Researchers using a representative sample of 973 twin pairs found that the heritable differences in happiness were pretty well explained by the differences in personality, particularly the dimensions of neuroticism, extraversion, and conscientiousness.

What does that mean for people who’d like to be a bit cheerier but may not have inherited the ideal personality? Co-researcher Tim Bates from University of Edinburgh said in an article on the study:

‘If people want to raise their own levels of well-being, our best advice is that they practice the kinds of behaviors that characterize calm, conscientious, extroverts…Try and be active and social, even if with just a few people. Practice the things you find emotionally challenging, maybe even keeping a diary to help you keep a sense of reality, and allow you to reflect on which strategies work, and which do not.’

Uh – does this all sound familiar? That’s because we’ve covered a lot of this ground in 101 Happiness Strategies.

To recap:

How to be happy – 11. Focus on what you can do to be happier

Genes – via personality – contribute at most 50% of happiness variance. That leaves a lot of wriggle room around the genetic stuff for boosting happiness.

How to be happy – 12. Make peace with your personality

Much of the personality influence works via the way people act - which is why Bates suggests we ‘practice the kinds of behaviors that characterize calm, conscientious, extroverts’. What you do affects how you feel.

How to be happy – 13. Act like you’re an extravert – even if you aren’t

Introverts who behave like extraverts are happier than those who don’t. Again, personality might be the premise, but it’s not the whole story. You drive the narrative.

How to be happy – 14. Concentrate on intentional factors

When you take into account that genes/personality might contribute 50% and external conditions another 10% to happiness, you’re left with a solid 40% up for grabs. That’s too much happiness potential to leave on the table while complaining about your personality shortcomings.

Happiness Life Strategy: Know your personality

Knowing your personality traits can help you make choices for happiness. For every personality profile there’s a situation that brings out the best – and the worst – in a person.

Technorati Tags: happiness,personality,genes

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Although positive psychology and well-being research have flourished, there’s no  agreed-upon theory of happiness. But a model has been suggested, quite recently in fact, and it’s based on 3 factors (1).

1. Circumstances and demographics
- like health, finances and marital status

2. Personality and genes 
- the ‘innate’ aspects of a person

3. Intentional factors 
- deliberate actions like pursuing a goal

These 3 factors vary in how much, and for how long, they can change a person’s level of happiness. The first 2 will probably sound familiar by now:

1. Circumstances and demographics

Overall circumstances at a given time make a pretty small contribution to happiness – as we saw in Happiness Strategy 8: Make happiness an inside job and Happiness Strategy 10: Don’t keep up with the Joneses.

And changing these circumstances leads at best to a short-term boost, because people quickly adjust to new conditions, as we saw in Happiness Strategy 9: Get off the hedonic treadmill.

According to the model, circumstances and demographics contribute about 10% of the variance in happiness, in statistical terms.

2. Personality and genes 

Unlike the small effect of conditions, genes and personality make a big difference to happiness levels, as we saw in Happiness Strategy 11: Focus on what you can do to be happier and Happiness Strategy 12: Make peace with your personality. It may be that people have a happiness set-point around which they fluctuate with circumstances.

According to the model personality and genes contribute about 50% of the variance in happiness.

Our conscious behavior can explain some of the happiness-personality link, as we saw in Strategy 13: Act like you’re an extravert – even if you aren’t.

Which leads nicely to the third part of the model.

3. Intentional factors 

We’re left with about 40% for the last factor in the happiness model – the actions or behaviors people engage in deliberately. They might be:

• Cognitive – like counting your blessings
• Behavioral – like exercising regularly
• Volitional – like striving for a goal.

Although intentional factors aren’t automatic, they can become a habit over time (1).

Happiness strategy: Concentrate on intentional factors

Looking at the factors in this model of happiness, it’s clear where our happiness-raising efforts will have the most benefit. Circumstances contribute little, changed circumstances bring short-term gains at best, and genes offer limited opportunity for tweaking. Rather, it’s the intentional component of the model that makes a large contribution to happiness as well as offering a way to sustainable happiness change.

• What kinds of intentional actions can we use to raise our happiness levels?
• Is there research evidence that they work?
• And if they work, will we stay happier for life, or will we have to keep doing them?

Upcoming strategies will cover these and many other questions about intentional factors as a way to raise your own happiness. Stay tuned!

Research sources:

(1) Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K. M., & Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 111-131.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

Technorati Tags: happiness strategies,happiness model,happiness,personality,circumstances,intentional factors

We saw in Strategy 12 that introverted people tend to be less happy than their extraverted counterparts.

But before you anti-social butterflies throw up your wings in despair and head for the nearest net, let me share some nuggets of evidence that the extraversion-happiness link is less clear-cut than it looks.

1. Even the strong correlations between extraversion and happiness (up to .61 for the statistically minded; 1) allow for rather a lot of happy introverts. Most of us can think of someone who’s not naturally outgoing, but who’s happy. If extraversion isn’t inevitably related to happiness, something else must be at work, at least for the happy introverts.

