
Stanford Research on Happiness and Meaning - bpang
I'm currently taking a class from Prof. Jennifer Aaker at Stanford GSB. She's known for research on happiness - quite a profound topic. Here are some findings I thought are interesting:<p>50% of it is determined by birt or genetics. Circumstances such as marital status, earnings, and looks determine 10%, and the remainder comes from intentional activities or things we can do to change our happiness level.<p>Researchers postulate that each individual has a "set point" for happiness, which is largely determined by birth and genes. Deviations from that point tend to be short-lived.<p>How does money affect happiness? Once people are free from deprivation, the tie between money and happiness begins to fray. There's generally positive correlation but money yields diminishing returns.<p>Middle-class and affluent people are often stuck on a "hedonic treadmill" as they sacrifice personal relationships for diminishing returns.<p>They why do people pursue wealth? Psychologists argue that they are seeking "positional advantage." Most people are happy with less money on one condition - "everyone else is also making less."<p>In contrast, traits such as self-confidence and energy correlated with happiness.<p>What can we do to be happier?<p>(1) Time shift: First how many hours of deep, hard thinking do you get done each day?<p>(2) Work on projects you LOVE (not like): It releases happiness in your brain! People become more effective when the brain releases endorphines!<p>(3) Reframe expectations: An example: http://bit.ly/LouisCK10 People take technology for granted today and forget about the very recent past. Lowering expectations brings happiness. Take yourself less seriously.<p>(4) Create a reward system: Rewards make people happy. Try to create rewards, even small ones.<p>(5) Carve out clear areas of incompetence: Claim areas of incompetence! Admit it.<p>(6) Cultivate emotion contagion<p>(7) Create sticky memories: the "who" and "what" are important. Research (in the US) has also found that morning and night memories are stickier, as well as Christmas - the most memorable holiday.
A few tips:
"Perceived" free time is important!
Social skills: Typically there are 8 close committed relationships. family, close friends, siblings, partners, etc.
Dancing: makes people happy!
Volunteering: People who report time and money report greater well-being! 
Being Part of SOmething Bigger
Not money! you just need enough money to live happily. Research also found that spending money on your friends and people you care actually makes you happier.<p>(8) Improve sense of humor!<p>She also discussed the "Six Selves Model": friends, parent, partner, work, community/spirituality, and health, which are the foundations of personal happiness. Try to allocate time over these different areas. Although you can be very busy, identify "temporal sweetspots". Allocate quality attention to each spot, even if it's temporal. She further suggested listing favorite traditions to build habits.
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aoeuid
This is the kind of 80-20 knowledge compression that I love seeing on HN and
in general. Even if it's not completely new information, it quickly informs me
on at least one good view on an important and largely overlooked issue. Now I
can at least be well-armed for my google searches, without having to give up a
(perceived) large chunk of time in reading a 10 page article or 20 minute TED
talk.

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aceregen
I noticed the following characteristic about one friend who always sounded
cheery.

When things go wrong (and there's often 1001 ways things go wrong, and 1 way
where they go right) - We often slap ourselves and say "It could have been
better if.."

However, I noticed my friend tend to think along these lines - "It could have
been much worse, but that didn't happen. Somehow we got through it."

What doesn't kill you, make you stronger anyway.

~~~
bumbledraven
That's the way of thinking described in "How to make yourself happier in just
a few seconds" <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1152224>

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MITDGreenb
I recommend reading up on behavioral economics, particularly the works of Amos
Tversky, Daniel Kahnemann, and Dick Thaler. This is not pop psychology with
truthiness like "money doesn't buy happiness" and "meditation is the way."
Rather, it's well-researched works on happiness, fairness, and economics.
Start with this great TED talk:
<http://blog.ted.com/2010/03/the_riddle_of_e.php> and then consider Thaler's
book "Nudge". You can also look at it from a marketer's perspective by looking
up Rory Sutherland, starting with his TED talk
<http://blog.ted.com/2009/07/session_2_runni_6.php>

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bpang
It's great to see so many people are interested in this topic. To provide more
color on some of the points above, here're some more details from research
findings (most are direct quotes from her research article): How to reduce
unhappiness? Overthinking can actually worsen sadness and make it harder to
escape unhappiness. In ruminating, we just become stuck with our feelings.
What do you do? Learn to disenage from overthinking about both major and minor
negative experiences. Go for a walk, read, call a friend, etc. Or find
distraction by thinking about something else. Thirdly, compartmentalize your
feelings. Talking also helps you get over unhappiness. Often, shift thinking
can help. That's also where meditation comes in. Socializing, exercising more
and losing weight are more effective than watching TV. Someone asked why does
deep, hard thinking make one happy? Research has found that "flow" often makes
time seem to stand still. There's a strong correlation between the experience
of flow in your brain and enduring levels of happiness. We experience flow
when there's a good match between our strengths and the task we are engaged
upon. A holistic view of life is critical to an ongoing level of happiness and
meaning. Thinking of our lives holistically, as interconnected and overlapping
domains, creates the possibility of multiplier effects. Finally, what's the
impact of happiness to doing good business? Making your customers happy and
your employees happy are crucial to building a strong business. Fostering a
community and encouraging community services or charity are some ways to
achieve so. Having a higher mission than pure profit pursuits has also been
proven to make employees happier and businesses successful.

------
exit
_(5) Carve out clear areas of incompetence: Claim areas of incompetence! Admit
it._

what?

