We spend most of our lives trying to become happy and feeling satisfied. But, why is it
that when we finally feel happy, the feeling vanishes only to be chased after again? It
seems like no matter what we do in life and what choices we make, we always end up in
this state of needing to chase happiness and satisfaction. This video will take a look
at some philosophy and psychology of happiness, including examining what happiness is, where
it comes from, why happiness is so fleeting, and if there’s anything we can do about
its fleeting, transient nature.
Defining what happiness is precisely is controversial. One of the better definitions comes from psychology
professor Sonja Lyubomirsky; happiness is “the experience of joy, contentment, or
positive well-being, combined with a sense that one's life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.
Defining happiness is controversial because it can refer to many different types of feelings,
some of which conflict, including joy, excitement, gratitude, pride, optimism, contentment, meaning,
and others.
Because the term is comprehensive, psychologists and those that study happiness today sometimes
divide the word into two usages:
An ‘in the moment’ emotional experience like a feeling of joy, pleasure, or a specific
mood right now. A broad longer-term overview of satisfaction
with one’s life as it relates to things like relationships, achievements, general
optimism, and more over time.
Sometimes you’ll hear the term ‘subjective well-being’ used in place of happiness by
psychologists. Subjective well-being simply means a subjective measurement of one’s
personal feelings about life in the present and satisfaction about one’s life over a
period of time.
Perhaps to understand happiness better, it helps to understand why humans have it and
where happiness comes from.
Now, no one is fully sure why humans feel happiness, but the best theory to date is
that happiness is a product of evolution that incentivizes each of us to do what’s in
our genes’ best interest.
Happiness evolved to help increase the likelihood of survival and/or reproductive capacities.
Why?
Evolutionary theorists believe a common ape ancestor humans and chimpanzees have in common
was pushed out of the trees in Africa 6-7 million years ago, perhaps because of lack
of space.
This common ancestor had to forgo individualistic needs and collaborate with others in order
to survive in the savannah. This collaboration included team efforts to hunt prey, watch
for and wield off preditors, determine roles and status, and more.
It was out of this collaboration that the feelings of happiness we associate with being
human, like satisfaction, meaning, contentment, etc. arose. It also explains why happiness
is so fleeting.
Social Psychologist William von Hippel gives this basic example that helps illustrate why
this is.
Two cavemen named Thag and Crag go hunting for say, a Mastodon, to feed the tribe. A
desire for happiness and pride from the tribe propels them to do so. They kill the Mastodon
and bring it back to the tribe where they are celebrated and get their feelings of happiness.
However, Crag’s happiness is fleeting making him go out and kill more Mastodon to feel
satisfied again. The other, Thag, feels happy forever and never wants to put himself in
danger and hunt again.
Crag will undoubtedly gain more prestige since he’s doing more for the tribe and thus,
more romantic partners than Thag, therefore, spreading his genes. Thus, like yourself,
far future humans will have fleeting happiness since our ancestors spread those genes more
than genes associated with permanent happiness.
Plus, just think of the things that give us happiness today. These include
Food Sex
Engaging in fun times with friends Success in social contexts
Task completion
Clearly, it appears all these things are associated with increased probabilities of reproduction
and survival for human ancestors.
So if happiness is wired to be fleeting in all of us, this raises a serious question.
Is there a baseline level of happiness or subjective well-being we’re all stuck at
no matter what we do and accomplish in life?
In a 1971 paper titled “Hedonic Relativism and Planning the Good Society.” two psychologists
Brickman and Campbell began seriously exploring this issue.
This idea at the time was referee dto as hedonic adaptation and today is called the hedonic
treadmill or set-point theory of happiness.
It states that our level of subjective well-being is determined primarily by heredity and by
personality traits ingrained in us early in life. As a result, it remains relatively constant
throughout our lives.
At first, it was thought that our baseline level of happiness is neutral and fixed no
matter what. This was concluded in a paper investigating why parapalgics and lottery
winners both had the same levels of happiness.
However, new research has found otherwise. Specifically, researching is finding;
Setpoints are based on individuals, meaning some people may have higher happiness setpoints
than others. Some people may be naturally happier than others on average and some may
be depressed as a setpoint. This was concluded in a 2006 study titled "Beyond the Hedonic
Treadmill, Revising the Adaptation Theory of Well-Being"
There are possibly multiple setpoints as there are different factors to determining well-being
and happiness since it appears multiple things can influence happiness.
It appears setpoints are not entirely genetic and actions and present day environmental
factors can influence baseline happiness . A 1996 paper that followed a thousand sets of
twins for 10 years found that 50% of happiness is determined by genetics only.
Setpoints can be changed, although not dramatically, as indicated by (2005) study of 3,608 German
residents.
So, what does all this mean for you?
It appears that chasing a life in which you’ll be happy and satisfied all the time is a fools
dream. Happiness, in any form, is just a means to an end, not an ending.
The amount of happiness you feel right now watching this video will approximately be
how happy you’ll be for the rest of your life on average. This includes how you’ll
feel after a big life even like getting married, joining the army or graduating from college.
Much of your happiness and life satisfaction is determined by factors you don’t control
like genetics and early environmental factors. Yes, this is depressing, but the good news
is there’s no need to blame yourself or others for why you’re not as happy as you
think you should be.
There’s no need to put immense pressure to reach some sort of fictitious high-level
of happiness as depicted on social media, commercials, and disney channel movies and
doesn’t and scientifically can’t exist.
However, emerging studies suggest that you can change your current environment and thinking
to increase overall happiness in your life. You won’t ever be perfectly content, but
the amount of happiness you feel in general can increase.
It may be possible to increase happiness and well-being during one’s life, including
one’s baseline level of happiness even.
Emerging fields such as the positivity psychology movement and more research into the science
of happiness are shedding light on how increasing happiness may be possible. If you want, I
can go over some of those findings in upcoming videos if you like. Just let me know below
and let me know what your thoughts on happiness and life satisfaction are.