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/ Sign In Chat Rooms () Home Conditions Quizzes Ask Q&A Drugs Blogs News Research Resources Find Help Community Pro 5 Reliable Findings from Happiness Research By John M. Grohol, PsyD Founder & Editor-in-Chief Yes, I know. There are dozens of books written about how to increase your happiness, probably hundreds of different blogs all promising you the secrets to the keys of happiness, and thousands of articles written on this topic. Since the positive psychology movement got started a while back, its been going bananas. And why wouldnt it? Who wouldnt like to learn some secrets to unlocking their inner happiness? Happier people tend to live longer, live healthier lives, make more money and do better at work. Its a chicken and egg problem, though. Does happiness bring those kinds of things, or do those kinds of things lead us to be happier? While we may not exactly know the answer to that question yet, we do know the answers to many other questions about happiness. 1. You control about half your happiness level. Although the exact level will vary from individual to individual, it appears that up to about 50 percent of our happiness levels are preset by genetics or our environment (called our happiness set-point). But thats good, because it also means that about 40 to 50 percent of our happiness is within our power to raise or lower. 2. Money doesnt buy happiness. Once we get to a certain level of income that is enough to pay our bills and keep us in the lifestyle weve grown accustomed to, more money doesnt result in more happiness. The only two exceptions to this rule is if you give money away, or if it significantly improves your social rank .

People who give money away appear to sustain greater levels of happiness over time than those who dont. 3. Lottery winnings create only temporary, short-term happiness. Winning the lottery makes people happy in the moment, but that happiness fades fairly quickly and then people return to their prior level of happiness. People who have won the lottery appear to be no more happy than those who havent in the long run. Sure, we could all use the extra money, so play the lottery or gamble only what you can afford and for the sheer enjoyment of doing so not for the potential big windfall. 4. Relationships are a key factor in long-term happiness. While research has demonstrated that this effect is strongest for married people, other research has shown that strong social connections with others are important to our own happiness. The more of these you have, generally, the happier you will be. And while marriage is significantly correlated with increased happiness, it has to be a strong, healthy marriage in order for that to be true. 5. Focus on experiences, not stuff. People who spend their time and money on doing things together whether it be taking a vacation to someplace other than home or going on an all-day outing to the local zoo report higher levels of happiness than those who buy a bigger house, a more expensive car, or more stuff . Thats likely because our memories keep an emotional photograph of the experience, whereas the material things dont make as big an emotional imprint in our brains. So ditch buying so much stuff for yourself or your kids youre only buying artificial, temporary happiness. The Darker Side of Happiness Research You should also be aware that there is a growing backlash against such happiness psychology. After reading an except from Barbara Ehrenreichs book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, I can say I havent been impressed by the first round of criticism. In this excerpt, Ehrenreich demonstrates her own lack of basic psychological science grounding in tangents about psychological assessment design and whether a simplistic equation used for illustrative purposes really captures happiness. It appears to be a very uneven book where she makes arguments based upon personalities (Seligmans, for example) and specious connections (The Templeton Foundation). These are both Logic 101 fallacies (personal attack and guilt by association) that, while making for interesting reading, does little to address the positive psychology research itself. There are legitimate criticisms to level at the field. For example, a great deal of the research in positive psychology is conducted on college students for course credit. College students, the vast majority of who are in the late teens or early adulthood, are not representative of the general population (findings from college research dont always hold up when done with a more representative sample). And many studies are done in an artificial laboratory setting, where the researchers have set up an experimental situation that may or may not be representative of the real world. They do this so they can control all the variables except that which they are studying, but it create an artificial environment that while trying to mimic the real world, often falls far short. Human behavior is so complex that how we react toward researchers in a university lab setting may be very different how we react in a natural setting with our friends and family.

The five tips here, however, dont suffer from these problems. They are reliable conclusions that you can put into practice in your life today. You do have control over how happy you want or allow yourself to be. Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Links to This Article MyHappy Happiness Research News Digest for April 10, 2010 (4/10/2010) Credit Host (4/11/2010) Most Tweeted Articles by Psychology Experts: MrTweet (4/11/2010) Happiness Research | Will Baum, LCSW (4/14/2010) Happiness Quickies [a Coaching Works blog article on work in progress] (4/28/2010) 19 Comments to 5 Reliable Findings from Happiness Research The most recent comments page is shown, ordered by older comments first. Comments: Older Comments 1 2 stressFREEDOMguide 6:31 pm on April 19th, 2010 The students who started attending Epicuruss school-communities 2300 years ago and kept on building their lives on practicing his teachings uninterrupted for over 800 years would have smiled heartily at the newness of the never-ending row of evidence in support of opinions that used to be are self-evident for them. Although Epicureans have never referred to the achievability of happiness in percental terms, they knew and know that we can change some things (basically our attitude) and we cannot change other things. They knew that human relationships were the alpha and the omega of happiness and therefore they cultivated friendship in their communities and their couple relationships. And they knew what Scattycat stressed in his comment and what Democritus propagated before Epicurus: At one and the same time we must philosophize, laugh, and manage our household and other business. Reply Steve 12:53 pm on April 30th, 2010 I have been researching the topic of financial literacy. This lead me to explore the relationship between happiness and money. I had come upon most of the facts before but this article has put it into 5 very concise secrets all in one

package. Thank you. Reply Be happy 7:09 pm on January 26th, 2011 Excellent article. Lotteries definitely do not create long term happiness, although if you think about it, you would think that millions of dollars would make you forever happy. Reply Mark 11:45 pm on November 20th, 2011 I absolutely agree with number five. You CANT TAKE IT WITH YOU. We never truly own ANYTHING. We just get to keep it for a while. On the day we die? Every sing thing that we own now belongs to someone else. All that Donald Trump has worked for his entire life will belong to someone else on the day that he died. We should absolutely focus on experiences and relationships; there are millions of millionaries around this world who can NOT figure out why they are not happy. The reality is? The more you have? The more people might try to take from you. If you have noticed, they never even bury a married man with his wedding ring. It seems most families are aware that a funeral home might steal the ring before the body gets buried, so they never even put it on a dead mans hand. A man who stays married for FIFTY YEARS. gets buried without it. That should tell you. Everything is dust in the wind. Reply Comments: Older Comments 1 2 Join the Conversation! Post a Comment: Name/Pseudonym: (Required, will be published) Email: (Required, but will not be published) Website: (Optional) Related Posts Other posts by John M. Grohol, PsyD (RSS Feed) You may also like: Department of Personal Prerogative VanityFair.com

Whats Wrong with Positive Thinking? Best of Our Blogs: November 8, 2011 Best of Our Blogs: October 14, 2011 Best of Our Blogs: September 20, 2011 Best of Our Blogs: June 14, 2011 Best of Our Blogs: May 27, 2011 Best of Our Blogs: May 24, 2011 Best of Our Blogs: April 22, 2011 Best of Our Blogs: April 12, 2011 Best of Our Blogs: April 1, 2011 Best of Our Blogs: February 1, 2011 Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 10 Apr 2010 Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved. APA Reference Grohol, J. (2010). 5 Reliable Findings from Happiness Research. Psych Central. Retrieved on December 27, 2011, from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/ 04/10/5-reliable-findings-from-happiness-research/ Blog Index World of Psychology Addiction Aging Alternative and Nutritional Supplements Best of Our Blogs Best of the Web Books Brain and Behavior Caregivers Celebrities Children and Teens College Creativity

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