Today’s Goals
- Mini Review: Emotions over time
- Wrap-up on affective forecasting
- Understand the components of subjective well-being
- Begin to understand the correlates and causes of subjective well-being
- Understand Ryff’s 6 components of psychological well-being
- Understand the hedonic and eudaimonic approaches to happiness
Mini Review
- Under what conditions is flow likely to occur?
When you’re interested in something
When challenge and ability is balanced
- How is the experiencing self different than the remembering self?
Experiencing: in the present, experienced in the moment – only last a few seconds Remembering: in the past, reflection
- How was the emotional experience of each measured by Wirtz, et al.?
Experiencing: participants were paged in the moment Remembering: questionnaire afterward
- Which ‘self’ seems more important to future choices?
Remembering self – what is considered when reflecting on past choices/experiences One we have access to when making future plans
Happiness
- State vs. trait
Close to right when comparing happiness to other personality traits
- Subjective well-being Operationalization of happiness
- Positive affect: lots of positive emotions
- Negative affect: few negative emotions
Can sometimes go in different directions – two separate things
- Life statisfaction: cognitive judgment/assessment that things are pretty good
o Typically self-report, but corroborated by other approaches Other measures exist • Eudaimonia?
Meaning and purpose in life
The Affect Circumplex
Referred to in readings
Satisfaction with Life Scale
- In most ways my life is close to my ideal
- The conditions of my life are excellent
- I am satisfied with my life
- So far I have gotten the important things I want in life
- If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing
Rate these items on a scale of agreement
Doesn’t ask how are things at school, sex life, hobbies, familial relationships – on purpose
This scale is very subjective – the participant gets to decide what is important (mental averaging, etc.)
Subjective Well-Being
- Relatively stable over time
People who are content/happy at one state, tend to stay in that mindset
- Moderate associations with personality Personality traits – Big 5
- Moderately heritable o Twin studies
o What this means
Meta-analysis: average of all results
Genes are fixed across different generations
Estimate – at about 50%
- Small associations with circumstances o Marriage, age, income, employment o What this means
Eudaimonia (vs. hedonia)
- SWB often described as the ‘hedonic approach’
- Many view this as insufficient
- Consensus that psychological health is broader
- g. Ryff’s 6 dimensions
- But, much less consensus on what eudaimonia is, exactly
- Sept 28 –
Aristotle’s Eudaimonia
- Living up to true potential o Based on virtue and efforts o Includes society’s values
- Objective good life o g. assessed by others at end o Skepticism about subjective experience
- Sometimes only loosely related to modern approaches
Ryff’s Psychological Well-Being o Self acceptance o Purpose in life o Environmental mastery
We are competent, we can master our environment o Positive relationships with others Support system
- Autonomy
We are doing what is right to us
- Personal growth (see table 1 reading)
- Some demographic differences, but similar to SWB
Come from the notion of broad psychological health
Huta’s Motives (HEMA)
- Seeking relaxation
- Seeking pleasure
- Seeking enjoyment
- Seeking fun
- Seeking to develop a skill, learn, or gain insight into something
- Seeking to do what you believe in
- Seeking to pursue excellence or a personal ideal
- Seeking to use the best in yourself
Mainly about motivations – why we do things is may be more important than the experience of them
Hedonia (vs. eudaimonia) • Is Eudaimonia happiness?
Doesn’t necessarily include positive affect
Some thing a part from happiness
- Hedonia vs. hedonistic
Hedonia: positivity and negativity in evaluating something
Is something pleasant or unpleasant
Hedonist: someone that is doing everything to maximize pleasure
Short-term pleasure at any cost – not what SWB is about
SWB: hedonic balance, sense of satisfaction (hedonic)
- Correlations high among constructs o Though may be possible to distinguish
Correlation between hedonia and positive emotions
- Causes and consequences o Positive affect and meaning, authenticity o Pro-social sources of pleasure o Happiness vs. cause/consequence
- Thought experiment
Some times people would go through things that are unpleasant for some other gain (sense of purpose, accomplishment, etc.)
Notion that there is more than just hedonism
Authenticity is not the only thing that is offered – better to know better and be unhappy than be an idiot and be happy
We value authenticity – we also value happiness
- Value of happiness
Happy People
Today’s Goals
- Discuss well-being project proposals
- Mini review (hedonic & eudaimonic well-being)
- Finishing up hedonia-eudaimonia links
- Understand ‘very happy people’ study
- Touch on other personality correlates
- Discuss how personality & happiness are related
Well-Being Project
- Guide & assignment details on cuLearn o What you must include o Resources to help find topic o Advice on how to develop it o Proposal template (use this file!)
- Be thinking about proposal/project now o Still some time (due Oct. 16)
o Early effort helpful in crafting good project
Well-Being Project Proposals
- Identify source of inspiration (may or may not be academic reference) Identify project and where it came from
- Clear description of what you will do for project o Think through some details; be concrete
- Indication of how you will assess/record outcomes and experience
i.e. questionnaire, journal, etc.