2. Happy introverts act a lot like like happy extraverts – at work, leisure and even when engaged in solitary activities (1). So although  happy introverts and happy extraverts score differently on personality traits, they behave in similar ways.

3. Simply acting extraverted leads to feeling happier. This applies whether you’re deliberately making an effort to be social, optimistic and active (some of the qualities of extraversion) or you do it naturally in the situation (2).

The fact that there are unhappy extraverts and happy introverts means it can’t be extraversion per se that makes people happy. Rather, the findings above suggest that both extraverts and introverts are happy when they do extraverted things. Perhaps acting social, optimistic and active comes naturally to extraverts – but the good news for the rest of us is that even when introverts act that way, their happiness increases too.

Happiness strategy: Act like you’re an extravert – even if you aren’t

Wherever you sit on the introversion-extraversion dimension, you can be happier. You needn’t go from party pooper to party popper overnight, but you can take small actions that feel good to you. For instance:

• Start one conversation each day
  It can be with a person at the store, the library, the gym, the coffee machine – anywhere you see people. Keep it simple and light – no medical stories or rants about today’s youth. Starting up conversations is a great way to build your social muscle – and soon you’ll find it’s less of an effort and more of a habit.
• Initiate social dates
  Not everyone is the life of the party but we do all benefit from having a network of people in our lives – even a small one. Be prepared to initiate some social activities yourself. Start with something simple like inviting a friend out for coffee or suggesting a movie to see with a small group you already know.
• Plan activities for yourself
  You might feel disinclined to plan activities but having a schedule is a good way to become more proactive. Boosting your energy level and opting for a little extra adventure can be goals you pursue at a pace that feels challenging, but good. 

The idea with this strategy is not to push yourself to be something you’re not. Rather, simply aim for the more extraverted end of your own spectrum – and you might just find yourself at the happier end, too.

A note on neuroticism
Neuroticism hasn’t attracted as much research attention as extraversion, so we don’t have parallel findings about people acting emotionally stable (neuroticism’s opposite pole). As happiness research continues to thrive, such research may emerge.

Research sources:

(1) Hills, P., & Argyle, M. (2001). Happiness, introversion-extraversion and happy introverts. Personality and Individual Differences, 30(4), 595-608.

(2) Fleeson, W., Malanos, A. B., & Achille, N. M. (2002). An intraindividual process approach to the relationship between extraversion and positive affect: Is acting extraverted as ‘good’ as being extraverted? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83(6), 1409-1422.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

Technorati Tags: happiness,personality,positive psychology,extraversion,happiness research,happiness strategies

Image: (eLi) under the terms of a creative commons license

In Strategy 11 we saw there’s evidence that genes link to happiness via personality – which has a moderate-to-strong genetic component, emerges early, and stays stable-ish through life.

Psychologists believe personality can, to some extent, be reflected by 5 traits: agreeableness, openness,  conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism. These ‘Big-Five’  are dimensions, not types, so all 5 appear in everyone to some extent. And they don’t sum up a person – they’re simply helpful descriptive tools.

Of special relevance to happiness are neuroticism, a tendency to be anxious, moody and easily upset, and extraversion, an inclination toward sociability, optimism and activity. Quite a lot of research suggests there’s a personality-happiness link: that happiness relates positively to extraversion and negatively to neuroticism. (1; 2; 3).

This link – and the finding that personality doesn’t change much over your life – has led some psychologists in the past to say  happiness is genetically set (4). But these days psychologists see heredity as indirect – you can thwart unwanted aspects of personality by deliberate action (5) – such as avoiding triggering situations or consciously choosing to do things that may not come naturally.

Recent research supports the idea of a more indirect happiness-personality link:

• Personality is only one influence on happiness (4). Other factors play a part – and may even counteract personality effects – in a person’s happiness level.
• The happiness-personality link fades when you include happiness-generating behaviors (6).  (There’ll be much more on these in upcoming strategies). That is, happiness has a lot to do with a person’s actions.
• For instance, extraverts feel happier because they make more effort to manage their moods (7).

Happiness strategy: Make peace with your personality

If you’re inclined toward sociability, optimism and activity, celebrate your extraversion! If you’re naturally resistant to upsets, worry and bad moods, enjoy your freedom from neuroticism! And if you’re both extraverted and emotionally stable (the opposite pole of neuroticism) then congratulations – you have a happy personality (8)!

If, however, you recognize in yourself a more introverted temperament, or a leaning toward the neurotic, then you might like to notice the things you do that don’t serve your happiness, and choose different behaviors that may not come so naturally. For instance:

• Recognize your perspective may be skewed
  If you lean toward the neurotic, you might think in ways that promote worry, moodiness and upset. Don’t beat yourself up about it – but do recognize that the way you see things may not be constructive. Instead of giving worries and bad moods too much attention, consider seeing them as quirks of personality – and you may find they lose some of their bite.
• Find alternatives to ruminating
  Ruminating is an ineffective way of dealing with worry. If you catch yourself doing it, consciously switch to a more proactive strategy, like writing in a journal, talking with a friend, or brainstorming possible actions to take – anything that stops you endlessly re-hashing go-nowhere thoughts.
• Develop a repertoire of bad-mood busters
  Feeling bad can set you on a downward spiral of negative thinking. Instead, stage a mood intervention and do something to make yourself feel better – just like you might do for a friend. Activities that get you out of your head can be a welcome distraction – like books, movies, DVDs, (keep them light and fun), shopping, gardening, playing sport or games, or spending time with friends. 

