Why Happiness Is Hard to Get Right: What Psychology Really Says
Understanding several key psychological concepts can help clarify why happiness can be challenging to sustain and why our intuitions about well-being are often inaccurate. Researchers such as Sonja Lyubomirsky, Emiliana Simon-Thomas, and Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, have highlighted how our minds can misjudge what will actually bring us lasting satisfaction.
Affective Forecasting
Affective forecasting refers to our predictions about how we will feel in the future. Daniel Gilbert, who coined the term with Timothy Wilson, describes it as the process of estimating what we will or will not enjoy later on. Research shows we frequently mispredict what will make us happy, which can lead us to pursue goals that fail to deliver meaningful emotional benefit.
Impact Bias
Impact bias is the tendency to overestimate how much future events will affect our emotions, whether those events are positive or negative. We often overlook our ability to recover from setbacks, a resilience that psychologist Daniel Gilbert describes as our “psychological immune system.” This bias can lead to errors in predicting our emotions, which may cause us to avoid experiences we believe will be harmful or to overvalue outcomes that ultimately won't enhance our happiness as much as we expect.
Set Point Theory
Set point theory posits that individuals maintain a stable baseline level of happiness, influenced by genetics and personality traits. While life events can lead to temporary changes, most individuals eventually return to this baseline over time.
Hedonic Adaptation
Hedonic adaptation, often referred to as the "hedonic treadmill," refers to our natural tendency to adjust to changes in our life circumstances. Positive events, such as getting married or experiencing financial gains, as well as adverse events, can temporarily affect our happiness levels. However, we typically return to our baseline happiness over time. Researchers like Ed Diener suggest that these baseline levels and the rates of adaptation can vary among individuals and may change over time.
Prioritizing Positivity
Focusing on positivity involves intentionally organizing your daily life to include experiences that naturally evoke positive emotions. Research by Laura Catalino, Sara Algoe, and Barbara Fredrickson indicates that actively seeking out opportunities for positive experiences in everyday life may be more effective for improving well-being than simply pursuing an abstract concept of happiness.
In this community sample (N = 233, ages 21–87) the authors found that individuals who scored higher on the “prioritizing positivity” scale—i.e., organizing their day-to-day lives with positive emotional outcomes in mind—reported greater well-being (more positive emotions, fewer depressive symptoms).
Their work suggests that the active structuring of one’s environment and choices to generate positive emotional experiences may be a viable well-being strategy.
This study (n = 301 college students, 3,894 daily reports) found that day-to-day fluctuations in prioritizing positivity predicted higher daily well-being (i.e., more positive emotions, greater satisfaction and meaning; fewer negative emotions).
It supports the idea that not only trait-level (stable) prioritizing positivity matters, but also the momentary, daily act of selecting positive contexts.
Emodiversity
Emodiversity refers to the variety and balance of emotions that a person experiences. Experiencing a wider range of emotions, both pleasant and unpleasant, is linked to increased psychological resilience and overall well-being.
Psychological Richness
A psychologically rich life consists of novel, perspective-shifting, and complex experiences. While these experiences might not always be enjoyable or meaningful in a traditional sense, they contribute to greater understanding, personal growth, and overall life satisfaction.
This entire blog is in respect to Daniel Gilbert, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Emiliana Simon-Thomasand and their work!
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q1dgn_C0AU
