Happiness+and+the+Positive+Emotions

Happiness Notes from Class


 * Is happiness an emotion?**
 * Emotion is a reaction to a stimulus
 * Emotion is a complex sequence of physiological, behavioral, and subjective changes
 * An emotion is a functional response to the situation
 * Joy vs. Subjective Well-being - Life satisfaction

- Set point : modal reaction to life, base line with emotions for people, resistant to life events (ex: winning the lottery) - different individuals have different set points - Happiness is not always a reaction to a stimulus - We agree that we think happiness is an emotion, but it doesn't really fit into our definition of an emotion


 * Measuring Happiness**
 * Satisfaction with Life Scale - (Diener) states about life ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree
 * PANAS (Positive affectivity, negative affectivity scale) - mood scale/personality scale - depends on the instructions you give people whether it is a mood or a personality measure
 * Spontaneous mentions - ask questions, what makes you happy? spontaneous measures
 * Physiological measures


 * What makes people happy?**
 * Kesibir & Diener
 * Religion - hope, research shows that spirituality and happiness are correlated
 * Search for meaning or search for pleasure
 * Money - for middle class people, having a little more or a little less doesn't change their happiness, wealthy people are happier than most, and poor people are the least happy
 * Being goal-oriented keeps us happy, except when their goal is to make money
 * People who are healthier seem to be happier
 * Relationships are one of the top things that make us happy, married people are happier than not married people
 * Personality leads to happiness (optimists)


 * Weak influences on Happiness**
 * wealth
 * weather
 * education
 * youth


 * Events that decrease life satisfaction**
 * major disability
 * loss of a job
 * death of a spouse
 * divorce

> - cope with anxiety/stress, more open to new experiences, new levels of creativity, allows us to deal with adversity and decreases in group bias > - it opens you up to a broader view point and opportunities. When you are happy or positive, one is more open leading to an upward spiral.
 * Broaden and Build Model** - broaden/open to opportunity
 * Positive function of happiness?


 * Other Happiness Issues**
 * Positive Emotion as a contrast effect - bronze vs silver Olympic medalists
 * Positive emotions and facial expressions - Duchenne smile
 * Enthusiasm - anticipation of reward, reward circuit (ventral teggmental area, nucleus accumbems, parts of the frontal lobe), anticipating vs consuming
 * Contentment
 * Hope and Optimism
 * Amusement and Humor - laughter is good for you


 * Chapter 10: Happiness and the Positive Emotions**


 * Happiness – high life satisfaction, frequent experience of overall positive affect, and infrequent experience of negative affect
 * Subjective well-being - evaluation of one's life as pleasant, interesting and satisfying
 * Joy - intense pleasant emotional experience in response to a surprising gain or success

What Makes People Happy?
 * Happy people tend to be more productive than others and are more likely to compete successfully for reproductive opportunities (happy people pass down there genes)
 * Most of the things that people say would make them happy are things that could happen to them, whereas, most of what does make them happy are their own actions or an appreciate of what they have (friends, family, etc)
 * The “Top-Down” Theory of Happiness – top down means that your personality determines your happiness and bottom up means life events do, one determinant of happiness is people's natural disposition or personality,
 * A neurotransmitter that is related to positive emotions is dopamine (more dopamine equals greater happiness and extroversion). Endorphin transmitters also contribute to mood (endorphins inhibit pain).
 * Wealthier people tend to be happier than poorer people, on average.
 * People with more close relationships say they are happier than those with fewer relationships.
 * Married people tend to be happier than unmarried people.
 * Happiness promotes relationships and relationships increase happiness.
 * People who are religious report being happier.
 * Alfred Adler believed that people are motivated by “striving for superiority” and that can be done in many different ways.
 * Both losing a job and losing a spouse by death or divorce decrease life satisfaction.
 * Helping someone else or writing down what you are grateful for help improve happiness.

Positive Emotion States
 * Broaden-and-build theory – this theory states that positive emotions promote broadened attention so that we notice opportunities in the environment, as well as greater flexibility in the actions we might take to maximize those opportunities
 * A cognitive effect of positive emotions is that people tend to see the bigger picture and have a more open mind about things.
 * The emotional impact that an event has on you depends on what you have to compare it with.
 * Contrast effect – the emotional influence of whether an outcome was better or worse than expected
 * Happy people move and speak quickly, alternatively, sad people walk and talk slower
 * Duchenne smile – genuine smile, raised cheeks and crow’s feet at the corners of the eyes plus a smiling mouth
 * The autonomic effects are not very high for happiness as compared to fear or anger.

Enthusiasm: The Anticipation of Reward
 * Anticipatory enthusiasm – excitement or pleasure from expecting a reward
 * An unpredicted reward, or larger than predicted, releases dopamine. Reward exactly as predicted does not. Reward that is omitted or less than predicted inhibits dopamine release to less than its baseline level.