These suggestions can help you develop a more emotionally stable approach to upsets. There’s also much to be gained from boosting your extraversion level – as we’ll see in the next strategy.

Research sources:

(1) Cheng, H., & Furnham, A. (2003). Personality, self-esteem, and demographic predictions of happiness and depression. Personality and Individual Differences, 34(6), 921-942.

(2) Hayes, N., & Joseph, S. (2003). Big 5 correlates of three measures of subjective well-being. Personality and Individual Differences, 34(4), 723-727.

(3) Headey, B., & Wearing, A. J. (1992). Understanding happiness: A theory of subjective well-being. South Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.

(4) Lykken, D., & Tellegen, A. (1996). Happiness is a stochastic phenomenon. Psychological Science, 7(3), 186-189.

(5) Lyubomirsky, S. (2001). Why are some people happier than others?: The role of cognitive and motivational processes in well-being. American Psychologist, 56(3), 239-249.

(6) Tkach, C., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2006). How do people pursue happiness?: Relating personality, happiness-increasing strategies, and well-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7(2), 183-225.

(7) Lischetzke, T., & Eid, M. (2006). Why extraverts are happier than introverts: The role of mood regulation. Journal of Personality, 74(4), 1127-1162.

(8) Francis, L. J., Brown, L. B., Lester, D., & Philipchalk, R. (1998). Happiness as stable extraversion: A cross-cultural examination of the reliability and validity of the Oxford Happiness Inventory among students in the U.K., U.S.A., Australia, and Canada. Personality and Individual Differences, 24(2), 167-171.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

Technorati Tags: Happiness research,happiness strategies,personality,positive psychology,happiness,extraversion,neuroticism

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Lesson: Some people are born happier than others

Is happiness genetic? Partly, yes. Twin studies suggest that genes could explain 38% (1) to 44-52% (2) of happiness variance. Other researchers think these figures leave out important considerations, and that perhaps 25% of our potential for happiness may be related to genes (3). That means your happiness level is at best partly inherited, with the greater balance due to other factors.

Some researchers propose a genetically-specified happiness set-point – a baseline level to which you continually revert through life’s ups and downs (2; 4), and there’s evidence that this does happen (4). The idea is that your personality colors experiences as they happen, and hedonic adaptation restores happiness levels following major life events (5).

There’s also evidence that genes link to happiness via personality (6). Individual differences in both happiness and personality have a moderate-to-strong genetic component, emerge early, and stay stable through life (7).

Happiness strategy: Focus on what you can do to be happier

If you’re thinking of using this lesson to defend being less happy than you’d like – think again! Genes don’t account for everything about happiness – if they did, heritability would be close to 100% (as it is for height) – and it’s nowhere near that. There’s a great deal of happiness that genes don’t explain.

So if you’re one of those born-happy people, enjoy it! But realize it’s still up to you to make happiness a conscious choice for the times when being happy doesn’t come naturally.

And if you weren’t born with glad genes, take heart. You might be starting from a different happiness place, and perhaps there’s not much you can do about that. But there is a lot you can do about where you go from there. By choosing to be happy and applying these happiness strategies, you can take charge of the many aspects of happiness that you do have control over – and there are plenty. Why stay where you are when you can use your mind to get somewhere better?

Now, getting back to personality – how does it affect happiness? Is there a happy personality? You know what – there is! Find out next time if you have it.

Research sources:

(5) Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Lucas, R. E. (2003). Personality, culture, and subjective well-being: Emotional and cognitive evaluations of life. Annual Review of Psychology, 54(1),

(7) Diener, E., & Lucas, R. (1999). Personality and subjective well-being. In N. Schwarz, D. Kahneman & E. Diener (Eds.), Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 213-229). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

(6) DeNeve, K. M., & Cooper, H. (1998). The happy personality: A meta-analysis of 137 personality traits and subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 197-229.

(4) Headey, B., & Wearing, A. (1989). Personality, life events, and subjective well-being: Toward a dynamic equilibrium model. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 57(4), 731-739.

(2) Lykken, D., & Tellegen, A. (1996). Happiness is a stochastic phenomenon. Psychological Science, 7(3), 186-189.

(3) Ricard, M. (2007). Happiness: A guide to developing life’s most important skill. London: Atlantic Books.

(1) Stubbe, J. H., Posthuma, D., Boomsma, D. I., & De Geus, E. J. C. (2005). Heritability of life satisfaction in adults: a twin-family study. Psychological Medicine, 35(11), 1581-1588.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

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Image by by jonbro under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Lesson: Money changes everything -

Strategy 8 highlighted the small contribution of external life conditions to happiness, and Strategy 9 showed that changes to these conditions only make a short-term difference – we adapt and our happiness levels are soon restored.

