The Science of Happiness

To prepare for this week's Discussion, review the following videos in addition to this week's assigned Reading.

Gilbert, D. (2004). Dan Gilbert: The surprising science of happiness. Retrieved from

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html

The science of happiness is relatively new. In the past, researchers have focused on studying negative mood or thoughts and its relation to mood disorders, but a new interest has influenced researchers to study the effects of happiness on mental health. Being happy and positive can act as a protective barrier to mental illness.

People who are happy tend to have better relationships, careers, and physical and mental health than unhappy people. People are constantly pursuing happiness, but they also equate happiness to different things that may not bring ultimate lifelong happiness. For instance, some people equate happiness to money or material possessions; however, some people who win the lottery are no happier after winning. For this

Assignment, you will be discussing how one's thinking can influence his or her happiness.

Proceed with this week's Discussion by addressing the following about a relationship between happiness and mood or mental illness:

1. Explain in your own words what happiness is.

2. According to studies and/or the textbook, explain how thinking is believed to influence one's level of happiness as well as the development of depression and maintaining of its symptoms?

The strongest answer will refer to the textbook and concepts from the Reading material or other credible sources.

Michelle Roof

It is my view that happiness is the overall feeling of wellbeing. A person knows they are happy if they view things in their life are going good. This is a long term feeling, there will be times of intense joy and there will be times of sadness, but the person comes back to their baseline which is general happiness. It is understandable that so many of the studies focus on negative feelings. As Durand and Barlow (2013), children under stress develop more negative cognitive styles. Having a predisposition for negative thought can be the basis for depression later in life. Since depression affects so many people at different part of their life it is a disorder that is an important for researchers to understand.
In a study performed by Ford, Shallcross, Mauss, Floerke, and Gruber (2014), they state that the culture shapes the emotions people feel and want to feel and in Western cultures, happiness is an emotion that people want to feel. It is presented to us at a young age where even the children's' books in Western Cultures are more likely to have a very happy characters then in other cultures (Ford, Shallcross, Mauss, Floerke, & Gruber, 2014). Items like these children's books enforce the idea of how happy someone should be and as the children grow up the more likely they will want to participate in activities that bring them extreme happiness.

The authors make an interesting point in their introduction that even though happiness is associated with an increase in well-being and also with psychological health, if it is wanted at too much of an extreme degree or is valued too highly it can lead to a decrease in wellbeing (Ford et al., 2014). The thought behind this is that valuing happiness decreases positive emotion, and a decrease in positive emotion is one of the trademarks for depressive disorders. Another idea behind that statement is that the process of valuing an emotion is a critical early step in the emotional regulatory process. This is because when a person holds these values it makes subsequent emotion regulation attempts more likely. If these views become extreme or inflexible then they could cause a disordered emotion regulation (Ford et al., 2014). Inflexibility could include that the person believes they must be happy at all times. Having a disordered emotion regulation is a component of depression and has been theorized as a cause for the onset of depression (Ford et al., 2014). So in Western cultures where the idea of being happy and searching happiness is strong, in turn wanting it too much has become a risk factor for developing depression.

Ford, B. Q., Shallcross, A. J., Mauss, I. B., Floerke, V. A., & Gruber, J. (2014). Desperately Seeking Happiness: Valuing Happiness is Associated With Symptoms and Diagnosis of Depression. Journal Of Social & Clinical Psychology,33(10), 890-905. doi:10.1521/jscp.2014.33.10.890

Student 2

Happiness is an emotion that individuals experience when they feel good. Happiness, calm, relax, excitement and at peace are all emotions I think of when I think about happiness. Every individual have different things that make them feel happy, for instance money, clothes, family, faith, environment, nature, reading, relationships, people, culture and music. Many people see certain facial expressions and think, that person is happy. Smiling, laughing and singing make you think happiness but I personally feel they don't really represent happiness, example being a co-worker walking around smiling. The co- worker could just paint that smile on their face to hide sadness. I may have gone a little left with my explanation but happiness is anything that makes an individual feel good.

Dan Gilbert, TED talk states that the pre-frontal cortex acts as an experience simulator (D. Gilbert, personal communication, 2016). Meaning as humans we can have experiences in our heads before trying them out in real life (D. Gilbert, personal communication, 2016). We can basically think something is different than it really is. For instance, we normally think being disabled in any way can make us unhappy. That's why when many of us is faced with a critical sickness we think negative instead of thinking positive. Gilbert talked about how happiness can be synthesized meaning as human we can use our system of cognitive processes to help us change our views, so we can feel better (D. Gilbert, personal communication, 2016). My description about happiness describes natural happiness, which is what we get when we get what we wanted (D. Gilbert, personal communication, 2016) and synthetic happiness is losing a job and being happy because you thought well that's not the job for me, there's a better one.

Durand & Barlow, 2013 talks about "learned optimism, saying that if people faced with considerable stress and difficulty in their lives nevertheless display an optimistic, upbeat attitude, they are likely to function better". I also agree that emotions are contagious and if someone you are with is either happy or depressed, you will probably feel that same way (Durand & Barlow, 2013). Having negative thoughts can cause depression, anxiety and other unwanted illness. If you think positive, you can be happy and experience happiness even when something is negative.

References

Durand, M. V., & Barlow, D. H. (2013). Essentials of abnormal psychology (6th ed). Mason, OH: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Transcript of "The surprising science of happiness" (n.d.). Retrieved July 13, 2016, from http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy/transcript?language=en