6 mar. 2009
26 feb. 2009
Psy. stuff - Happiness
The New Science of Happiness
A new and blossoming field of psychology - positive psychology - has begun to uncover fascinating, evidence-based answers to many questions about happiness. I've been sizing up the most recent findings to reveal the emerging science of happiness.
Because happiness is something most of us aim for, how we define it has important implications for how we conduct our lives. To see why, compare these two competing definitions of happiness:
1. Happiness is all about minimising pain and maximising pleasure.
The underlying idea here is that there is a kind of mathematics of happiness. Imagine if on our deathbeds we were able to add up all the moments of pleasure in our lives and then all the moments of pain. The amount by which the pleasures exceeded the pains would tell us how happy we were during our lives.
2. Happiness is satisfaction with life as a whole.
On the surface this looks like the same idea but actually it's completely different. Consider the case of Clea Koff, a forensic anthropologist who spent nine years working in Rwanda, digging up the remains of people killed in the 1994 genocide (Bergsma, In press). While this was clearly a gruesome task that would have given most people nightmares, afterwards she explained that the work was meaningful, which made it worthwhile. For Koff, then, happiness was satisfaction that she had done the right thing with her life.
The first definition of happiness is perhaps the one most associated with hedonism, and one that is implicitly accepted by many people. But I think the second definition is much better because it makes room for the idea that we give meaning to the things we do.
Happiness is not just a headlong charge towards whatever makes us feel pleasure, it is about finding satisfaction in ourselves and in what we have done.
Psy. stuff - Happiness through gratitude
Gratitude Enhanced by Focusing on End of Pleasurable Experience
One of the greatest challenges to achieving happiness through gratitude is routine, familiarity and habit. We behave as if the things we enjoy now - health, job, family and friends - will continue forever, despite knowing it's impossible. Usually only a change of some kind really captures our attention.
Attacking this complacency is at the heart of a new study which can be used to enhance the power of gratitude. Dr Jaime L. Kurtz, reporting her research in Psychological Science, hypothesises that one way to increase people's subjective well-being is to focus on when pleasurable experiences will end (Kurtz, 2008; PDF).
Six weeks isn't long
In her study Dr Kurtz recruited participants who were about six weeks from finishing college and graduating. They were asked to write about their experiences at college in one of three conditions:
1. Encouraged to view 6 weeks as a long time.
2. Encouraged to view 6 weeks as not very long.
3. Just told to write about what they had done on a typical day (control group).
Then, over the next two weeks participants were asked to complete four surveys. Participants in the first two conditions were encouraged to think about what they were grateful for: things like friends, clubs and activities, but with their remaining time at college framed either as very short or relatively long. Participants in the final control condition continued describing their typical day.
As Dr Kurtz predicted it was those in the second group who were happier after the intervention; the other two groups showed no significant improvement. It seemed that just being encouraged to think grateful thoughts was not enough to increase happiness. What made the grateful thoughts beneficial was focusing on the imminent end of this pleasurable experience.
On top of being happier, students encouraged to think how little of college remained were more likely to take advantage of the time they had left. They displayed greater motivation by taking part in more college-related activities. Dr Kurtz suggests thinking about the end of their experience at college put them in a 'now or never' frame of mind.
Life is short
It is hard to admit to ourselves that life is finite: elderly parents won't be around forever, close friends will move far away and we will eventually grow old and die. Naturally we consider these sad facts of life depressing and guess that no good can come of their contemplation.
But what this study suggests is that thinking about endpoints as a way of stimulating gratitude can be beneficial. Finite ends seem to inspire people to think carefully about what it is they have, because soon enough, and usually sooner than we would like to think, it will be gone.
<3 Petros Koublis
Niste fotografii foarte foarte foarte tari.
http://www.petroskoublis.com/profession/fashion
18 feb. 2009
Pentru Robot
Datorita mini-efectelor recesiunii si a chiaunelii de miercuri seara, robotul din BN cugeta urmatorul lucru: hai sa-mi fac blog.
Stiind niste inside details as putea trage concluzia ca nu doar aceste lucruri l-au determinat sa ia aceasta decizie deosebit de importanta. Eu cred ca dupa ce a vizitat anumite bloguri ale anumitor staruri in devenire (nu dau nume), s-a gandit ca e mega cool si ca e momentul ca blogurile sa revolutioneze BN-ul.
Si de ce nu? Acum ca vecinul Chirita a vandut compania de internet si am intrat intr-o noua era, de ce sa nu ne facem si noi bloguri? Asa ca mi-am facut si eu. :))
Stiind niste inside details as putea trage concluzia ca nu doar aceste lucruri l-au determinat sa ia aceasta decizie deosebit de importanta. Eu cred ca dupa ce a vizitat anumite bloguri ale anumitor staruri in devenire (nu dau nume), s-a gandit ca e mega cool si ca e momentul ca blogurile sa revolutioneze BN-ul.
Si de ce nu? Acum ca vecinul Chirita a vandut compania de internet si am intrat intr-o noua era, de ce sa nu ne facem si noi bloguri? Asa ca mi-am facut si eu. :))
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