Since for most of us money is one of the most important life conditions – and one often expected to produce happiness – money is the subject of this strategy.

The research on money and happiness may not be what you expect:

• Personal incomes in the US have doubled over the past half-century, yet people are no happier (1)
• Spending money on life experiences (doing) makes people happier than spending money on possessions (having) (2)
• Spending money on possessions is linked to lower life satisfaction and higher risk of psychological illness – that is, it can actually undermine happiness (2)

Why don’t larger incomes make us happier? And why should doing make us happier than having? Psychologists have some suggestions. (2)

1. Whereas things fade into the background through hedonic adaptation, experiences continue to please through memories and shared anecdotes. Even crappy experiences can be re-interpreted or narrated as funny stories that give the teller pleasure.

2. A pay rise, house purchase or new car can disappoint if someone else has more. (And someone always does.) This may help account for dramatic income rises not bringing greater happiness.

Don’t underestimate the power of social comparison in eroding possession-pleasure. In one study half the participants preferred an income of $50,000 to $100,000. (Read that again.) The catch?  Their peers would earn half as much in the first case ($25,000), and twice as much in the second ($200,000). (3)

Happiness strategy: Don’t keep up with the Joneses

Money is a truly wonderful resource. It can bring physical comforts, ease others’ suffering and give peace of mind. I want lots of money so I can have all these things – and more!

But if you’re using money as a barometer – an indicator of your social worth – then it’s less likely to make you happy than to bring you dissatisfaction and perhaps even psychological troubles. Decide not to play that game – set your financial goals based on your own needs and desires, not what others have. This is incredibly difficult for most of us to do, but reminding yourself that the comparison game is one you can never win might give you resolve.

Nor will filling your life with stuff create lasting happiness. Instead, think about spending your money on experiences – even simple ones like books, hobbies, outings with family and friends, or travel. These can add to your happiness in a way that’s not so short-lived.

Strategies 8, 9 and 10 have shown, perhaps counter-intuitively, that circumstances have a pretty small impact on happiness, and that life events affecting relationships, employment, money or health may temporarily change happiness, but hedonic adaptation will eventually, and in many cases quickly, return us to pre-change levels.

But what about genes – aren’t some people just born happier than others? That’s where we’ll pick up next time.

Research sources:

(1) Myers, D. G. (2000). The funds, friends, and faith of happy people. American Psychologist, 55(1), 56-67.

(3) Solnick, S. J., & Hemenway, D. (1998). Is more always better?: A survey on positional concerns. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 37(3), 373-383.

(2) Van Boven, L. (2005). Experientialism, materialism, and the pursuit of happiness. Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 132-142.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

Image by zzzack under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Lesson: We adapt quickly to the good and the bad

We saw in Strategy 8 that, outside extreme stress or deprivation, circumstances add little to happiness. But what about changing those circumstances – wouldn’t getting a different job, winning the lottery or moving to a new state make us happier? The research might surprise you.

• Happiness boosts from life events don’t last (1), and in most cases people adapt within about three months. (2)
• Even following drastic changes in conditions, people tend to return to their pre-change happiness levels. Amazingly, this happens for extreme highs like winning the lottery as well as severe losses like becoming paraplegic. (3)
• Despite a windfall like winning the lottery, people can still become depressed. (4)

Why don’t ‘better’ circumstances bring us greater long-term happiness? Psychologists call it the hedonic treadmill – a tendency to quickly take stock of the new situation and revise our expectations accordingly (5). For example one year after winning the lottery, winners enjoyed simple pleasures like watching TV less than the average person – they seemed to need more to be happy.

Adaptation appears to happen when a change is continuous or repetitive – as most changes in circumstances are (6). Because of this repetitive exposure, people habituate to extreme as well as routine conditions – they take advantage for granted, and learn to live with misfortune (7).

Happiness strategy: Get off the hedonic treadmill

Because people rapidly adapt to new conditions, changing your external situation leads at best to a short-term boost in happiness. Life events affecting relationships, employment or even health can temporarily shift your happiness level, but hedonic adaptation will eventually, and often quickly, return happiness to pre-change levels.

Realizing that externals don’t bring long-term satisfaction can take a lot of pressure off you. Change is often wonderful, stimulating and good for our growth, but constantly switching your job, partner or ’stuff’ can be a distraction as well as a source of disappointment. As a strategy for happiness, running after external answers means you have to keep running to maintain the good feelings. To get a sustainable happiness boost we have think and act differently – as later strategies will explore.

We can’t leave the topic of life conditions without taking a closer look at money. Cyndi Lauper, among others, said it changes everything. Does that include happiness? Check out the next strategy to find out.

Research sources:

(5) Brickman, P., & Campbell, D. T. (1971). Hedonic relativism and planning the good society. In M. H. Appley (Ed.), Adaptation-level theory: A symposium (pp. 287-302). New York: Academic Press.

(3) Brickman, P., Coates, D., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 36(8), 917-927.

