How to pursue happiness using ancient wisdom and modern

psychologyand no New Year’s resolutions

Sage Lecture #6Dec. 15, 2008

Jonathan HaidtUniversity of Virginia

6 Lectures on Morality11/10: What is morality and how does it work?11/17: The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by

politics and religion 11/24: The positive moral emotions: Elevation, awe,

admiration, and gratitude 12/1: Hive psychology, group selection, and leadership 12/8: The dark side: Why moral psychology is the greatest

source of evil 12/15: The light side: How to pursue happiness using ancient

wisdom and modern psychology

ppt files available at www.JonathanHaidt.com, at bottom

1) How satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days? ____

1=extremely unsatisfied, 7=extremely satisfied

2) List 2 things you’d like to change about yourself

The value of recurrent ideas12 Great truths: Insights into mind and heart from

ancient cultures and modern psychology10 Great truths: Insights into mind and heart from

ancient cultures and modern psychology

The value of recurrent ideas

Expected conclusion: Ideas about human nature and well-being that arise across eras and cultures usually contain deep wisdom

Unexpected conclusion: Most of the “great truths” are united by the theme of relatedness.

The Divided Self (Great Truth #1)

St Paul’s lament: The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, so that ye cannot do the things ye would.

Medea’s lament: I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong.

Why don’t you…

Because “you” are not in charge

Q: Is consciousness the driver of a car? Or a rider on an elephant?

Two kinds of thinking

Automatic (elephant)

Intuition

Fast, easy… indefatigable

“hot” – connected to motivations, reward centers99% of all cognition

Two kinds of thinking

Automatic (elephant) Controlled (rider)

Intuition Reasoning, language, logic

Fast, easy… indefatigable Slow, effortful… tires out

“hot” – connected to motivations, reward centers

“cool” – not connected to motivational centers

99% of all cognition 1% of all cognition

Automatic vs. controlled perception

Automatic vs. controlled perception

Automatic vs. controlled motivation

Automatic vs. controlled behavior

Take home lesson: Self-change is elephant training

1) Change the elephant, gradually --Develop new habits, take 12 weeks to stick --Use small but immediate rewards --Try cognitive therapy, meditation, self-hypnosis

2) Change the elephant’s surroundings --Animals are “stimulus bound.” People too. Choose your environment and associates carefully.

3) Get relations right BETWEEN elephant and rider --know your elephant, and its strengths and weaknesses

Great Truth #2“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so”

“The whole universe is change, and life itself is but what you deem it” “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughtswe make the world.”

“There is no reality, only perception.”

Case Study: Qohelet

I made great works; I built houses and planted vineyards for myself;... I also had great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and of the provinces; I got singers, both men and women, and delights of the flesh, and many concubines. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem... Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.

--Ecclesiastes 2:4-10

Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had spent in doing it, and again, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:11)

Case Study: Qohelet

King Solomon, 19th C. illustration

Happiness Hypoth #1: Happiness comes from outside (from getting what you want: e.g., wealth, sex, power)

YR: 0 1 2 3 4 5

7654321

Who is happy? “How satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?”

1=extremely unsatisfied, 7=extremely satisfied

YR: 0 1 2 3 4 5

7654321

What we imagine will happen: Large permanent effects

Baseline

Win Lottery

Paralyzedfor life

YR: 0 1 2 3 4 5

7654321

What actually happens: full adaptation for most (but not all) We adapt very quickly

(Brickman, Coates, & Janoff-Bulman, 1978)

Win LotteryParalyzed for lifeAdaptation!

Solomon: “How do you keep your spirits up?”Hawking: “My expectations were reduced to zero when

I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.”

Major life events matter MUCH less than we expect!

--We are terrible at “Affective forecasting” (Dan Gilbert & Tim Wilson)

--“Happiness is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantagesthat occur every day.”

Who is happy? Demographic conundrums1) Age? Small age trends, peak is in 60s!2) Gender? No difference overall3) Race? Small or no differences4) Wealth? It’s complicated... --In very poor countries, and for poor people: YES --Above subsistence level, correlation becomes small --In the U.S., correlation is .12.... or maybe .18? --But part of that is reverse correlation --Tripling national wealth since WWII had NO effect --We’re on a “hedonic treadmill”: the more we get, the more we want. --But RELATIVE position matters a little

GT#2: Life itself is but what you deem it--There’s nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

--We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts

--Life is a banquet, and some poor sons-of-bitches are starving to death

Why? Because Everyone has a biological set point

--Avg happiness level is fairly stable from year to year--Avg happiness level is highly heritable: 50-75% of variance due

to genes: almost none due to shared family environmnt

Won the cortical lottery

Lost the cortical lottery

What did they win? Happy people…

--Have more friends--Have happier marriages and fewer divorces--Live longer--Recover from adversity faster, and grow from it--Become more successful: --clients like them, buy from them --bosses like them, promote them --throw themselves into projects more fully; live in the “realm of possibility” --Exception: lawyers. Pessimism is adaptive.

