).

More generally people in service industries, like flight attendants or those in entertainment and hospitality are effectively paid to smile at customers.

But, watch out, a constant mismatch between felt and displayed emotion—called emotional labour by psychologists—can be exhausting, possibly leading to job burnout.

Smiling may make money, but it can also be draining.

10. Smile and (half) the world smiles with you

One of the simple social pleasures of life, which goes almost unnoticed because it’s automatic, is when you smile at someone and they smile back.

As you’ll have noticed, though, not everyone does smile back.

Hinsz and Tomhave (1991) wanted to see what proportion of people would respond to a smile aimed at them with their own smile.

Their results suggest around 50 percent of people reciprocate.

In comparison almost no one responds to a frown with their own frown.

Smile for longevity

If none of these studies can coax a smile out of you then consider this: people who smile more may live longer.

A study of pictures taken of baseball players in 1952 suggests those smiling outlived their non-smiling counterparts by seven years (Abel & Kruger, 2010).

Now there’s a reason to smile.

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¹There are also all sorts of cultural and gender differences in why and how we smile.

Women generally smile more than men, although this still depends on the situation.

Across cultures, Russians smile the least and Americans the most.

American smiles, though, tend to be more ‘fake’, i.e. involving mainly the mouth rather than both the mouth and the eyes.

→ Find out more about what dilated pupils means.

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Schopenhauer was such an extreme pessimist that he thought we live in the worst of all possible worlds and happiness is an illusion.

German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was such an extreme pessimist that he thought we live in the worst of all possible worlds and happiness is an illusion.

This is what makes it surprising that he wrote a best-selling book containing a self-help section.

And yet he did.

Although calling it self-help is somewhat misleading; the main aim of his advice was really reducing misery.

Yup, old Arthur was full of fun.

Schopenhauer’s advice is interesting because it is so incredibly contrarian.

Pessimists, though, will recognise a kindred spirit when they hear his views of people and the world we live in.

Perhaps his recommendations for living have the potential to be useful for those who would normally run a mile from advice on how to be happy.

Schalkx and Bergsma (2007), in an article published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, argue that it is possible to evaluate Schopenhauer’s advice by comparing it with modern psychological findings on life satisfaction.

To do this they first examine Schopenhauer’s advice, which can be split into three parts.

First are his general rules for life, second, how we should manage our relationship with ourselves and, third, how to manage our relationships with others.

General rules for life

In short the key to making life bearable for Schopenhauer was simply this: extremely low expectations.

This piece of advice flows naturally from Schopenhauer’s philosophical position.

Like Greek philosopher Epicurus, Schopenhauer thought that happiness was the absence of pain, frustration and dissatisfaction.

He was a kind of extreme hedonist (see my post on Epicurus for the meaning of hedonism here).

We live, thought Schopenhauer, in the worst of all possible worlds, constantly on the brink of destruction.

Our will, or our desires, are continually demanding things from the world that cannot always be satisfied.

And so we are continually frustrated.

Even when our desires are satisfied it will only be brief.

This satisfaction will then lead to an increase in our desires and, ultimately, to boredom when our desires are finally exhausted.

Life, then, is suffering (an idea well-known to Buddhists).

The answer for Schopenhauer was not to seek happiness, but to try and get through life with the minimum of suffering.

His goal was for a bearable life.

Our relationship with ourselves

Here are some practical suggestions Schopenhauer put forward for managing ourselves:

• Live in the present, making it as painless as possible.
• Make good use of the only thing we can control, our own minds.
• Our personality is central to our level of happiness.
• Set limits everywhere: limits on anger, desires, wealth and power. Limitations lead to something like happiness.
• Accept misfortunes: only dwell on them if we’re responsible.
• Seek out solitude, other people rob us of our identities.
• Keep busy.

Our relationship with others

For Schopenhauer relationships with others are mainly sources of stress and hurt.

As far as he was concerned true friendship is a near impossibility.

As a result his advice is mostly aimed at protecting us from the inevitable damage other people will cause us:

• People are selfish: they are easily flattered and easily offended. Their opinions can be bought and sold for the right price. Because of this friendship is usually motivated by self-interest.
• Behaving with kindness towards others causes them to be arrogant: therefore other people must be treated with some disregard.
• Displaying your intelligence makes you incredibly unpopular: people don’t like to be reminded of their inferiority.
• Truly exceptional people prefer to be on their own because ordinary people are annoying.
• Accept that the world is filled with fools, they cannot change and neither can you.

It’s no coincidence that Schopenhauer spent 27 years living alone except for a series of poodles called Atma and Butzas as his only form of company.

(For a modern version of Schopenhauer, watch the character ‘Greg House’ in ‘House M.D.‘, or, for sci-fi buffs, Marvin the Paranoid Android).

What Schopenhauer got right

Nowadays, of course, psychological research tells us a lot more about the conditions of happiness in the modern world.

So how does Schopenhauer’s advice stack up?

Schalkx and Bergsma argue that a couple of Schopenhauer’s self-help principles do indeed stand the test of time.

1. Don’t seek wealth

Good, well done Schopenhauer, more money doesn’t necessarily equal more happiness.

2. Personality is crucial

Again, tick, well done Schopenhauer. As much as 50% of our happiness levels are genetically preset.

What Schopenhauer got wrong

Unfortunately for Schopenhauer, that’s all the good news.

The rest, when compared to modern findings, was often wrong:

1. Don’t seek status

Probably wrong. Studies often find correlations between higher status and higher levels of happiness.

2. Avoid people

Definitely wrong. Social bonds are highly correlated with happiness.

3. Don’t get married

Probably wrong.

Like Epicurus, Schopenhauer wasn’t a fan of marriage, or living with a partner.

But modern research shows that living with someone probably makes us happier – it certainly doesn’t do us any harm, on average (Bergsma, Poot & Liefbroer, 2008).

4. Avoid problems

Mostly wrong.

Setting goals and following our dreams both involve dealing with the world and overcoming problems.

Having very low expectations and avoiding trouble probably result in failing to achieve.

Research finds that goal-setting and facing and overcoming problems are associated with happiness.

Does Schopenhauer’s advice benefit the extreme pessimist?

As you’ll have gathered, Schopenhauer was the kind of chap who always thought the glass was half-empty.

Modern psychology shows that pessimism has some negative consequences, for example having lower well-being and being seen in a negative light by others.

On the other hand optimists have all sorts of advantages, like faster recovery from negative events.

But as Schopenhauer pointed out, people are different and, to a certain extent, we’re stuck with the way we are.

So while Schopenhauer’s approach might not suit the ‘average’ person, perhaps it might suit people who are like Schopenhauer?

This question is difficult to answer mainly because, in the light of modern research, Schopenhauer’s advice about being distrustful and avoiding other people is completely counter-intuitive.

Indeed, Schalkx and Bergsma argue that most of Schopenhauer’s advice probably isn’t much good, even for other people like him.

Do the opposite

Like Epicurus, though, we have to give Schopenhauer a certain amount of latitude because we are taking his advice out of its historical context.

Nevertheless when we compare his advice with modern psychology, most of it is misguided.

The few points that he does get right are mainly in the section on our relationships with ourselves.

We’re probably better off doing the exact opposite of what Schopenhauer recommends, pessimist or not.

→ Related: Confucius On Happiness: How To Live A Good Life

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