Life is Good:
Insights from The Science of
Happiness
Bill O’Hanlon
www.billohanlon.com
What is Positive Psychology?
Research evidence about what works
in human life; what makes people
happier; what gives their lives a
sense of satisfaction and meaning;
what helps them function better;
Also called “Subjective Well-Being”
There are some benefits of happiness
Happy people:
 Are half as likely to die over the same time period as
others
Danner, D.D., Snowdon, D.A. & Friesen, W.V. (2001). “Positive emotions in early
life and longevity: Findings from the Nun Study,” Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 80:804-813.
Diener, Ed and Seligman, Martin. (2002). “Very happy people,” Psychological
Science, 13:81-84.







Half as likely to be disabled
Live longer than average
Have better health habits
Have lower blood pressure
Have more robust immune systems
Are more productive on the job
Are able to tolerate more pain
There even seem to be economic benefits
to happiness
Cheerful college students ended up
earning $25,000 more per year than
their dour counterparts.
King, Laura and Lyubomirsky, Sonja. (2005). “The benefits of frequent positive
affect: Does happiness lead to success?” Psychological Bulletin, 131:803-855.
Happiness is relatively stable
One year after winning the lottery or becoming
quadriplegic, people’s happiness level return to
where they were before the drastic change of
circumstance (Happiness Set Point; genetically
influenced but not fixed)
Brickman, P.; Coates, D.; and Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). “Lottery winners and accident
victims: Is happiness relative?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36:917-27.
There are some things that seem to permanently
increase happiness levels
People are generally pretty bad at predicting what
will make them happy
Psychological studies are biased toward
the negative
Psychological publications
and studies dealing with
negative states
outnumbered those
examining positive states
by a ratio of 17 to 1 in a
survey done in 1995.
Myers, D. and Deiner, E. (1995) “Who is
Happy?,” Psychological Science,
6:10-19.
The Power of Negative Thinking
“I was going to buy a copy of The Power of
Positive Thinking, and then I thought:
What the hell good would that do?”
–Ronnie Shakes
The essence of this approach
Discover what works and what’s going well
Focus on what can enhance rather than
merely fix human life
Focus on resources rather than problems
Identify and enhance strengths
Seligman’s List of Virtues/Signature Strengths:
Six areas [The Reverse-DSM]
Wisdom and Knowledge
Courage
Love and Humanity
Justice
Temperance
Spirituality and Transcendence
Find this list and some self-tests at:
www.viacharacter.org
Wisdom and Knowledge
Cognitive strengths that entail
the acquisition and use of
knowledge
Courage
Emotional strengths that
involve the exercise of will to
accomplish goals in the face of
opposition, external or internal
Love and Humanity
Interpersonal strengths that
involve “tending and
befriending” others
Justice
Civic strengths that underlie healthy
community life
Temperance
Strengths that protect against excess
Transcendence
Strengths that forge connections to
the larger universe and thereby
provide meaning
Happiness is challenging
"The Constitution only guarantees the
American people the right to pursue
happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
–Benjamin Franklin
Problems with deliberately pursuing
happiness

We are bad at predicting what will make us
happy
• We overestimate the negative effects of bad
stuff
• We overestimate the lasting
happiness/satisfaction that will result from
good stuff
 Our preferences change
 Habituation/the hedonic treadmill
But all is not lost; one can increase
happiness (but not directly)
Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of
happiness; it is generally the by-product of other
activities. –Aldous Huxley
Four Keys to Unlock Happiness
S.O.A.P.
Social Connections
Optimism
Appreciation (Gratitude)
Purpose (greater than oneself)
S.O.A.P.
Social Connections
and
Happiness
Social connections and happiness
Countless studies document the link between society and
psyche: people who have close friends and confidants,
friendly neighbors, and supportive co-workers are less likely
to experience sadness, loneliness, low self-esteem, and
problems with eating and sleeping.
The single most common finding from a half century's research
on the correlates of life satisfaction, not only in the United
States but around the world, is that happiness is best
predicted by the breadth and depth of one's social
connections.
Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling alone: the collapse and
revival of American community. New York: Simon &
Schuster, p. 332)
Relationships
“By far the greatest predictor of
happiness in the literature is
intimate relationships.” – Sonja
Lyubomirsky, researcher at UCRiverside, author of The How of
Happiness
Social connections can help
reduce PTSD
• Being with someone else during an earthquake is
protective against PTSD
Armenian, H. et. Al. (2000). “Loss as a determinant of PTSD in a cohort of adult
survivors of the 1998 earthquake in Armenia: Implications for policy,” Acta
Psychiatr. Scand., 102(1):58-64.
• Post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers in group
treatment recovered at a significantly higher rate
(88.3%) than those in individual treatment (31.3%)
Beck, J. et.al. (2009).“Group Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Chronic
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: An Initial Randomized Pilot Study,” Behavior
Therapy, 40(1):82-92.
Positive social talk matters
 The amount and type of parental talk to infants varied between
disadvantaged families and those who had higher incomes and education
 Disadvantaged parents generally talked less than advantaged (10 million
words vs. 80 million words)
 Disadvantaged parents directed more “discouragements” (no; shut up;
stop) to their kids (200,000 vs. 80,000 “encouragements” [chit chat;
positive comments; gossip; joking; running commentary; praise])
 Advantaged parents had a reversal of this ratio (500,000 encouragements
to 80,000 discouragements)
 It turns out that these differences have profound and hard to reverse
effects on intellectual and academic achievement (vocabulary growth and
standardized intellectual achievement tests measured at ages 3 and 9)
Hart, B. and Risley, T. (1995). Meaningful Differences in the Everyday
Experience of Young American Children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes
Publishing Company
Social connections are at risk in modern
societies
 Shared family dinners and family vacations are down over a
third in the last 25 years
 Having friends over to the house is down by 45% over the last
25 years
 Participation in clubs and civic organizations is down by over
50% in the last 25 years
 Church attendance is down by about a third since the 1960s
Putnam, Robert D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The collapse and
revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
See also: http://www.bettertogether.org/
Social connections are at risk in modern
societies
65% of Americans spend more time
with their computers than with
their spouses
Kelton Research, the "Cyber Stress" study, Digital Home
Services, Parks 2007
Even in severe poverty, social
connections help happiness levels
Robert Biswas-Diener and Ed Diener surveyed
life satisfaction of the homeless and
prostitutes living in the slums of Calcutta
and found that healthy bonds with family
and good social relationships were
correlated with higher life satisfaction
levels.
Biswas-Diener, R. and Diener, E. (2001). “Making the
best of a bad situation: Satisfaction in the slums of
Calcutta,” Social Indicators Research, 55, 329-352.
Relevant research
Happily married couples say 5 positive
remarks for every negative remark, even
when having conflicts
Couples who are headed for divorce use
less than 1 (0.8) positive remarks for every
negative one
Source: Gottman, J., Gottman, J. And DeClaire, J.(2006).
10 Lessons to Transform Your Marriage. NY: Crown.
S.O.A.P.
Optimism
and
Happiness
Optimism and Happiness

What we can learn from some psychotically
optimistic dogs
Good to know
Optimistic and pessimistic styles and tendencies are relatively
stable traits, but they can be affected by actions and
changed focus of attention
One study found that even naturally pessimistic people who spent one
week doing exercises in which they:
 Identified and wrote down times in the past in which they were at
their best
 Wrote down their personal strengths
 Expressed gratitude to someone they had never properly thanked
 Wrote down three good things that happened that day
Were happier when their happiness levels were measured 6 months later
Seligman, M., Stern, T., Park, N & Peterson, C. (2005). “Positive Psychology progress:
Empirical validation of interventions,” American Psychologist, 60: 410-421.
