A3: Individual Written Assignment

The Science of Happiness and Well-Being

Dr. Mukul Kumar

Summer 2020

Day 4

PairRank.com

Select London Video Assignment from List

Compare the 2 peer videos: Select Better

Provide written feedback for both

Rank Order 4 Submissions – Must actively choose

Peer Review Score

• Complete 2 rounds (2 sets of ranking 4 submissions) • Provide high quality comments (Strengths + Opportunities) • Don’t just say “Good video, I liked it” instead “The example from movieX

really illustrated the definition of the bias. The impact it had on me was …”

• System tracks: Time spent on video, on reviews, and the various rating/ranking choices you make. Inconsistencies in user behavior are flagged – particularly for “insufficient engagement”

Course Topics – where are we?

§ Introduction to Happiness Concepts § Received Notions of Happiness - How They Steer us Wrong! § What Actually Makes Us Happy! § Social Connection, Compassion and Kindness § Gratitude, Savoring and Reference Resets § Resiliency and Mindfulness § Awe, Wonder, Narrative, Laughter and Play § Setting Goals and Charting One's Own Path to Happiness

Social Connections Date # of Social Connections

Happiness0 - 10

Spoke with stranger, called an old friend, Skyped with Dad

3 8

Practicing Social Connections

Practicing Your Top Strength This Week

What are you fighting for (Purpose)?

• How have I contributed positivity or negativity to others? • Does someone feel better after an interaction with me versus how they felt before? • How many times today did I complain about someone or something? • Did shared interest rise above self-interest? • Did I listen more—or talk more? • What did I learn this week? • How many times did I simply say thank you?

• People can increase their happiness through simple intentional positive activities, such as expressing gratitude or practicing kindness.

Kindness - #1 Intentional Positive Activities, Lyubomisrsky, et al

5 Random Acts of Kindness • All 5 in a single day or • Spread over a week, one a day

• Kind people experience more happiness and have happier memories (Study 1).

• Simply by counting acts of kindness for one week, people appear to have become happier and more grateful (Study 2).

• Thus, the results suggest that happy people are more kind in the first place and that they can become even happier, kinder and more grateful following a simple intervention.

Kindness - #2 Happy People Become Happier Through Kindness, Otake et al

Mean (or standard deviation) scores of kindness components of happy and less happy people (Study 1) Motivation: “I am always thinking that I wish to be kind and help other people in daily life” Recognition: “I recognize that I always do kind behavior and help other people in daily life,” Behavior: “I do kind things and help others everyday” characterized them, again rated from 1 to 5.

Higher scores reflect greater motivation, recognition, and behavior, respectively.

Results of “counting kindnesses intervention”

Unhelpful Wiring of Our Minds Four unhelpful traits make it hard for us to take control of our lives and lead us to adopt unrealistic goals and fears (miswanting). 1. Many strongly held perceptions + beliefs are wrong 2. Our minds work “relatively” and not in absolute terms 3. Our minds adapt to circumstances – Hedonic Adjustment 4. We forget that our minds adapt to our circumstances

Image: FI by Design

Hedonic Adaptation Curve

Reducing Hedonic Adaptation

1. Step outside yourself and observe your situation from the outside. Have a sense of the moment. Enjoy the experience.

2. This puts you higher on the hedonic adaptation chart. 3. Savoring makes us happier.

Insight #9 – Savoring

Image: Shutterstock

Jose et al. (2012). Does savoring increase happiness? A daily diary study.

Activities to Increase Savoring #1

Activities that Increase Savoring • Telling somebody about your

experience

• Looking for others to share with

• Thinking how lucky I am to have this

Activities that Decrease Savoring • Focusing on the future • Remembering that it won’t last forever

• Thinking about how experience could have been better

• Thinking I don’t deserve this

Lyubomirsky et al. (2006). The costs and benefits of writing, talking, and thinking about life’s triumphs and defeats.

Activities to Increase Savoring #2

Study 1: Writing or talking about negative experiences improved life satisfaction and enhanced mental and physical health relative to those who thought about it. Study 2: Thinking about life’s positive moments had the same effect.