Be creative – good fit to goals of project
- Provide a link between proposed activity and psychological literature o Include 2 good supporting academic sources (beyond exercise source if a direct adaptation) o Clearly and briefly described academic sources in relation to your project
- ‘Academic sources’ o Peer-reviewed journal articles (& chapters) o NOT dissertations o NOT magazine articles or blogs o NOT popular press or self-help books o NOT textbooks
- You can cite non-academic sources of inspiration, but not as ‘support’ or to meet the minimum required references
- You can cite articles from class, but they do not count towards the minimum required references
- Use APA style (formatting & citations) o Tip sheet on cuLearn; other links in document
- Basic grammar, spelling, & language count
- Overall structure, clarity, & flow count o a single narrative flow is not needed for proposal o Use the template file (and rename it)
- It is fine to use “I”; this is about your plans and your experience.
- Avoid direct quotes o But give credit for others’ ideas with citations Your project should add something new
Should be about 2 pages
Mini Review
- What are the 3 components of SWB?
Positive affect, negative affect, life satisfaction
- How is SWB trait-like (four main reasons from Lucas)?
Relatively stable (correlates over time, rank over stability), heritable, personality, independent from environmental circumstances
- How can heritability be different in different populations?
Differences in environment/culture
Nature vs. Nurture – where genes don’t account for, the environment can and vice versa
- How is eudaimonia different than SWB?
Aristotle: objective well-being
Characteristics of the person that would still have insights to
Very Happy People
- What are the key ideas covered in the introduction?
- What were the main goals of this research?
- Few studies of very happy (rationale for PP)
- A few basic questions o Necessary or sufficient factors?
Necessary: is it something that you have to have to be a very happy person?
Sufficient: is there one thing, where if you have it, it’s enough you make you a very happy person? o Emotional range?
Are the participants complete manics or do they have healthy, functioning, emotional systems?
- What were [the major constructs and method features]?
- Identify people in top 10% of happiness with multiple indicators o Compare to lowest 10% and ‘middle’ group
- personality, emotions, events, relationships, etc.
- Happiness measures o SWLS
- Global affect balance
People rated how much they tend to feel a whole bunch of emotions o Informant affect balance
Each person in the study had a friend rate their emotions – objective reports o Daily affect balance
Reported emotions, what their experiencing self was experiencing o Life event recall balance
Write down all happy vs. unhappy emotions in x time
Take number of happy vs. unhappy emotions against one another – correlation?
- Trait adjectives (emotion balance vs. traits) o Suicide thoughts (reversed)
- Sept 30 –
- What are the main results?
- Social relationships o Friend, family, romantic; peer rating; time use
One of the key things that help differential happy vs. sad groups
Very happy people more likely to say they had been spending time with other people Correlate of happiness
- Personality o E, N, A, c, (O not significant); MMPI pathology
MMPI: personality questionnaire, more focused on pathological scales
Very happy people tended to score lower on undesirable characteristics
- Daily emotions (but full range for all)
Happy people average happened to be more positive – but they did use the entire range for all emotions
- What are the main results?
- Social ties necessary, but no sufficient factor
One necessary thing to be very happy, but that’s not the only thing o No major effects of circumstances/activities
- Pos/neg events; exercise; religious activity; smoking/drinking; TV; sleep; money perceptions; GPA; physical attractiveness
- BUT, careful of nulls with small, student sample (and cf. other studies) Other studies have found different results in what causes happiness
- What is the main conclusion of the paper?
- Very happy differ from others, particularly in:
- Social relationships, personality o No sufficient single factor
- Very happy not delusional (full mood range)
- What are the limitations of the study?
- All student, modest size sample
- Why might this matter?
Different stressors, more opportunity to socialize, more time to meet goals/needs
Variation in social life – developmental period vs. stabilization
Left out lots of things that could be related to happiness o Other measures not included… o Correlational approach
Doesn’t always mean causation o (Novelty oversold?)
- What are the implications of this study?
- Many factors to happiness, yet social ties appear key o Usefulness of focusing on (very) happy in research o Can borrow general approach from study of ‘negative’
Trying to point the spotlight at the other end of the distribution – toward a more positive side
A Bit More on ‘Happy Personality’
- Correlates o Big 5 facets
How these are broad traits, narrow facets o Motives, goals, needs
Other levels of personality o Self-esteem, self
Self-related constructs
Self-compassion – to come later o Ryff scales
Eudaimonic indicators – distinct from subjective well-being
Example of Extraversion Domain
How these things might be related to happiness
- Many potential levels & processes
- Genes
Same genes producing extraversion are producing SWB
- Physiology (e.g., BAS)
What are those genes coding for?
- Sociable/reward behaviour (cause & effect?) o Selection, evocation, manipulation
Notion that extraverts are more responsive/sensitive to rewards
Puts them in more of a reward state
Physiological things manifesting into different behaviours
Manipulation: active things we do in our environment – seeking out rewards through manipulation of environments
- Cognitive biases (e.g., memory, homophones)
Homophones: spelled the same, have different meanings
Extraverts vs. introverts – extraverts lean toward positive interpretations
- Self-regulation (mood)
Savouring – easier to put extravert into a good mood, and they stay in that good mood longer Better at maintaining positive moods?
- Culture
Effect is stronger in extraversion cultures
Issue of how is it ideally that you want to feel?
Most people are not extreme one way or another
More present in long-term averages than in single moments