Creating or restoring hope
Rehabilitating or inviting people into preferred,
compelling positive futures
Elspeth McAdam
. . . A young girl I was working with had experienced
abuse. She walked into my office as a very large girl
with shaved hair, tattoos on her head, and I don't think
she had showered in a week. I had been asked to see
her because she was so angry. She clearly didn't want
to come and see an expletive expletive shrink. She
was very angry at being there. I just said to her,
'You've talked to everybody about your past. Let's talk
about your dreams for the future.' And her whole face
just lit up when she said her dream was to become a
princess. In my mind I could not think of two more
opposite visions–but I took her very seriously. I asked
her about what the concept of princess meant for her.
Elspeth McAdam
She started talking about being a people's princess who would
do things for other people, who would be caring and
generous and a beautiful ambassador. She described a
princess who was slender and well dressed. Over the next
few months, we started talking about what this princess
would be doing. I discovered that, while this girl was 14
and hadn't been attending school for a long time, the
princess was a social worker. I said, 'Okay it is now ten
year's time and you have trained as a social worker. What
university did you go to?' She mentioned one in the north
of England. I asked, 'What did you read [study] there?' She
said, 'I don't know, psychology and sociology and a few
other things like that.' Then I said, 'Do you remember when
you were 14? You'd been out of school for two or three
years. Do you remember how you got back in school?'
Elspeth McAdam
She said, 'I had this psychiatrist who helped me.' I said,
'How did she help you?' And she started talking about
how we made a phone call to the school. I said, "Who
spoke? Did you or her?' She replied, 'The psychiatrist
spoke but she arranged a meeting for us to go to the
school.' I said, 'Do you remember how you shook hands
with the head teacher when you went in? And how you
looked and what you wore?' We went into these minute
details about what that particular meeting was like–
looking from the future back. And she was able to
describe the conversations we had had, how confident
she had been, how well she had spoken, and the
subjects she had talked about. I didn't say any more
about it.
Elspeth McAdam
About a month after this conversation she said to
me, 'I think it's about time we went to the
school, don't you? Can you ring and make an
appointment?' I asked if she needed to talk about
it anymore and she said no, that she knew how
to behave. When we went into the school she
was just brilliant. I first met that girl ten years
ago. Now she is a qualified social worker. She
fulfilled her dream–although she didn't go to the
university she mentioned.
Letter From The Future
 Write a letter from your future self to your current self from a place
you are happier and have resolved the issues that are concerning
you now
 From [five years/two months/ten years/one year] from now; let your
intuition and their response guide the time frame; adjust as
necessary
 Describe where you are, what you are doing, what you have gone
through to get there, and so on
 Write about the crucial things you realized or did to get there or
write about some crucial turning points that led to this future
 Give yourself some sage and compassionate advice from the future
Letter From The Future
Use these questions to guide their letter writing:
 What have you learned and gained perspective on since back in [fill in
the present date/year]?
 What things were you worried or frightened about in those days that
seem trivial or far away for you today?
 What problems seemed overwhelming or insurmountable in those days
that you did eventually resolve or overcome?
 What sage advice would your future self give to that present self?
 What comfort or reassurance would your future self give to your
present self?
 Who were you troubled by, frightened by or concerned with that now
doesn’t matter as much?
S.O.A.P.
Appreciation
and
Happiness
Three Aspects of Appreciation
1. Highlighting Gratitude to Oneself: Note to oneself
things that one can be grateful for on a weekly basis
2. Savor: Note to oneself or others what one
appreciates aesthetically, like a beautiful sunset, a
good meal, and so on
3. Expressing Gratitude to Others: Express appreciation
to those people one values and is grateful to
Appreciation
Awe
Gratitude
Thankfulness
Recognizing grace (unearned
blessings)
Showing and expressing appreciation
to others
Mindfulness
Savoring
Ricky Boone
Who blessed you?
Exercise: Finding/identifying
angels, mentors and models
• Who has taken a special interest in you and encouraged
you?
• Who believes or believed in you?
• Who has been/is your mentor?
• Who have been your inspirational models?
• Who has blessed you?
• Who has been your angel?
The Gratitude Exercise
At the end of each day, after dinner and before going to sleep, write down
three things that went well during the day. Do this every night for a
week. The three things you list can be relatively small or large in
importance. After each positive event on your list, answer in your own
words the question: “Why did this good thing happen?”
