How to pursue happiness
using ancient wisdom and modern psychology
and no New Year’s resolutions
Sage Lecture #6
Dec. 15, 2008
Jonathan Haidt
University of Virginia
6 Lectures on Morality
11/10: What is morality and how does it work?
11/17: The righteous mind: Why good people are divided
by politics and religion
11/24: The positive moral emotions: Elevation, awe,
admiration, and gratitude
12/1: Hive psychology, group selection, and leadership
12/8: The dark side: Why moral psychology is the greatest
source of evil
12/15: The light side: How to pursue happiness using
ancient wisdom and modern psychology
ppt files available at www.JonathanHaidt.com, at bottom
1) How satisfied are you with your life as a whole
these days? ____
1=extremely unsatisfied, 7=extremely satisfied
2) List 2 things you’d like to change about yourself
The value of recurrent ideas
12 Great truths: Insights into mind and heart from
ancient cultures and modern psychology
10 Great truths: Insights into mind and heart from
ancient cultures and modern psychology
The value of recurrent ideas
Expected conclusion: Ideas
about human nature and
well-being that arise across
eras and cultures usually
contain deep wisdom
Unexpected conclusion: Most
of the “great truths” are
united by the theme of
relatedness.
The Divided Self (Great Truth #1)
Medea’s lament: I am dragged along
by a strange new force. Desire and
reason are pulling in different
directions. I see the right way and
approve it, but
follow the wrong.
St Paul’s lament: The
flesh lusteth against the Spirit and
the Spirit against the flesh, so that
ye cannot do the things ye would.
Why don’t you…
Because “you” are not in charge
Q: Is consciousness the driver of a car?
Or a rider on an elephant?
Two kinds
of thinking
Automatic (elephant)
Intuition
Fast, easy… indefatigable
“hot” – connected to
motivations, reward
centers
99% of all cognition
Two kinds
of thinking
Automatic (elephant)
Controlled (rider)
Intuition
Reasoning, language, logic
Fast, easy… indefatigable
Slow, effortful… tires out
“hot” – connected to
motivations, reward
centers
99% of all cognition
“cool” – not connected to
motivational centers
1% of all cognition
Automatic vs. controlled perception
Automatic vs. controlled perception
Automatic vs. controlled motivation
Automatic vs. controlled behavior
Take home lesson: Self-change is elephant training
1) Change the elephant, gradually
--Develop new habits, take 12 weeks to stick
--Use small but immediate rewards
--Try cognitive therapy, meditation, self-hypnosis
2) Change the elephant’s surroundings
--Animals are “stimulus bound.” People too. Choose
your environment and associates carefully.
3) Get relations right BETWEEN elephant and rider
--know your elephant, and its strengths and weaknesses
Great Truth #2
“There is nothing either good or bad
but thinking makes it so”
“The whole universe is change, and
life itself is but what you deem it”
“We are what we think. All that we are
arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts
we make the world.”
“There is no reality,
only perception.”
Case Study: Qohelet
I made great works; I built houses and planted
vineyards for myself;... I also had great possessions of
herds and flocks, more than any who had been before
me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and
gold and the treasure of kings and of the provinces; I
got singers, both men and women, and delights of the
flesh, and many concubines. So I became great and
surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem...
Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.
--Ecclesiastes 2:4-10
Case Study: Qohelet
Then I considered all that
my hands had done and the
toil I had spent in doing it,
and again, all was vanity
and a chasing after wind,
and there was nothing to be
gained under the sun.
(Ecclesiastes 2:11)
King Solomon, 19th C. illustration
Happiness Hypoth #1: Happiness comes from outside
(from getting what you want: e.g., wealth, sex, power)
Who is happy?
“How satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?”
1=extremely unsatisfied, 7=extremely satisfied
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
YR: 0
1
2
3
4
5
What we imagine will happen:
Large permanent effects
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Win Lottery
Baseline
Paralyzed
for life
YR: 0
1
2
3
4
5
What actually happens:
full adaptation for most (but not all) We
adapt very quickly
(Brickman, Coates, & Janoff-Bulman, 1978)
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Win Lottery
Paralyzed for life
Adaptation!
YR: 0
1
2
3
4
5
Solomon: “How do you keep your spirits up?”
Hawking: “My expectations were reduced to zero when
I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.”
Major life events matter MUCH less
than we expect!
--We are terrible at “Affective forecasting” (Dan Gilbert
& Tim Wilson)
--“Happiness is produced not so much by
great pieces of good fortune that
seldom happen as by little advantages
that occur every day.”
Who is happy? Demographic conundrums
1) Age? Small age trends, peak is in 60s!
2) Gender? No difference overall
3) Race? Small or no differences
4) Wealth? It’s complicated...
--In very poor countries, and for poor people: YES
--Above subsistence level, correlation becomes small
--In the U.S., correlation is .12.... or maybe .18?
--But part of that is reverse correlation
--Tripling national wealth since WWII had NO effect
--We’re on a “hedonic treadmill”: the more we get,
the more we want.
--But RELATIVE position matters a little
GT#2: Life itself is but what you deem it
--There’s nothing good or bad,
but thinking makes it so.