# Date Topic: My time at Hult…

Negative Visualization Pick a topic that makes you happy (such as your family, your spouse or significant other, your job, your school. Imagine how life would be if they had never been in your life). Write for 15 minutes.

1. Pick a topic that makes you happy (such as your family, your spouse or significant other, your job, your school).

2. Imagine how life would be if they had never been in your life. 3. Write about this.

Insight #10 – Negative Visualization Koo et al. (2008). It’s a wonderful life: Mentally subtracting positive events improves people’s affective states, contrary to their affective forecasts.

Image: Shutterstock

# Date Topic: My time at Hult…

Time is running out! Pick topic (such as your time at Hult, a family vacation, or similar, that will end soon). Write about your experience, being very conscious of passing time.

1. Does focusing on the imminent ending of a positive life experience lead to increased enjoyment?

2. Twice a week over the course of 2 weeks, college students were told to write about their college life, with graduation being framed as either very close or very far off.

3. Thinking about graduation as being close led to a significant increase in college-related behaviors and subjective well-being over the course of the study.

Insight #11 – Time is Running Out Kurtz (2008). Looking to the future to appreciate the present: The benefits of perceived temporal scarcity.

1. Having a grateful outlook makes people happier.

Insight #12 – Gratitude

Week Item 1 Item 2 Item 3 Item 4 Item 5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Hassles Write down 5 irritants – things that bothered/annoyed -- you today. Work, relationships, school, housing, health, etc are some of the typical domains.

Week Item 1 Item 2 Item 3 Item 4 Item 5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Gratitude Think about 5 events last that you are grateful for.

1. The effect of a grateful outlook on psychological and physical well-being was examined. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 experimental conditions (hassles, gratitude listing, and either neutral life events or social comparison); they then kept records of their moods, coping behaviors, health behaviors, physical symptoms, and overall life appraisals.

2. Having a grateful outlook made people happier.

Gratitude Activities – 1 – Count Blessings Emmons et al. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being.

Emmons et al. (2003).

1. Several experiments were run. 1. Gratitude visit or letter 2. Three good things

3. Using signature strengths in a new way 4. You at your best

5. Identifying signature strengths

2. #1,2,3 made people happier. #1 episodic, #2,3 cumulative

Gratitude Activities – 2 – Gratitude Letter Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions, Seligman & Steen

Seligman, SteenSeligman, Steen

Seligman, Steen

1. Gratitude expressions can enhance prosocial behavior through both agentic and communal mechanisms, such that when helpers are thanked for their efforts, they experience stronger feelings of self-efficacy and social worth, which motivate them to engage in prosocial behavior.

Gratitude Activities – 3 – Thanking Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions, Seligman & Steen

1. In romantic relationships, financial distress is frequently linked to one partner criticizing, nagging, or making demands of the other, and the partner responding by avoiding the confrontation, becoming defensive.

2. Spouses thanking each other is shown to increase the marital relationship quality.

Gratitude Activities – 4 – Spousal Thanking Barton et al. (2015). Linking financial distress to marital quality: The intermediary roles of demand/withdraw and spousal gratitude expressions.

Image: Unity.org

Mentors

Peri od

Positive Memory Day 1 Day 2 Day 3

1

2

3

4

5

6

Replay Positive Memories Pick topic, replay it for 8 mins/day for three days. Repeat with New topic after 2 weeks.

Unhelpful Wiring of Our Minds Four unhelpful traits make it hard for us to take control of our lives and lead us to adopt unrealistic goals and fears (miswanting). 1. Many strongly held perceptions + beliefs are wrong 2. Our minds work “relatively” and not in absolute terms 3. Our minds adapt to circumstances – Hedonic Adjustment 4. We forget that our minds adapt to our circumstances

Changing Our Reference Points

Insight #13 - Can reference points be wrong? • First off, what is a reference point?

It is a basis or standard for evaluation, assessment, or comparison; a criterion (dictionary).

• Who chooses the reference point? We do, most of the time, instinctively.

• Can reference points be “wrong”? Yes, we frequently pick the wrong reference points!