This exercise was found to increase happiness and decrease depression up
to 6 months after the week. [Note: 60% of participants carried on the
habit.]
Seligman, M.; Steen, T.A.; Park, N.; and Peterson, C. (2005). “Positive psychology
progress: Empirical validation of interventions,” American Psychologist, 60:410421.
Gratitude/appreciation

Expressing gratitude has a short-term positive
effect (several weeks) on happiness levels (up to a
25% increase)
 Those who are typically or habitually grateful are
happier than those who aren’t habitually grateful
Park, N. Peterson, C. and Seligman, M. (2004). “Strengths of character and wellbeing among youth,” Unpublished manuscript, U. of Rhode Island.
Gratitude Letters
In research studies, both initiator and recipient of a
gratitude letter report positive outcomes.
Instructions: Write a gratitude letter to a person you
choose, expressing your gratitude and for what and
why, specifically, you are grateful.
If at all possible, deliver it personally and ask the
person to read the letter in your presence.
If personal delivery is not possible, mail, fax, or email
the letter and follow up with a phone call.
Source: Chris Peterson, A Primer in Positive Psychology
Savoring
Savor: To appreciate fully; enjoy or relish - American
Heritage Dictionary
 Pay full attention; engage
 Use as many of the senses as you can (sight, sound, touch,
taste, smell)
 Don’t multi-task; focus on what you are experiencing or
perceiving
 Don’t overdo; savoring diminishes due to the hedonic
adaptation if done too much or too often
 Share it with others
Three Types of Savoring
Anticipating something good [Futureoriented savoring]
Enjoying something in the present
moment [Present-oriented savoring]
Remembering something pleasurable
from the past [Past-oriented savoring]
S.O.A.P.
Purpose/meaning
and
Happiness
The Meaningful Life and
Happiness
Several studies with older Americans find that one of the best
predictors of happiness is whether or not a person thinks his
or her life has a purpose. If they had no such sense of
purpose, seven out of ten people studied felt unsettled about
their lives; if they had a sense of purpose seven out of ten felt
satisfied.
Lepper, H. (1996). In Pursuit of Happiness and Satisfaction in
Later Life: A Study of Competing Theories of Subjective WellBeing. Ph.D. Dissertation, UC Riverside.
The Meaningful Life and
Happiness
College students who enjoyed their lives and studies were
compared to those who didn’t. The main difference was that
those students who were happier had an underlying sense of
purpose in life.
Rahman, T. and Khaleque, A. (1996). “The purpose in life and
academic behavior problem students,” Social Indicators
Research, 39:59.
Elements of the Meaningful Life
 Purpose
 Contribution
 Engaging work or activities
 Finding meaning in suffering
 Turning negative or hurtful events into happiness or
satisfaction with positive connotations or meaning
Four Key Findings
S.O.A.P.
Social Connections
Optimism
Appreciation (Gratitude)
Purpose (greater than oneself)
A Mnemonic: P.O.S.I.T.I.V.E.
Purpose/Meaning
Optimism
Social Connections
Increased Gratitude/Appreciation
Take care of others
Income above a certain level
Vocational security
Exercise
Egyptian Afterlife Entry Questions
Have you found joy in your life?
Has your life brought joy to others?
Source: The Bucket List, starring Morgan Freeman and Jack
Nicholson
Best Summary Books
Martin Seligman, Authentic Happiness
Chris Peterson, A Primer in Positive Psychology
Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness
Eric Weiner, The Geography of Bliss
Dan Gilbert, Stumbling On Happiness
Resources
Journal of Happiness Studies
www.authentichappiness.org
www.pos-psych.com
www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu
www.bus.umich.edu/Positive
www.viastrengths.org
www.centreforconfidence.co.uk
www.psych.uiuc.edu/~ediener
people.virginia.edu/~jdh6n
www.faculty.ucr.edu/~sonja
89.234.4.50/cappeu/index.aspx
Bill O’Hanlon’s info
Websites:
http://www.BillOHanlon.com
http://www.PublishingaBook.com
http://www.PaidPublicSpeaker.com
Email:
Bill@billohanlon.com