(7) Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1980). Influence of extraversion and neuroticism on subjective well-being: Happy and unhappy people. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 38(4), 668-678.

(1) Headey, B., & Wearing, A. (1989). Personality, life events, and subjective well-being: Toward a dynamic equilibrium model. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 57(4), 731-739.

(6) Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K. M., & Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 111-131.

(4) Nissle, S., & Bschor, T. (2002). Winning the jackpot and depression: Money cannot buy happiness. International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, 6(3), 183-186.

(2) Suh, E., Diener, E., & Fujita, F. (1996). Events and subjective well-being: Only recent events matter. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 70(5), 1091-1102.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

Image by maHidoodi under Creative Commons.

Lesson: Externals don’t have a big impact on happiness

You might think the happiest people are the ones with great life conditions – money, health, youth and a good marriage. But researchers have used statistical techniques to quantify how much circumstances contribute to happiness, and their findings tell a different story.

Here’s what they’ve found:

• –Factors like age, gender, social class, culture, marital status and employment are only weakly-to-moderately associated with happiness (1;2)
• -The combined contribution to happiness of circumstances, demographics and events in a person’s life is small (between 8-15% of happiness variance in statistical terms) (1; 3)
  -A large twin study found education, income, marital status, socioeconomic status and religiousness each contributed little to happiness (at most 3% of variance) (4)

Now, there are certain times when externals make a big difference to happiness:

• Better conditions can dramatically boost happiness under very deprived circumstances (5)
• Acute stress or unpleasant life episodes can undermine happiness (6)
• Both within and between nations, the poorest are the least likely to be happy (7)

Beyond extreme stress or deprivation, though, circumstances add little to happiness. And in developed nations there’s little relationship between income and happiness (7).

Happiness strategy: Make happiness an inside job  

We all know people who seem to ‘have it all’ yet lack any contentment in their lives. And we can easily think of celebrities blessed with looks, money and success who struggle with drugs, depression and despair.

The circumstances and conditions of our lives don’t provide a direct link to our happiness level, and looking to these externals may be a misleading path to happiness – as the studies, and life, show. Realizing that being happy is an inside job could be the single smartest thing you do toward your own happiness goal. Future strategies will shed more light on just how to develop these internal resources.

Meanwhile, you may be wondering what would happen if we changed our circumstances – got a new job, won the lottery, or moved to a new state. Surely that would make us happier, right? 

Tune in for the next strategy to find out.

Research sources:

(3) Andrews, F. M., & Withey, S. B. (1976). Social indicators of well-being: Americans’ perceptions of life quality. New York: Plenum Press.

(7) Diener, E., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2002). Will money increase subjective well-being? Social Indicators Research, 57(2), 119-169.

(1) Diener, E., Suh, E. M., Lucas, R. E., & Smith, H. L. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress. Psychological Bulletin, 125(2), 276-302.

(6) Headey, B., & Wearing, A. J. (1992). Understanding happiness: A theory of subjective well-being. South Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.

(4) Lykken, D., & Tellegen, A. (1996). Happiness is a stochastic phenomenon. Psychological Science, 7(3), 186-189.

(5) Oishi, S., Diener, E. F., Lucas, R. E., & Suh, E. M. (1999). Cross-cultural variations in predictors of life satisfaction: Perspectives from needs and values. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(8), 980-990.

(2) Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2001). On happiness and human potentials: A review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 141-166.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

Image by ewanr under Creative Commons.

Lesson: Happiness isn’t the opposite of depression

Before the growth of positive psychology, psychologists were mainly concerned with problems. Research focused on understanding what caused difficulties like depression, and on alleviating them. It was thought easing depression would bring about – well, happiness.

But newer research has shown that understanding what leads to depression doesn’t reveal the whole story about human experience – it doesn’t help people to thrive. Most people would like to know about the positive side of life too!

It turns out that easing suffering is not the mirror image of promoting happiness. You can’t just focus on fixing problems and expect to be happy. Happiness, it seems, needs a focus all its own.

Happiness strategy: Don’t just ease the bad, boost the good too

It certainly makes sense to address problems. But letting a problem dominate your thinking can give it a life of its own.

Take Sally, the perpetual dieter. She obsessed with calorie values, devours every new diet book and talks constantly about her weight. She’s had her career and love-life on hold for years as she waits for those pounds to push off.

Or Jake, whose long-term depression has become his whole life. There’s no room for friends, work, or hobbies. He talks about ‘my depression’ like it’s an old friend.

Fixating on problems can be exhausting and never-ending – after all, there’s always something else to worry about. It can be like a mountain without a peak. So it makes sense to put some energy into the flip side – not just the absence of bad, but the presence of good.

Perhaps Sally could learn a language on her iPod while taking walks – anything to boost her self-esteem and take the focus off her weight.

Maybe Jake could start a hobby that’s always interested him – like gardening or playing the guitar – and do one small thing each day to develop his interest. Before long he’d have something new in his life and would see himself in a more empowering light.

For the rest of us, building more good stuff into life could mean aiming for calm under pressure rather than avoiding stress (which is pretty impossible anyway), or eating more vegetables rather than forbidding chocolate (double ditto).

