So, if you are persuaded that happiness is important, the kind of, billion dollar I used
to call this the million dollar question, but with inflation, it has become the billion
dollar question.
Is it possible to become happier? And if it is possible to become happier, is it possible
to sustain it?
up to now, there has been quite a bit of pessimism in the scientific world about whether you
can even become happier, whether it's even possible to become happier. So, I am going
to start off by being a sort of, devil's advocate and talk about, well, what are some of the
reasons that maybe we should believe that it's not possible for us to sort of, sustain
a higher level of happiness. So, three reasons to be pessimistic: and the first is that
there's growing literature that we are all born with what's called a, a "set point" for
happiness, that part of happiness is genetically determined. And this is work that comes from
the field of behaviour genetics, and it shows that identical twins are much, much more similar
in their happiness levels, than are fraternal twins. So, this suggests that happiness is
heritable; it is passed down through our families, and so, a large portion, about fifty percent
(50%) of happiness is genetically determined. And so, that leads some researchers to conclude
that maybe it is futile, or kind of not very worthwhile to try to change our happiness
levels, because it's partly genetic. And we'll get back to that.
Okay, a second reason to be pessimistic is that happiness has been shown to be a trait-
it's an intrinsic part of our personality. And we know that personality does not change
much over time. I mean, it can change, but it is very hard to change, right. For those
of us who have tried to change our spouses, or our friends, we know how hard it is. Happiness
is especially, very highly related to two core aspects of personality which are extroversion,
being a sociable extroverted person, and neuroticism, being neurotic and emotionally unstable person.
And so, if happiness is part of our personality, how can we really change it? Studies have
shown that happiness is quite stable across people's lives, so, people who are unhappy
when they are younger tend to, sort of, be unhappy, as they are older.
And the final reason to be pessimistic and something that I am particularly interested
in right now, something I am doing research on is a phenomenon called "hedonic adaptation."
And what it shows is that human beings are remarkably adept at getting used to any positive
changes in their lives. So, we move into a beautiful new house, we buy a new car, we
get a new job- and at first it is really thrilling, it gives us a happiness boost, but over time
we get used to that and no matter what kinds of ups or downs in life we have, we sort of,
tend to go back to our baseline. And there is a famous study that was done in Germany
following twenty-five thousand (25,000) people living in Germany, before they got married,
when they got married, and after they got married and looking at their happiness over
time. What it showed is that people got a boost in happiness when they got married,
actually the highest level was in the year before the wedding, kind of like the engagement;
the honeymoon period. And how long do you think, and then people ended up on average
getting back to their baseline. Now how long do you think it took for people on average
to get back to their baseline, after getting married? Ten years, right after the wedding?
Okay, one day? Anyone else? Three what? One year, six weeks? I think the answers are telling
me a lot more about you guys: two years. Two years; now that's an average so, actually,
what I am really interested in is what about those people who got happier when they got
married, and stayed happier, for years and years, above their baseline? Some people actually
got less happy after marriage than they were before. So, anyway, hedonic adaptation is
a phenomenon that we get used to really quickly the changes in our lives. And so, if that's
the case, no matter what positive, thrilling, wonderful events happen to us, we won't be
happier because we just get used to it and we just want more; we go back down to our
baseline. So, those are three reasons to be pessimistic.