Pursuing Happiness (by Gemma Burke)

Happiness, defined in the dictionary as a state of well being is one of psychology’s greatest mysteries.  Positive psychology is a popular new psychology that has set out to uncover fascinating evidence based answers to questions surrounding happiness. For much of its history psychology has seemed some-what obsessed with human feelings and pathology. (The scientific study of the nature of disease and its causes, processes, development, and consequences, also called pathobiology.) Positive psychology is a recent addition to the world of psychology that studies the strengths and virtues that allow communities and individuals to thrive.

In fact the very idea of psychotherapy, which was first formalised by Freud, rests on a view of human beings as troubled creatures in need of repair. Freud with his pessimistic outlook on human nature, which he believed to be governed by deep dark drives that could only tenuously be controlled, shared parallel views with those of a German philosopher Arthur Schropenhauer. Schropenhauer also an extreme pessimist believed that happiness was an illusion. Through his opinions that happiness is the absence of pain, frustration and dissatisfaction, Schropenhauers extreme hedonism installed in himself that the answer was not to seek happiness but to get through life with the minimum amount of suffering. In short the key to making life bearable for the German philosopher was simply to have extremely low expectations.

It has also been shown that there is a strong correlation between happiness and success, generally people with a good income and a high status in a community tend to be, more often than not, happiest. But which comes first happiness or success? The two are without doubt inter-related but in complicated ways, and to only talk about how success leads to happiness is ignoring half of the story, as Sonja Lyumbomirsky and colleagues have uncovered that there is potential evidence that points to happiness leading to success. These studies have produced a raft of fascinating findings that demonstrate that people in  a positive mood are more likely to talk to others, to be interested in leisure activities, enjoy social interactions, resolve conflicts easily, help others, feel healthier, perform tasks better and more often attribute success to their own skills.  This then links to materialism, which in psychology is deemed to be a dirty word. Studies consistently show that people who agree with statements like “You will buy things just because you want them” tend to be: less satisfied with life, less happy, more likely to be depressed, more paranoid and more narcissistic. Unfortunately for us 50% of our happiness is predisposed in us through our genetic make-up. The other 50% can be made up by our overall circumstances like our demographics, money education etc. Sheldon & Lyumbomirsky (2007) estimate circumstantial factors at only 10%, which is dwarfed in comparison to our genetic contribution. In other words, your happiness consists of how happy you naturally are, plus whatever is going on in your life to affect your happiness.

In the end philosophy and science converge on the fact that thinking about your own happiness doesn’t make it any easier to be happy. In fact many say we are at our happiest when we are absorbed in what we are doing and the trouble is that asking yourself about your frame of mind is a sure way to lose your flow. So in few words if you want to be happy, don’t constantly ask yourself if you are.