Psychology of Happiness
Index
Lecture 1: What is happiness?............................................................................................................2
Lecture 2: The social aspects of happiness.........................................................................................5
Lecture 3: Sex and happiness...........................................................................................................10
Lecture 4: Religion and happiness....................................................................................................16
Lecture 5: Mindfulness.....................................................................................................................23
Lecture 6: Happiness at work...........................................................................................................27
1
,Lecture 1: What is happiness?
Happiness formula:
40 % genes + 10-20% circumstances + 40-50% own choices.
problems with the formula
1) But this is not in an individual level, it is about explained variance.
2)The formula only works in stable western democracies.
Coronacrisis.. it shows that the formula might not work that well right now as it might have more
influence than 10-20%.
3) formula is overly simplified. The variables interact and are not independent
Happiness…
provides energy, leads to lower blood pressure after a stressful event, least to a better immune
system and leads to more tolerance for pain.
Research: the longevity of the nuns:
great to research because nuns live under the same circumstances more or less: same food, same
kind of job, same environment etc..
the research shows that happiness really makes your life longer.
But can we influence our own happiness? To what extend?
You see different opinions about this question.
Buddha: Happiness is partly in our own hands, we can influence it ourselves by behaving well.
Augustinus: he said trying to achieve happiness in our lives doesn’t make much sense. We should
serve god and maybe we can achieve happiness in the afterlife.
Pursuing happiness is a human right, it is a part of the constitution. Western governments see it as
something we want and can pursue.
Is there a genetic factor in happiness?
Yes, there is. If your twinbrother is depressed, for example. Changes are bigger that you’ll get
depressed too in your life.
Happiness correlates with intelligence and attractiveness.
How important are life circumstances in the creation of happiness?
we see that Scandinavia, Switzerland + the Netherlands are the countries with the highest level of
happiness. These are all relatively small (population-wise), stable and democratic countries.
We see that rich countries are much more happy than poor countries
We tend to overestimate the importance of life circumstances. Sometimes on a unconscious level.
“we want more money etc, that will make us happier”. Why do we think this is so important?
1. Immediate reward or punishment . Getting positive things immediately feel like a reward and
negative things feel like a punishment. But these effects do not last long.
predicting emotion: we are not good at prediction emotions. We know what kind of emotions we can
expect (sadness etc), predicting the intensity of the emotion is already a bit harder and estimating
the duration is the hardest part, we are not good at doing this.
Circumstances don’t really have an influence on happiness on the long term. It does on the short
term but it tends to change back to the old level of happiness.
There is an influence of weather on happiness, but it only lasts for a day or two days. It is not a long
term effect.
2
, Correlation versus causation:
there is a difference between these two.
Correlation = a relationship between two variables
Causation = a correlation which in which we know which variable causes the other to occur
People with a stable relationship are happier than singles
The effect of happiness on having a stable relationship is bigger. Because people most often don’t fall
in love with someone in a depression. People who are happy also tend to fight for their relationship
more than people who are not happy.
So… people tend to think circumstances are more important than what they really are.
Questions:
how would you define happiness?
having more positive than negative emotions and peace of mind.
cognitive: life satisfaction. If you look back how happy would you say you were?
What is the relation between money and happiness?
People who think money does not influence happiness say that money is not related to the most
important things in life like friends and love. But is money really not important?
Research done in Calcutta about satisfaction with life:
More money (income) does not influence happiness. Till about 70,000 annual income it is influencing
happiness but after that it does not influence happiness.
They also looked at stress, not feeling blue (experiencing negative emotions), positive emotions and
life satisfaction (‘ladder’). The ladder keeps improving after 60,000 dollar.
But.. they didn’t look at annual income specifically, they chose categories. Message of the study:
there is quite a correlation (as they focussed on the left part of the graph). But it led to confusion.
Belgian research:
They said that income influences happiness, but only till 4000-4500 euros per month.
But this is the only research that showed this.
So it is not true that after 70,000 for example it does not influence happiness anymore. Money keeps
influencing happiness, even if it is a very high amount of money.
Another prove that money influences happiness
If you give all the really rich people (income of millions of euro’s) their own country, it would be
the happiest country of the world.