• What makes them “wrong”? They may be irrelevant, and make us unhappy

Morewedge et al (2010). Consuming experience: Why affective forecasters overestimate comparative value.

How Do Reference Points Affect Happiness?

• The hedonic value of an outcome can be influenced by the alternatives to which it is compared.

• People expect to be happier with outcomes that maximize comparative value (best among mediocre alternatives) than with outcomes that maximize absolute value (worst among excellent alternatives).

Images: Taste of Home, Fortune

versus

Morewedge et al (2010).

Images: Taste of Home, Fortune

versus

Morewedge et al (2010).

Images: Taste of Home, Fortune

versus

Next experiment be chocolate covered potato chips vs chocolate sardines? Ha ha!

Insight #13 - Can reference points be wrong? • First off, what is a reference point?

It is a basis or standard for evaluation, assessment, or comparison; a criterion (dictionary).

• Who chooses the reference point? We do, most of the time, instinctively.

• Can reference points be “wrong”? Yes, we frequently pick the wrong reference points!

• What makes them “wrong”? They may be irrelevant, and make us unhappy

Re-experience your original reference point.

• Reference point for your new smartphone is your old one; you’re thrilled in comparison.

• You get used to the new smartphone; its wonderful features are not so wonderful any more and it is now your new reference point.

• If re-experience your old smartphone, your reference point can be reset to its previous land you can partially re-experience the thrill of your new smartphone.

Reference Point Reset #1

Reference Point Reset #2

Image: Sistersspace

Avoid social comparisons

• Social comparisons, even downward ones make us unhappy.

• Use Stop-Think technique • Practice gratitude for what you have • Delete social media on your smartphone!

Interrupt consumption

Nelson & Meyvis (2008). Interrupted consumption: Adaptation and the disruption of hedonic experience.

Reference Point Reset #3

• Consumers choose breaks in negative and not in positive experiences. However, breaks worsen negative experiences and improve positive experiences!

• Breaks disrupt hedonic adaptation and intensify the subsequent experience. • Lesson: Break up positive experiences but go continuously through negative ones.

Nelson & Meyvis (2008)

Nelson & Meyvis (2008): Any disruption made both the positive and the negative stimuli more intense than the continuous experience.

Nelson & Meyvis (2008): • Constructed short songs composed of looped fragments from other well liked songs. • To create our stimuli we first chose five songs that we judged to be generally enjoyable and then

looped 5-10 second segments of the songs to create a new 60-second song. • The new songs featured seamless transitions, creating a song stimulus that was enjoyable, but

sufficiently repetitive to allow for rapid adaptation. • Fifty-two undergraduates first rated each of the five brief segments on a 51-point scale anchored

by - 25 (“really dislike it”) and 25 (“really like it”). They were then told that they would be listening to a 60-second song constructed by looping one of the fragments they had previously rated.

• Participants then chose which song they would like to listen to by clicking on a photo depicting the cover art from the single or album the song was sampled from.

• After making their selection, participants were informed of what they would experience, and were also asked to provide continuous online evaluations of their enjoyment using a sliding scale anchored by 0 (“not enjoying it at all”) and 100 (“enjoying it tremendously”).

• Participants in the Continuous condition then listened to the 60-second song without interruption. Participants in the Break condition listened to the first 50 seconds of the song, followed by 10 seconds of irritating guitar feedback (taken from the same source as in Study 5), followed by the last 10 seconds of the song.

Nelson & Meyvis (2008): • Looped song as a function of time

and condition. • Segment A - first 50 secs; same for

both groups. • Segment B - secs 51-60 for

participants in Break condition (unpleasant guitar feedback).

• Segment C depicts the final ten seconds of the looped song; seconds 51-60 for participants in the Continuous condition, and seconds 61-70 for participants in the Break condition.

• The two “Unanticipated” conditions depict data from a subsequent study.

Interestingly, the measure of enjoyment also differed before the break. Do people enjoy the song more when they know it will be interrupted by an irritating noise?

Reference Point Reset #4 Increase variety

• Listen to different types of music (or eat different flavors of ice cream) instead of the same type all the time.