A Report on Happiness

Introduction
These days had been difficult for many of us to be happy. Some of us
are easy to be worried and sad. It may seem that being happy is more
important than any material aspect in our lives. As such, it would not
mean right away that being wealthy is being happy or being poor will
immediately having no cause to be happy.
This report will tackle on the secret of happiness and how to
overcome sadness. A video documentation presented by researchers
at UC Berkeley shows how important is positive emotions and
happiness. They had conducted a wide range of studies such as
experiments on brain, nervous system, hormones, heart, and social
interaction to show that human nature and the survival of the species
rely much more on kindness, thankfulness, trust, and selflessness
than previously thought. This video is 7:43 minutes long emphasizing
that the theory of "survival of the fittest" has diminished and giving
way to "survival of the kindest."1 (Keltner, Mendoza-Denton, Willer, &
Carter, 2010)
The video is sectioned in four different subtopics such as teaching
happiness, positive emotions, survival of the kindest and overcoming
prejudice, promoting generosity. In view of this, this report will also
put together several studies and papers outside of the video to give
more details on the topic of happiness.

1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZLy81gpebs
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Teaching Happiness
Nowadays, happiness is always taken for granted. The more people
get old, the more they find it hard to be happy. It may seem that the
lesson on happiness goes adrift when people mature. It may seem
that happiness turns into worldly when people see the value on
money and not the merits of good deeds.
If we must remember, when we were young, we find happiness in the
simplest things in life. Like bubbles, playing in the dirt, seeing insects,
having to earn a reward, and just being with our loved ones. These
kinds of feeling were little but gone and we had stopped being
grateful for small things in our lives. If we were able to do this when
we were young, it is not difficult for us to relearn happiness and
possibly it would be able for us to easily overcome loneliness and
anxiety when we know about this.
The science on happiness emphasized on learning happiness as
Sociologist Christina Carter, one of the researchers, coaches school
children, teachers and parents when she visit schools and various
educational institutes about the benefits of raising happy children.
She pointed out that one of the best things a mentor/parent/teacher
could do is to focus on the emotional well-being, rather than
encouraging the children to be achieve something that the parents
failed to do. Her way of teaching happiness integrated habits that can
lead to happiness like showing gratitude. She believed that gratitude
is a skill that can be learned with practice, and it had been shown that
people who have this characteristic are those who are happier. One
teacher believed on her way of educating people on happiness, she
said that by feeling good and feeling happy, these feelings will
encourage the children to take risks and try to learn new things. By
that, this feeling of happiness can result into a more efficient and

effective way of providing great education to the youth. (Keltner,

Mendoza-Denton, Willer, & Carter, 2010)

Positive Emotions
Psychologists Dacher Keltner on the other hand believed in a certain
Darwin theory that sympathy is our strongest nature. He added that
our body is built to care and sympathetic. There are certain reactions
like smile and compassion produces hormones, benefiting both the
persons giving and receiving. In his study, he observed that those
successful National Basketball Association (NBA) teams where those
ones with players who express social touching as a show of
friendship. In his long term study, he also observed that people who
smile more positively in their high school yearbook had a higher level
of emotional well-being. (Keltner, Mendoza-Denton, Willer, & Carter,
2010)
Ian Morris, in his revolution of teaching happiness in schools, believes
that people who made a mistake and believes to do better next time
are have better chances on being happy and avoiding depression
rather than those people who have fixed mindset or pessimistic.
(Morris, 2009)
In our everyday lives, we can see, even if we were not scientists, that
those people who have positive outlook are those who are happier,
having many friends and have better chances to be successful. Since
these kinds of positive emotions are already innate to us, it is not
going against the grain if we nurture these feelings rather than
focusing on negativity.

Survival of the Kindest

Like what have mentioned earlier, those kind and happy people tend
to have greater chances of survival. By having this positive mindset, it
would seem that we feel a little bit lighter, less burden and less
worries. It is like releasing a big amount of weight from ourselves.
This is no wonder happy people live longer.
On one research, the psychologists studied the heart rate of the
participants as they watch different sets of videos that evoke feelings.
Based on their observations, it would seem that when participants are
shown videos of children with cancer have lower heart rate. Anybody
would assume that the video would evoke higher heart rate. They had
found out this is the mechanism of the body which allows itself to be
calm, gently humming itself preparing on what it can do and engage
to help others. (Keltner, Mendoza-Denton, Willer, & Carter, 2010)
This study validates the golden rule treat others as you wanted to be
treated as our basic genetic makeup for survival. It is already innate
with us to be sympathetic and compassionate to others. With this, the
study reveals that sympathetic people have greater chances to be
attractive as mate, tends to have more kids, in competitive situation
with strangers and thus, survives longer.
However, psychologists have been able to identify some very strong
links. According to Professor Diener the evidence suggests that happy
people live longer than depressed people. "In one study, the
difference was nine years between the happiest group and the
unhappiest group, so that's a huge effect. (Rudin, 2006)

Overcoming discrimination, promoting generosity

Another instance that may put a person into the state of sadness is
when he has to face discrimination. This is a lot common especially in
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a place where there are a lot of different races. People tend to curl up
when they are put into situation of having to interact with one
another.
Rudy Mendoza-Denton designed a study that observed different
emotions felt towards interacting with other racial backgrounds. He
believes that anxiety exist when different people from different racial
backgrounds are compelled to interact to each other. He conducts this
study with a comparison of cortisols (stress hormones) of the
participants, gathered in every stage of the study. He says that
cortisol drops significantly, when these started to play games. It
seems that barriers came down quickly as they begin to enjoy their
interaction. He further notes that cross race friendship can be good
for our health as it removes the burden and anxiety from people.
(Keltner, Mendoza-Denton, Willer, & Carter, 2010)
Another study by Rob Willer evaluates why people go together,
cooperate, and why are they out there not for just their individual self.
This is an important study which could be elevated on how individual
awareness affects the relationship and interaction with others, thus
could improve the society itself. He further said that, when people
portray others to be selfish, it would just lead to more selfishness in
the society. He added that when people do overcome the temptation
of self interest and help others, they are respected by the group, upon
receiving that respect, they tend to help more. (Keltner, MendozaDenton, Willer, & Carter, 2010)

Conclusion
There are many studies in anger but there are few that focus on
happiness, which undoubtedly more positive than the former.
Happiness and kindest are seen to be related with each other, thus
showing the innocence of happiness as not just merely materialistic
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but also, holistic. In this modern world, it should be easier for us to be

happy, since we have already broken the barrier of communication,
lesser prejudice and established a more broadened international
amity. As they say, there is no right formula for happiness. But even
when the scientists had already found its right combination, it will all
depend on each of us on how we could attain happiness. Therefore,
happiness and all its reasons and results must come within us; this
should be the first cure for it will benefit us, spiritually, emotionally
and physically.

Reference
Keltner, D., Mendoza-Denton, R., Willer, R., & Carter, C. (2010).
Science of Happiness. UC Berkeley.
Morris, I. (2009). Teaching Happiness and Well-Being in Schools.
London: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Rudin, M. (2006, April 4). The Science of Happiness. BBC News , p.
Retrieved
from:
http://www.igloo.uk.net/sites/default/files/documents/libraryfile_happi
ness_10.pdf.