By all means, ease your pain, but don’t let that be all you do.

Research sources:

Cheng, H., & Furnham, A. (2003). Personality, self-esteem, and demographic predictions of happiness and depression. Personality and Individual Differences, 34(6), 921-942.

Duckworth, A. L., Steen, T. A., & Seligman, M. E. (2005). Positive psychology in clinical practice. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 1(1), 629-651.

Sheldon, K. M., & King, L. (2001). Why positive psychology is necessary. American Psychologist, 56(3), 216-217.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

Image by fdecomite under Creative Commons.

Lesson:

By now you probably need no more convincing that being happy is a good thing. We’ve seen how happiness supports your health, how happiness comes before, and sometimes causes, many other benefits, and how happiness is good for people around you, too.

Before moving on to new research lessons and strategies for applying them it’s worth reviewing the perks of choosing to be happy:

• Enjoying physical health
• Enjoying mental health
• Having better coping skills
• Being more resilient
• Feeling satisfied at work
• Having good relationships with colleagues, friends and loved ones
• Living a long life
• Having immune system strength
• Liking yourself
• Being more altruistic
• Liking others
• Being better at managing conflict

Of course, these findings are generalized across people – for some the effects are small or non-existent, for others they’re significant. In general, though, simply being happy is likely to have advantages for you and the people in your life.

The research is compelling, but you also know yourself that you have greater energy, get more done, suffer fewer colds, and find work better when you’re happy. When you’re down everything seems to go wrong.

Happiness strategy: Make happiness a goal

Contrary to being a selfish preoccupation, choosing to be happy can help boost your mental and physical resilience, improve your work, relationships and health, and lead you to be more altruistic, sociable and better at conflict management. It puts you in a strong position to contribute to your family, friends, community and society.

What all this means is that you can feel really good about making happiness a goal for yourself. Happiness isn’t just an end in itself, it’s also a means to being, doing, and giving more. With that in mind, let today be the day you make the choice to be happy. And there are many more strategies ahead to help you do just that.

Research sources:

Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131(6), 803-855.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

Image by by matsukawa1971 under Creative Commons.

Lesson: Happiness makes you – well, nicer

Strategy 4 looked at the range of benefits associated with happiness. But the perks aren’t just for you. The 293-study meta-analysis from Strategy 4 also revealed benefits for your relationships and the people around you.

These findings came from the experimental studies, where good feelings were created artificially – for instance, by asking people to recall a pleasant memory or showing them a cheerful film. It seems being happy itself caused people to be more sociable and altruistic, to like others more, and to be better at resolving conflict.

Let’s take a closer look.

1. Happiness can make you more altruistic.
Happy people tend to do good things for others. Raising your own happiness can give you the desire and motivation to improve other people’s lives – whether at home or in the larger world.

2. Happiness leads you to like people (including yourself) more.
Happiness can make you more open, sociable, and able to enjoy others. Just imagine the difference being happy can make to a person’s home, work and social life.

3. Happiness improves your conflict resolution skills.
Disagreements can be stressful for everyone. Having a happier outlook can help you keep your head and calm things down when problems arise.

Happiness strategy: Spread it around

Some people find the idea of focusing on their own happiness selfish.

The world is full of tragedies – war, global warming, poverty, inequality, violence, to name a few – why should we be happy?

Closer to home there are the stresses of work, family, and sometimes difficult trials to navigate. Amid all the pressure, how can you justify thinking about your own happiness?

It seems that, just by being a happy person, you can benefit the world you live in – by being kinder to others, spreading more joy and helping to manage conflict. In fact, happiness is so important at a society level that some researchers think it should join economic and social indicators in measuring quality of life.

So you can feel good about choosing to be happy. You can enjoy knowing you’re likely to have more to give, and more desire to do so. Doesn’t that seem a better approach than staying unhappy?

Research sources:

Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Lucas, R. E. (2003). Personality, culture, and subjective well-being: Emotional and cognitive evaluations of life. Annual Review of Psychology, 54(1), 403-425.

Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131(6), 803-855.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

Image by angela7dreams under Creative Commons.

You might be surprised by the sheer breadth of benefits associated with happiness.

One study performed a meta-analysis of 293 separate findings to tease out the relationship between happiness and success.

First they looked at correlation studies – what goes with happiness. They found happier people tend to be favored in plenty of areas, including:

• Relationships
• Work
• Self-control
• Health
• Coping
• Immune system functioning.

Maybe you’re thinking anyone would be happy if they had it together in all these ways. But the long-term studies showed people were happy before, not because of, enjoying good relationships, work and health.

Perhaps most interesting were the experimental studies, where good feelings were created artificially – for instance, by asking people to recall a pleasant memory or showing them a cheerful film. It seems being happy itself caused people to experience a range of benefits, including self-liking, social skills, altruism and better immune functioning.

It’s not so surprising that being happy is linked to many good outcomes across life areas – if your relationships, work and health are good then of course you’ll be happy!

The big lesson is that happiness seems to come first.