--We are what we think. All that we
are arises with our thoughts
--Life is a banquet, and some poor
sons-of-bitches are starving to death
Why? Because Everyone has a biological set point
Lost the
cortical lottery
Won the
cortical lottery
--Avg happiness level is fairly stable from year to year
--Avg happiness level is highly heritable: 50-75% of variance due
to genes: almost none due to shared family environmnt
What did they win? Happy people…
--Have more friends
--Have happier marriages and fewer divorces
--Live longer
--Recover from adversity faster, and grow from it
--Become more successful:
--clients like them, buy from them
--bosses like them, promote them
--throw themselves into projects more fully; live
in the “realm of possibility”
--Exception: lawyers. Pessimism is adaptive.
Happiness Hypothesis #2:
Happiness comes from within
Good men, at all times, surrender all
attachments. The holy spend not idle
words on things of desire. When pleasure
or pain comes to them, the wise feel
above pleasure and pain.
(Buddha)
Do not seek to have events happen as you
want them to, but instead want them to
happen as they do happen, and your life
will go well. (Epictetus)
The Positive Psych Alternative: Strive Right!
There IS a biological set point, but your happiness on any given
day forms a distribution around that point:
H=S+C+V
S is your Set-point.
--Raise it with Prozac/Zoloft/Lexapro…
C is the few Conditions that matter
--increase your relatedness, and control
V is the Voluntary activities that you choose to do
Stop making new year’s resolutions!
Start doing “voluntary” activities that will change
the elephant
I have now spent fifty-five years in resolving;
having, from the earliest time almost that I can
remember, been forming schemes of a better
life. I have done nothing. The need of doing,
therefore, is pressing, since the time of doing is
short. O GOD, grant me to resolve aright, and to
keep my resolutions.
--from Samuel Johnson’s Diary
Voluntary Activity #1: Diagnose Yourself
--Are you on the negative half of the
happiness distribution? (Find out at
www.authentichappiness.org)
--What are your strengths? How can you use them to
get around your weaknesses? (take the “Signature
Strengths Test” at www.authentichappiness.org)
Voluntary Activity #2: Improve Mental Hygiene
--If you ARE low, or you ruminate, then
buy Feeling Good, by David Burns.
-- Or see a cognitive-behavioral therapist
--Or start meditation or self-hypnosis
--Every evening, write down three things that went
well that day, and their causes. (Especially the
role you played, the strengths you used, the
friends and supporters you have.)
--These practices are as effective as
Prozac at raising happiness levels
Voluntary Activity #3: Diet less, Exercise more
--Dieting makes people irritable, and rarely works
--Pleasure is an important part of the good life
--A slight increase in exercise improves mood
throughout the day
Voluntary Activity #4: Improve relatedness
--The unexpected theme of most chapters:
Relationships are the key to happiness!
--Work on existing relationships
--Write a gratitude letter
--And cultivate new relationships, especially in groups
The Positive Psych Alternative: Strive Right!
There IS a biological set point, but your happiness on any given
day forms a distribution around that point:
H=S+C+V
S is your Set-point.
--Raise it with Prozac/Zoloft/Lexapro…
C is the few Conditions that matter
--increase your relatedness, and control
V is the Voluntary activities that you choose to do
Demographics that matter: Conservatism
General Social Survey
And even more so: Religion
Why are religious conservatives so happy?
A) Beliefs:
--self-efficacy vs. victimology
“While people begin with different
opportunities, hard work and
perseverance can usually
overcome those disadvantages”
B) Lifestyle = Community:
--Marriage (and larger families)
--Churchgoing
--More charity
--Hive psychology?
The New Synthesis in Moral Psych
1) Intuitive primacy (but not dictatorship)
2) Moral thinking is for social doing
3) Morality binds and builds
4) Morality is about more than harm and
fairness
What is the meaning of life?
“Try and be nice to people, avoid
eating fat, read a good book
every now and then, get some
walking in, and try and live
together in peace and harmony
with people of all creeds and
nations."
What is the meaning of life?
“42”
What is the meaning of life?
Q1: What is the purpose for which I was put here?
What is the purpose OF life?
Q2: How can I life a full, rich, satisfying life?
How can I find purpose and meaning WITHIN life?
How can I avoid the feeling that: “all was vanity and
a chasing after wind”?
Factors that increase MCC:
--Group is fundamental source of value
--Emphasize similarity, shared traditions
--Authoritarian or Authoritative parenting
--Moral imperative to punish
--Religiosity
--Emphasis on duties, not rights
--Ethos of support for authority and
local institutions
The 6 Ultrasocial Animals
Hymenoptera: Bees
ants
Also: termites…
wasps
and
and naked mole rats…
The 6th Ultrasocial:
Great Truth #10:
Happiness comes from between
“I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when
we die and become a part of something entire,
whether it is sun and air, or goodness and
knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness: to be
dissolved into something complete and great”
(Willa Cather, My Antonia)
Happiness Hypothesis #3:
Happiness comes from between
So does purpose and meaning WITHIN life
Get the right relationships between
--Your rider and elephant
--Yourself and others
--Yourself and your work
--Yourself and something larger
than yourself
Thank you....
--Mike Gazzaniga
--Jayne Rosenblatt
--3rd floor of Psych East
--Sara Miller McCune
ppt files available at www.JonathanHaidt.com, at bottom