Happiness Hypothesis #2: Happiness comes from within

Good men, at all times, surrender all attachments. The holy spend not idle words on things of desire. When pleasure or pain comes to them, the wise feel above pleasure and pain. (Buddha)

Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well. (Epictetus)

The Positive Psych Alternative: Strive Right!

There IS a biological set point, but your happiness on any given day forms a distribution around that point:

H = S + C + V

S is your Set-point. --Raise it with Prozac/Zoloft/Lexapro…

C is the few Conditions that matter --increase your relatedness, and control

V is the Voluntary activities that you choose to do

I have now spent fifty-five years in resolving; having, from the earliest time almost that I can remember, been forming schemes of a better life. I have done nothing. The need of doing, therefore, is pressing, since the time of doing is short. O GOD, grant me to resolve aright, and to keep my resolutions. --from Samuel Johnson’s Diary

Stop making new year’s resolutions!Start doing “voluntary” activities that will change

the elephant

Voluntary Activity #1: Diagnose Yourself

--Are you on the negative half of the happiness distribution? (Find out at

www.authentichappiness.org)

--What are your strengths? How can you use them to get around your weaknesses? (take the “Signature Strengths Test” at www.authentichappiness.org)

Voluntary Activity #2: Improve Mental Hygiene--If you ARE low, or you ruminate, then buy Feeling Good, by David Burns.-- Or see a cognitive-behavioral therapist--Or start meditation or self-hypnosis

--Every evening, write down three things that went well that day, and their causes. (Especially the

role you played, the strengths you used, the friends and supporters you have.)

--These practices are as effective as Prozac at raising happiness levels

Voluntary Activity #3: Diet less, Exercise more--Dieting makes people irritable, and rarely works--Pleasure is an important part of the good life--A slight increase in exercise improves mood

throughout the day

Voluntary Activity #4: Improve relatedness--The unexpected theme of most chapters:

Relationships are the key to happiness!--Work on existing relationships--Write a gratitude letter--And cultivate new relationships, especially in groups

The Positive Psych Alternative: Strive Right!

There IS a biological set point, but your happiness on any given day forms a distribution around that point:

H = S + C + V

S is your Set-point. --Raise it with Prozac/Zoloft/Lexapro…

C is the few Conditions that matter --increase your relatedness, and control

V is the Voluntary activities that you choose to do

Demographics that matter: Conservatism

General Social Survey

And even more so: Religion

Why are religious conservatives so happy?A) Beliefs: --self-efficacy vs. victimology“While people begin with different

opportunities, hard work and perseverance can usually overcome those disadvantages”

B) Lifestyle = Community:--Marriage (and larger families)--Churchgoing--More charity--Hive psychology?

The New Synthesis in Moral Psych

1) Intuitive primacy (but not dictatorship)2) Moral thinking is for social doing3) Morality binds and builds4) Morality is about more than harm and

fairness

What is the meaning of life?

“Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations."

What is the meaning of life?

“42”

What is the meaning of life?Q1: What is the purpose for which I was put here?

What is the purpose OF life?

Q2: How can I life a full, rich, satisfying life? How can I find purpose and meaning WITHIN life? How can I avoid the feeling that: “all was vanity and a chasing after wind”?

Factors that increase MCC:

--Group is fundamental source of value--Emphasize similarity, shared traditions--Authoritarian or Authoritative parenting--Moral imperative to punish--Religiosity--Emphasis on duties, not rights--Ethos of support for authority and local institutions

The 6 Ultrasocial Animals

Hymenoptera: Bees wasps and ants

Also: termites… and naked mole rats…

The 6th Ultrasocial:

Great Truth #10: Happiness comes from between

“I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great”

(Willa Cather, My Antonia)

Happiness Hypothesis #3: Happiness comes from between

So does purpose and meaning WITHIN life

Get the right relationships between --Your rider and elephant --Yourself and others --Yourself and your work --Yourself and something larger than yourself

Thank you....

--Mike Gazzaniga--Jayne Rosenblatt--3rd floor of Psych East--Sara Miller McCune

ppt files available at www.JonathanHaidt.com, at bottom