Happiness strategy: Be happy now

Some people have decided they can’t – or won’t – be happy until they…

• Meet their dream person
• Finally get that big break
• Lose weight
• Get someone else to change.

You can spend your whole life waiting for circumstances to be just right. If you put off happiness until that perfect situation, you may be denying yourself happiness in the meantime – and for what? Being happy now may be just the boost you need to help you get some of the other things, too.

So don’t wait another moment to choose happiness. And start enjoying those perks.

Research sources:

Lyubomirsky, S., King, L., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131(6), 803-855.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

Before the growth of positive psychology, most psychological research focused on people’s bad experiences. It was well known that negative emotional experiences could damage relationships, health and longevity. Not only that, but many studies suggested negative experiences, in general, had more influence on people than positive ones. What a bleak picture!

Thankfully, more recent studies have looked at the opposite side of the spectrum, and a brighter story has emerged. For instance, positive emotions (being happy!) have been repeatedly shown to help people cope better during difficult times. And while it’s true that bad times can strongly affect us, the good times are more frequent. So over the long-term, it seems the good may well outweigh the bad.

Looking at positive as well as negative influences on people is also changing the way psychologists think about challenges like anxiety and depression. Instead of concentrating only on recent events that leave people vulnerable to psychological difficulties – such as stress – they’re now investigating long-term resources that make people resistant to these problems – such as personal strengths and friendships.

Here are some interesting findings:

• Happy adolescents are less likely to act out when stressed (1)
• People experiencing positive emotions following the September 11 attacks were less inclined to become depressed (2)
• Positive resources, like a sense of meaning, control and optimism, buffer against both mental and physical ill-health (3)
• Feeling good can protect against the development of disease (4).

Happiness strategy: Choose happiness for your health

If you’ve been thinking that seeking happiness is superficial or selfish, this research might make you think again.

Nurturing your own contentment could help strengthen you against mental and physical problems in the future – including depression and disease. You might save yourself, your family (and even your medical system) a great deal of emotional and financial cost. That doesn’t seem so superficial, does it?

Being happy can help protect you against mental and physical health concerns, and that’s a great benefit – but it’s by no means the only one. Apart from just plain feeling good, happiness brings a broad range of perks to you and the people around you. Stay tuned for future strategies.

Research sources:

Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Finkenauer, C., & Vohs, K. D. (2001). Bad is stronger than good. Review of General Psychology, 5(4), 323-370.

Caprara, G. V., & Steca, P. (2005). Affective and social self-regulatory efficacy beliefs as determinants of positive thinking and happiness. European Psychologist, 10(4), 275-286.

(2) Fredrickson, B. L., Tugade, M. M., Waugh, C. E., & Larkin, G. R. (2003). What good are positive emotions in crises: A prospective study of resilience and emotions following the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84(2), 365-376.

Gable, S. L., & Haidt, J. (2005). What (and why) is positive psychology? Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 103-110.

Keyes, C. L. M., & Lopez, S. J. (2002). Toward a science of mental health: Positive directions in diagnosis and interventions. In S. J. Lopez & C. R. Snyder (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 45-59). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

(4) Richman, L. S., Kubzansky, L., Maselko, J., Kawachi, I., Choo, P., & Bauer, M. (2005). Positive emotion and health: Going beyond the negative. Health Psychology, 24(4), 422-429.

Simonton, D. K., & Baumeister, R. F. (2005). Positive psychology at the summit. Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 99-102.

(1) Suldo, S. M., & Huebner, E. (2004). Does life satisfaction moderate the effects of stressful life events on psychopathological behavior during adolescence? School Psychology Quarterly, 19(2), 93-105.

(3) Taylor, S. E., Kemeny, M. E., Bower, J. E., Gruenewald, T. L., & Reed, G. M. (2000). Psychological resources, positive illusions, and health. American Psychologist, 55(1), 99-109.

Tugade, M. M., Fredrickson, B. L., & Feldman Barrett, L. (2004). Psychological resilience and positive emotional granularity: Examining the benefits of positive emotions on coping and health. Journal of Personality, 72(6), 1161-1190.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

So now we’re clear what we mean by ‘happiness‘. But how do researchers measure it?

Since it’s subjective wellbeing we’re interested in, it makes sense that most research uses self-report questionnaires – that is, researchers find out how happy people are by asking them.

There are various self-report questionnaires designed to tap into aspects of happiness, some long and comprehensive and others just a single question, and they draw on many different types of questions.

By and large, using psychometrically validated questionnaires to gauge happiness is sound – the results match other, more detailed methods like

• Asking family and friends about the person
• Conducting in-depth interviews
• Conducting projective tests (such as asking the person to make up a story about a neutral picture).

Happiness strategy: Score your happiness level

Scoring your happiness level gives you a starting point for the happiness strategies to come in this series.  Why not try some of the strategies over coming weeks and then test yourself again to see whether they’ve helped boost your happiness level?

There’s another reason for testing your happiness. Some people have a vague sense of unhappiness that disappears when directly measured. It might be based on past problems, unrealistic expectations or other unexamined ideas that just don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Whether or not this is true for you, testing your happiness level helps you clarify where you are now, and can motivate you to take action toward a happier life.

