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Stanford Research on Happiness and Meaning

88 points by bpang ↗ HN
I'm currently taking a class from Prof. Jennifer Aaker at Stanford GSB. She's known for research on happiness - quite a profound topic. Here are some findings I thought are interesting:

50% of it is determined by birt or genetics. Circumstances such as marital status, earnings, and looks determine 10%, and the remainder comes from intentional activities or things we can do to change our happiness level.

Researchers postulate that each individual has a "set point" for happiness, which is largely determined by birth and genes. Deviations from that point tend to be short-lived.

How does money affect happiness? Once people are free from deprivation, the tie between money and happiness begins to fray. There's generally positive correlation but money yields diminishing returns.

Middle-class and affluent people are often stuck on a "hedonic treadmill" as they sacrifice personal relationships for diminishing returns.

They why do people pursue wealth? Psychologists argue that they are seeking "positional advantage." Most people are happy with less money on one condition - "everyone else is also making less."

In contrast, traits such as self-confidence and energy correlated with happiness.

What can we do to be happier?

(1) Time shift: First how many hours of deep, hard thinking do you get done each day?

(2) Work on projects you LOVE (not like): It releases happiness in your brain! People become more effective when the brain releases endorphines!

(3) Reframe expectations: An example: http://bit.ly/LouisCK10 People take technology for granted today and forget about the very recent past. Lowering expectations brings happiness. Take yourself less seriously.

(4) Create a reward system: Rewards make people happy. Try to create rewards, even small ones.

(5) Carve out clear areas of incompetence: Claim areas of incompetence! Admit it.

(6) Cultivate emotion contagion

(7) Create sticky memories: the "who" and "what" are important. Research (in the US) has also found that morning and night memories are stickier, as well as Christmas - the most memorable holiday. A few tips: "Perceived" free time is important! Social skills: Typically there are 8 close committed relationships. family, close friends, siblings, partners, etc. Dancing: makes people happy! Volunteering: People who report time and money report greater well-being! Being Part of SOmething Bigger Not money! you just need enough money to live happily. Research also found that spending money on your friends and people you care actually makes you happier.

(8) Improve sense of humor!

She also discussed the "Six Selves Model": friends, parent, partner, work, community/spirituality, and health, which are the foundations of personal happiness. Try to allocate time over these different areas. Although you can be very busy, identify "temporal sweetspots". Allocate quality attention to each spot, even if it's temporal. She further suggested listing favorite traditions to build habits.

30 comments

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zackattack
I appreciate it. This is great stuff.

It would be even better if you made it a blog post. Grey-on-white is hard to read.

Thanks! Great stuff!

sahueso
It wouldn't be better at all. What made it so great was it went straight to the point without filling with the random-bullshit-to-make-it-longer many blog posts have.
zackattack
My point is that it's annoying to read #828282 on #F6F6EF. It's unpleasant contrast.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
miles
Control+Option+Command+8
aoeuid
This is the kind of 80-20 knowledge compression that I love seeing on HN and in general. Even if it's not completely new information, it quickly informs me on at least one good view on an important and largely overlooked issue. Now I can at least be well-armed for my google searches, without having to give up a (perceived) large chunk of time in reading a 10 page article or 20 minute TED talk.
revorad
Thanks a lot for this. Very interesting list of actionable points.
tokenadult
50% of it is determined by birt or genetics.

But this is a misinterpretation of what broad heritability shows.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=838534

In other words, it may be that there are environmental interventions that can HUGELY influence happiness that just haven't been tried yet. Better understanding of the development of happiness over the course of life, a line of research evidently being pursued by your professor, may eventually show what some of those interventions are.

jamesbressi
Agreed. I believe that "50% of it" is UN-determined. Genetics undoubtedly play a role, but environment (development, interventions, etc.) dually play a role.

The problem is that environment and its interventions can be a difficult variable to tie down in studies. Good call.

edo
I wonder how thinking deep and hard for a few hours a day makes you a happier person, anyone ideas?
sp332
Thinking hurts. Your body releases endorphins to deal with the pain.
exit
(5) Carve out clear areas of incompetence: Claim areas of incompetence! Admit it.

what?

tomerico
Maybe a different way to say - "Accept who you are"?
Mz
I think it is more than just "accepting yourself". I have found that one of the best things I can do to convince people I am competent is to know those things I should not give opinions about because I just don't have adequate information. Admitting "I have no experience with that" (or some similar limitation) tells people that I am not simply being willfully unhelpful but, instead, I am trying to avoid giving bad advice. An awful lot of smart, educated people fall victim to the feeling that they must have an opinion or answer on anything that comes up and get themselves in a pickle by then saying something really ill-informed. Knowing when to say "I simply can't help you with that because I lack adequate knowledge/skill/experience" is relatively rarely done and is psychologically powerful. I used to think it gave an illusion of greater competence than what you actually possess, but perhaps it works in part because "do no harm" genuinely provides superior quality than willy-nilly running around trying to work on things you aren't really qualified to do properly.
chris11
This blog about the class seems to go a little more in depth:

"1. Carve out your areas of incompetence: There was some debate about the downside of such a principle (ie: young girls jumping quickly to say "I'm bad at math" when they might have a tremendous, although dormant, capacity for mathematics) but overall there are some apparent benefits to this practice. One tangible example was given of a consultant who joined some firm and, rather than follow suit with his colleagues and claim he could handle any of the potential tasks thrown his way, he chose to be very upfront, to carve out his areas of incompetence, and tell the people he worked with exactly what he wasn't good at. The story goes that he was promoted faster than any of his peers because of this practice."

http://thepowerofsocialtechnology.blogspot.com/

It sounds this practice helped his boss delegate tasks better and helped convince his that he was honest.

charlesju
I think this means you should accept your flaws. It's a counter to perfectionism.
leemoore
I've found that intensive practice of meditation over the last 3 years including both a daily practice and going on more extended retreats has fundamentally shifted the way in which I perceive and engage with moment to moment experience which has in turn steadily raised my baseline level of happiness.