Contentment
 * Contentment - positive emotion felt after consuming a meal or other reward
 * Contentment effects can be accounted for by increased activation of the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest system).
 * After eating, dopaminergic activation in the reward circuit calms down and is replaced by endogenous opiate activity that slows down overall behavior.

Hope and Optimism
 * Hope – believing in yourself in a challenging situation
 * Optimism – believing that mostly good things will happen
 * Neuroticism – having feelings of fear, sadness and anger very easily
 * Unrealistic optimism can be a bad thing when it leads to risks or bad decisions
 * Optimistic people make friends more easily, they experience less anxiety, they are less likely to abuse drugs, etc.

Amusement and Humor
 * Cognitive shift – thinking about something from one perspective and then changing it to another perspective
 * Humor also depends on surprise.
 * Things that make one person laugh may not amuse another. Amusement also depends on who presents the joke. If you like a person you are more likely to enjoy their joke.
 * Laughter is used in social settings to indicate that you are having a good time and like the other person.
 * Laughter communicates social support.
 * Men tell more jokes and women laugh more. This may be related to social roles.

"Affective Forecasting- Knowing What to Know" Few reasons/theories as to why & some notes on these ideas: -people tend to base many decisions on //affective forecasting//, which is predictions about their emotional reactions to future events (which can be wrong, therefore leading to dissatisfaction) -in **//affective forecasting//** people often show //impact bias//, which is overestimating the duration and intensity of their emotional reactions to certain events. In more simple terms, this is when people do a bad job at realizing how long/short or how difficult/easy their emotional reactions will be in response to specific events. Although, people are usually good at deciding/predicting whether an event will be pleasant or unpleasant. - **//impact bias//** is important because when people are making decisions/deciding what to focus on they need to be able to not only predict if something will be pleasant or not but they also have to predict the intensity and duration //- **impact bias** // also states that if you are in a different state when you are asked your feelings might change about the subject -one cause of the ** //impact bias// ** = **//focalism//**, which is the tendency to overestimate how much we will think about the event in the future and to underestimate the extent to which other events will influence our thoughts and feelings -people fail to realize how readily they will make sense of unexpected events when they occur. People don't realize or consider how quickly their tendency to explain certain events will decrease the impact of the events. Thus, if making sense of unexpected or novel events decreases the duration of the pleasure they create then inhibiting sense-making processes should increase the duration of people's pleasure. -another cause of impact bias in which forecasters fail to realize or recognize how quickly and easily they will be able to make sense of an unexpected event once they happen. -events like the above trigger a sequence of processes: attention, reaction, explanation, and adaptation (in this order) -attention= people who have novel things happen to them keep their attention focused on the thing and nothing else -reaction=people will emotionally react to the unexpected incident -explanation=the next step leads people to try and make sense of the event (ask: why did this happen?) -adaptation=after making sense of the event it is no longer a big deal and in turn people adapt emotionally to them -this eventually leads us to lose pleasure in positive events once we make sense of them and try to explain why they happen, so if we block the sense-making process then people can have prolonged pleasure from the event. -people tend to approach such things that have given them pleasure in the past and avoid things that have cause pain in the past -the causal theories that people come up with to explain events will teach them to avoid pain and pursue pleasure that was obtained through certain events. -people have a psychological immune system that fights threats to emotional well-being -These defenses are unconscious and since people are unaware of them we don't usually take them into account when predicting future emotional reaction= **immune neglect** -people have stronger reactions when negative events are difficult to make sense of rather than vice versa but in both cases we, as humans, are unaware that we are using our defenses to react to these negative events -people tend to owe their own personal reduction of the impact of a negative event to a higher being (i.e. god) -people are often times happier when they make choices that can not be changed (irrevocable) because they rationalize by saying 'there's nothing I can do to change it.") -the pain of minor traumas can often times last longer than more serious trauma because we are more strongly motivated to make sense of the major trauma rather than the minor one -illogical decisions are made on the basis that people weigh potential losses more heavily than potential gains -people make many of their decisions using it -since peoples predictions of what makes them happy is flawed people will fail at increasing their happiness -unanswered question, however, is whether impact bias has some pros (does it have advantages when used?)
 * Main idea:** Sometimes people can be disappointed by getting exactly what they want-why is this?
 * Causes of //Impact bias// :**
 * Sense-making--(positive events)**
 * Pleasure Paradox** :
 * Motivated Sense Making (negative events)** :
 * What consequences does immune defense lead to?**
 * Importance of Affective Forecasting**

__*"In Pursuit of Happiness" Kesebir & Diener*__ __-HISTORY OF HAPPINESS-__  __-Ancient Greece was location of 1st philosophical thoughts on what is "the good life"__  __Democritus--happy is not only "product of favorable fate or of external circumstances but rather of a man's cast of mind"__  __Socrates and Plato--'secure enjoyment of what is good and beautiful__  __Aristotle--happiness is realizable for any person willing to lead a life in accordance with the most valued virtues__  __-Hellenistic Era__