You can try a variety of happiness measures for yourself at Martin Seligman’s Authentic Happiness site – but you’ll have to register. Look for ‘happiness’ in the inventory title.

Or, for a quick and effective measurement, use this version of Andrews & Withey’s single-question Delighted-Terrible Scale (what a great name!). This measure is brief but comprehensive, spans time and life areas, and is designed to tap both feeling and thinking aspects of life satisfaction. It’s psychometrically valid and was even used as the quality-of-life measure in the ABS 2001 National Health Survey.

Ready?

How do you feel about your life as a whole, taking into account what has happened in the last year and what you expect to happen in the future?

7  delighted
6  pleased
5  mostly satisfied
4  mixed
3  mostly dissatisfied
2  unhappy
1  terrible

When you answer the question, keep in mind that we’re talking about a long-term, overall, thinking and feeling idea of happiness.

And whatever your number, remember it’s just a starting point. We have a lot of strategies yet to cover.

Research sources:

Andrews, F. M., & Withey, S. B. (1976). Social indicators of well-being: Americans’ perceptions of life quality. New York: Plenum Press.

Diener, E., & Diener, C. (1996). Most people are happy. Psychological Science, 7(3), 181-185.

Diener, E. D. (1994). Assessing subjective well-being: Progress and opportunities. Social Indicators Research, 31(2), 103.

Sandvik, E., Diener, E., & Seidlitz, L. (1993). Subjective well-being: The convergence and stability of self-report and non-self-report measures. Journal of Personality, 61(3), 317-342.

Schmuck, P., & Sheldon, K. M. (2001). Life goals and well-being: To the frontiers of life goal research. In P. Schmuck & K. M. Sheldon (Eds.), Life goals and well-being: Towards a positive psychology of human striving (pp. 1-17). Seattle: Hogrefe & Huber Publishers.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

Most of the research on happiness refers to subjective wellbeing* (SWB), sometimes called hedonic wellbeing.

Here’s what researchers generally agree about SWB:

• It’s somewhat stable. Over time people tend to stay within a range of happiness, allowing of course for the inevitable ups and downs of life.
• It’s fairly consistent across life areas. People who are moderately happy at work are often moderately happy in relationships, again allowing for highs and lows.
• It involves a judgement about how satisfactory life is, compared to expectations. A rich, loved, attractive person expecting more than they have might be unhappy, while a less favored person who’s satisfied with their life might be perfectly content.
• It involves experiencing more positive than negative feelings overall.

When people talk about ‘happiness’, they usually mean this long-term, overall, thinking and feeling idea of SWB.

Happiness strategy: Get clear about happiness

You can tell from this definition that happiness is much broader than either mood – like waking up grumpy – or state – like getting stressed because work is overwhelming. You can have bad days, rough times and disappointments but still be a happy person, enjoying SWB.

With this in mind, you can take a broad view of happiness to help keep short-term hassles in perspective. Letting your troubles trick you into thinking that you’re miserable or life sucks can put you on a path toward depression. But seeing happiness as more stable can stop those inevitable ill winds from blowing your house down.

It also helps to notice the role expectations play in your happiness. If you expect things to be fabulous all the time you’re sure to find life less satisfying than if you’re prepared for a more varied life experience.

This strategy really comes down to seeing happiness in a more empowering way – adjusting your gauge to encompass your whole life and monitoring your expectations so they serve rather than undermine your happiness.

It’s a theme we’ll return to again and again – being happy is largely in your head.

*SWB differs from psychological wellbeing, which is marked by having a sense of meaning, purpose and growth in life. It’s sometimes called eudaimonic wellbeing. Although psychological wellbeing is an interesting field of theory and research, this series will focus on SWB.

Research sources:

Argyle, M. (2001). The psychology of happiness (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.

Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95(3), 542-575.

Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist, 55(1), 34-43.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2001). On happiness and human potentials: A review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 141-166.

Spangler, W. D., & Palrecha, R. (2004). The relative contributions of extraversion, neuroticism, and personal strivings to happiness. Personality and Individual Differences, 37(6), 1193-1203.

Veenhoven, R. (1991). Questions on happiness: Classical topics, modern answers, blind spots. In F. Strack, M. Argyle & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Subjective well-being: An interdisciplinary perspective (pp. 7-26). Oxford England: Pergamon Press.

How to be happy:
101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

This post is part of a series covering simple, practical, research-inspired, happiness strategies you can use in your own life. For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

I’m starting a new series called
How to be happy: 101 practical strategies drawn from positive psychology.

The series will be divided into lessons from the research – snippets that summarize interesting findings about happiness and wellbeing. Along with each lesson there’ll be a strategy – a suggestion you can apply for yourself to move toward a happier life.

Starting this week, I’ll be be posting at least one new strategy each week.

For more information about the series, check out the 101 Happiness Strategies main page.

Tune in to this series to discover simple and practical, research-inspired happiness strategies you can use in your own life.