Another kind of group that does seem
happiest is people who report being satisfied
with their relationships.
So that's both romantic relationships but, also,
in terms of people who have lots of friends, who spend lots
of time with their friends, this is
one of the biggest predictors of who is happy and who's not.
It's basically your personal relationships.
So you see here that people who say that they're satisfied
with their relationships report being much happier than people
who report not being satisfied.
Now, another one is money.
And money gets people really interested about happiness.
Because in many ways, we don't really
like to think that money leads to happiness.
You know, we have this idea that, oh,
you can't buy happiness.
Happiness comes from within.
I still don't really understand where the idea came from.
Because, to me, if you look across countries,
rich countries are happier than poor countries--
quite straightforward.
Within countries, if you're poor within a country,
then you're less happy that if you're rich within a country.
So at least cross-sectionally, that's
if you measure one point of time,
money does lead to happiness, especially at the low end.
So especially for those people who
earn little amounts of money, even very small increases
can dramatically improve people's well-being.
But it's not just about having money.
There is also increasing evidence
about how you use your money impacts your happiness.
So if people use their limited budget,
which we all have a limited amount to spend,
if we spend more of it on experiences and not stuff,
then people seem to be happier from those experiences.
If we spend more money on others rather than just buying
stuff for ourselves, we seem to be happier as well.
So even though we can't wave a magic wand and become richer,
maybe we can allocate our spending differently
to try and improve our happiness as well.
Another one is fulfilling employment,
that if people feel in control of their lives,
if they feel that they are doing something they're good at,
that's another super strong predictor of who is happy
and who's not.
Now, I think I know what you're all thinking now.
I think what you're thinking is, this is just too easy.
Like, all you're telling me is, I need to get really rich.
I need to have amazing relationships both romantically
and otherwise.
I need to find a job that I'm, like, kickass at
and that I find really-- feel in control and fulfilling.
Like, I'm just going to go home tonight and be much happier.
But the thing is that actually it's a bit more complicated
than that.
And the reason it's more complicated
is because of this thing called hedonic adaption.
Now, basically, hedonic adaption,
it's not a good or a bad thing.
But it changes what it means to try and pursue happiness.
If we're trying to become happier,
then hedonic adaption can be your enemy.
So let me explain.
Basically, everything that we do,
everything that changes in our lives, we just adapt to.
That's what the human condition is.
We're supposed to be good at adapting
to changing environments.
And that's the same with happiness.
So even though things that we think
might really impact our happiness, we just adjust.
So within a few years, no matter kind of what happens to us,
we seem to go back to a set point.
So if you think about marriage, you think that maybe--
I showed you that relationships matter.
Maybe if we get married, we're going to be much happier--
but, no.
We're happier a bit beforehand.
And we're really happy on the day.
That's awesome.
And then [BLOWS RASPBERRY] back to normal.
No, marriage, not really helping.
Birth of a child?
Again, pretty awesome just before.
Pretty crappy just afterwards.
But again, we just adjust back to the set point.
Even when really terrible things happen,
even when really awful things, like the death of a spouse,
we do adjust back within a few years.
You can even see there's someone who's a bit happier
at the end there, but that depends on gender,
and it depends on a few other things.
But basically, we just adapt to what happens to us.
Now this has really important implications
for us pursuing happiness.
Because if we try to pursue happiness but then
we know that we adapt every time,
then we need to think about how big the changes are that are
happening in our lives.
If we win the lottery tomorrow, but then we adapt to that,
and in a couple of years' time we're
back to normal levels of happiness,
then we can't really win the lottery twice.
So really, it's about steady changes, steady gains.
People will be much happier if they slowly
increase their income over time than if they
had some massive windfall.
And similarly with other areas of life,
slow goal fulfilment that feels like you're making progress
is going to make people happier than big changes.