~~~
tomerico
Maybe a different way to say - "Accept who you are"?

~~~
Mz
I think it is more than just "accepting yourself". I have found that one of
the best things I can do to convince people I am competent is to know those
things I should not give opinions about because I just don't have adequate
information. Admitting "I have no experience with that" (or some similar
limitation) tells people that I am not simply being willfully unhelpful but,
instead, I am trying to avoid giving bad advice. An awful lot of smart,
educated people fall victim to the feeling that they _must_ have an opinion or
answer on anything that comes up and get themselves in a pickle by then saying
something really ill-informed. Knowing when to say "I simply can't help you
with that because I lack adequate knowledge/skill/experience" is relatively
rarely done and is psychologically powerful. I used to think it gave an
illusion of greater competence than what you actually possess, but perhaps it
works in part because "do no harm" genuinely provides superior quality than
willy-nilly running around trying to work on things you aren't really
qualified to do properly.

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eliot_sykes
For anyone else like me who wanted to know what emotion contagion is (#6
Cultivate emotion contagion), from Wikipedia:

\-- Emotional contagion is the tendency to catch and feel emotions that are
similar to and influenced by those of others. One view developed by John
Cacioppo of the underlying mechanism is that it represents a tendency to
automatically mimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations,
postures, and movements with those of another person and, consequently, to
converge emotionally.[1] A broader definition of the phenomenon was suggested
by Sigal G. Barsade—"a process in which a person or group influences the
emotions or behavior of another person or group through the conscious or
unconscious induction of emotion states and behavioral attitudes". \--

More here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_contagion>

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revorad
Thanks a lot for this. Very interesting list of actionable points.

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waxman
If you're at all interested in this stuff check out Stumbling on Happiness by
Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert <http://bit.ly/cfze2u>. For a preview,
here's his Ted Talk: <http://bit.ly/bRAkXW>

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leemoore
I've found that intensive practice of meditation over the last 3 years
including both a daily practice and going on more extended retreats has
fundamentally shifted the way in which I perceive and engage with moment to
moment experience which has in turn steadily raised my baseline level of
happiness.

I fully understand this is subjective anecdotal data and that it's quite
possible I'm fooling myself though I don't believe I am. I've heard similar
reports from others who have engaged deeply with various contemplative
practices.

~~~
charlesju
Do you fully subscribe to the notion of pure meditation, in that you should
feel neither good nor bad? Once I understood what it meant to fully meditate;
give up desires to love, build stuff I have a passion for, tackle challenging
problems, I found that the proposed benefits of feeling not bad just didn't
seem to weigh out.

~~~
leemoore
A notion of pure meditation doesn't have much meaning for me. It just sounds
like someones attempt to take an extremely broad and varied set of useful
practices and overly simplify in an effort to assert internally or externally
that there is one right/best/pure/perfect way of doing something. I don't
subscribe to that view. Like programming languages or frameworks or
methodologies or any other set of maps and techniques they have their various
levels of usefulness depending on person and circumstance.

Also, the idea of giving up desire, passion and things of this nature is often
misunderstood. It is not necessary to give up ones humanity, emotions, loves
or anything else. It's more about changing the way in which you perceive and
engage with all experiences of life. It's not like I've stopped feeling bad. I
feel bad plenty. It's more that feeling bad (and feeling good) is experienced
in a very different way.

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tokenadult
_50% of it is determined by birt or genetics._

But this is a misinterpretation of what broad heritability shows.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=838534>

In other words, it may be that there are environmental interventions that can
HUGELY influence happiness that just haven't been tried yet. Better
understanding of the development of happiness over the course of life, a line
of research evidently being pursued by your professor, may eventually show
what some of those interventions are.

~~~
jamesbressi
Agreed. I believe that "50% of it" is UN-determined. Genetics undoubtedly play
a role, but environment (development, interventions, etc.) dually play a role.

The problem is that environment and its interventions can be a difficult
variable to tie down in studies. Good call.

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bpang
One more note: Working for a larger purpose creates happiness and meaning.
This is why volunteer activities, caring for your family and friends,
supporting a charity, or working to live up to your moral principals all feel
so good. Ultimately, we all seek a continuing experience. We thrive on feeling
that we matter, and that what we do matters. We also experience meaning when
we have a sense of "congruence and coherence" between who we are and what we
do.

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yread
For me it's quite simple, really:

\- think about the pleasant things in the past,

\- focus on the nice experiences and senses in the present,

\- and look forward to great things in the future.

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edo
I wonder how thinking deep and hard for a few hours a day makes you a happier
person, anyone ideas?

~~~
sp332
Thinking hurts. Your body releases endorphins to deal with the pain.

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zackattack
I appreciate it. This is great stuff.

It would be even better if you made it a blog post. Grey-on-white is hard to
read.

Thanks! Great stuff!

~~~
sahueso
It wouldn't be better at all. What made it so great was it went straight to
the point without filling with the random-bullshit-to-make-it-longer many blog
posts have.

~~~
zackattack
My point is that it's annoying to read #828282 on #F6F6EF. It's unpleasant
contrast.

~~~
miles
Control+Option+Command+8