3
Index
Lecture 1: What is happiness?............................................................................................................2
Lecture 2: The social aspects of happiness.........................................................................................5
Lecture 3: Sex and happiness...........................................................................................................10
Lecture 4: Religion and happiness....................................................................................................16
Lecture 5: Mindfulness.....................................................................................................................23
Lecture 6: Happiness at work...........................................................................................................27
1
,Lecture 1: What is happiness?
Happiness formula:
40 % genes + 10-20% circumstances + 40-50% own choices.
problems with the formula
1) But this is not in an individual level, it is about explained variance.
2)The formula only works in stable western democracies.
Coronacrisis.. it shows that the formula might not work that well right now as it might have more
influence than 10-20%.
3) formula is overly simplified. The variables interact and are not independent
Happiness…
provides energy, leads to lower blood pressure after a stressful event, least to a better immune
system and leads to more tolerance for pain.
Research: the longevity of the nuns:
great to research because nuns live under the same circumstances more or less: same food, same
kind of job, same environment etc..
the research shows that happiness really makes your life longer.
But can we influence our own happiness? To what extend?
You see different opinions about this question.
Buddha: Happiness is partly in our own hands, we can influence it ourselves by behaving well.
Augustinus: he said trying to achieve happiness in our lives doesn’t make much sense. We should
serve god and maybe we can achieve happiness in the afterlife.
Pursuing happiness is a human right, it is a part of the constitution. Western governments see it as
something we want and can pursue.
Is there a genetic factor in happiness?
Yes, there is. If your twinbrother is depressed, for example. Changes are bigger that you’ll get
depressed too in your life.
Happiness correlates with intelligence and attractiveness.
How important are life circumstances in the creation of happiness?
we see that Scandinavia, Switzerland + the Netherlands are the countries with the highest level of
happiness. These are all relatively small (population-wise), stable and democratic countries.
We see that rich countries are much more happy than poor countries
We tend to overestimate the importance of life circumstances. Sometimes on a unconscious level.
“we want more money etc, that will make us happier”. Why do we think this is so important?
1. Immediate reward or punishment . Getting positive things immediately feel like a reward and
negative things feel like a punishment. But these effects do not last long.
predicting emotion: we are not good at prediction emotions. We know what kind of emotions we can
expect (sadness etc), predicting the intensity of the emotion is already a bit harder and estimating
the duration is the hardest part, we are not good at doing this.
Circumstances don’t really have an influence on happiness on the long term. It does on the short
term but it tends to change back to the old level of happiness.
There is an influence of weather on happiness, but it only lasts for a day or two days. It is not a long
term effect.
2
, Correlation versus causation:
there is a difference between these two.
Correlation = a relationship between two variables
Causation = a correlation which in which we know which variable causes the other to occur
People with a stable relationship are happier than singles
The effect of happiness on having a stable relationship is bigger. Because people most often don’t fall
in love with someone in a depression. People who are happy also tend to fight for their relationship
more than people who are not happy.
So… people tend to think circumstances are more important than what they really are.
Questions:
how would you define happiness?
having more positive than negative emotions and peace of mind.
cognitive: life satisfaction. If you look back how happy would you say you were?
What is the relation between money and happiness?
People who think money does not influence happiness say that money is not related to the most
important things in life like friends and love. But is money really not important?
Research done in Calcutta about satisfaction with life:
More money (income) does not influence happiness. Till about 70,000 annual income it is influencing
happiness but after that it does not influence happiness.
They also looked at stress, not feeling blue (experiencing negative emotions), positive emotions and
life satisfaction (‘ladder’). The ladder keeps improving after 60,000 dollar.
But.. they didn’t look at annual income specifically, they chose categories. Message of the study:
there is quite a correlation (as they focussed on the left part of the graph). But it led to confusion.
Belgian research:
They said that income influences happiness, but only till 4000-4500 euros per month.
But this is the only research that showed this.
So it is not true that after 70,000 for example it does not influence happiness anymore. Money keeps
influencing happiness, even if it is a very high amount of money.
Another prove that money influences happiness
If you give all the really rich people (income of millions of euro’s) their own country, it would be
the happiest country of the world.
3