I fully understand this is subjective anecdotal data and that it's quite possible I'm fooling myself though I don't believe I am. I've heard similar reports from others who have engaged deeply with various contemplative practices.

charlesju
Do you fully subscribe to the notion of pure meditation, in that you should feel neither good nor bad? Once I understood what it meant to fully meditate; give up desires to love, build stuff I have a passion for, tackle challenging problems, I found that the proposed benefits of feeling not bad just didn't seem to weigh out.
leemoore
A notion of pure meditation doesn't have much meaning for me. It just sounds like someones attempt to take an extremely broad and varied set of useful practices and overly simplify in an effort to assert internally or externally that there is one right/best/pure/perfect way of doing something. I don't subscribe to that view. Like programming languages or frameworks or methodologies or any other set of maps and techniques they have their various levels of usefulness depending on person and circumstance.

Also, the idea of giving up desire, passion and things of this nature is often misunderstood. It is not necessary to give up ones humanity, emotions, loves or anything else. It's more about changing the way in which you perceive and engage with all experiences of life. It's not like I've stopped feeling bad. I feel bad plenty. It's more that feeling bad (and feeling good) is experienced in a very different way.

yread
For me it's quite simple, really:

- think about the pleasant things in the past,

- focus on the nice experiences and senses in the present,

- and look forward to great things in the future.

MITDGreenb
I recommend reading up on behavioral economics, particularly the works of Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahnemann, and Dick Thaler. This is not pop psychology with truthiness like "money doesn't buy happiness" and "meditation is the way." Rather, it's well-researched works on happiness, fairness, and economics. Start with this great TED talk: http://blog.ted.com/2010/03/the_riddle_of_e.php and then consider Thaler's book "Nudge". You can also look at it from a marketer's perspective by looking up Rory Sutherland, starting with his TED talk http://blog.ted.com/2009/07/session_2_runni_6.php
aceregen
I noticed the following characteristic about one friend who always sounded cheery.

When things go wrong (and there's often 1001 ways things go wrong, and 1 way where they go right) - We often slap ourselves and say "It could have been better if.."

However, I noticed my friend tend to think along these lines - "It could have been much worse, but that didn't happen. Somehow we got through it."

What doesn't kill you, make you stronger anyway.

bpang
It's great to see so many people are interested in this topic. To provide more color on some of the points above, here're some more details from research findings (most are direct quotes from her research article): How to reduce unhappiness? Overthinking can actually worsen sadness and make it harder to escape unhappiness. In ruminating, we just become stuck with our feelings. What do you do? Learn to disenage from overthinking about both major and minor negative experiences. Go for a walk, read, call a friend, etc. Or find distraction by thinking about something else. Thirdly, compartmentalize your feelings. Talking also helps you get over unhappiness. Often, shift thinking can help. That's also where meditation comes in. Socializing, exercising more and losing weight are more effective than watching TV. Someone asked why does deep, hard thinking make one happy? Research has found that "flow" often makes time seem to stand still. There's a strong correlation between the experience of flow in your brain and enduring levels of happiness. We experience flow when there's a good match between our strengths and the task we are engaged upon. A holistic view of life is critical to an ongoing level of happiness and meaning. Thinking of our lives holistically, as interconnected and overlapping domains, creates the possibility of multiplier effects. Finally, what's the impact of happiness to doing good business? Making your customers happy and your employees happy are crucial to building a strong business. Fostering a community and encouraging community services or charity are some ways to achieve so. Having a higher mission than pure profit pursuits has also been proven to make employees happier and businesses successful.
bpang
One more note: Working for a larger purpose creates happiness and meaning. This is why volunteer activities, caring for your family and friends, supporting a charity, or working to live up to your moral principals all feel so good. Ultimately, we all seek a continuing experience. We thrive on feeling that we matter, and that what we do matters. We also experience meaning when we have a sense of "congruence and coherence" between who we are and what we do.
[dead] losethos
Don't forget men are from Mars and women from Venus. Personally, this seems like a study that validates what the author assumed ahead of time. I can damn well tell you volunteering made me miserable each time. Sometimes, "No good deed goes unpunished."
eliot_sykes
For anyone else like me who wanted to know what emotion contagion is (#6 Cultivate emotion contagion), from Wikipedia:

-- Emotional contagion is the tendency to catch and feel emotions that are similar to and influenced by those of others. One view developed by John Cacioppo of the underlying mechanism is that it represents a tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person and, consequently, to converge emotionally.[1] A broader definition of the phenomenon was suggested by Sigal G. Barsade—"a process in which a person or group influences the emotions or behavior of another person or group through the conscious or unconscious induction of emotion states and behavioral attitudes". --

More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_contagion