PSY435H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Eudaimonia, Quartile, Dysfunctional Family
PSY336
Lec 02
September 20, 2016
What is happiness anyway? Subjective vs. Eudaimonic Well-being
Black = notes taken in lecture. Red = notes added when reviewing.
“Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about other people’s
approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to
serenity.” – Laotze.
Does money buy happiness? – Most people say not necessarily.
If I give you $50,000, would you be happiner? – Most people say yes.
So how come $50,000 makes you happier if money can’t buy happiness?
• Short term vs. Long term. You can use money to do stuff, which gives happiness for
short term.
• Money can lessen stress – and if negative and positive is a continuum, with stress on the
negative end and happiness on the positive end, removing stress would necessarily shift
your position on the continuum towards the positive/happiness.
• According to Maslow’s hierarchy, self-actualization and happiness only comes after
primary needs like food and shelter. In our society, food and shelter is closely tied to
money. Money enables you to fulfill your basic needs.
• Maybe that money increases happiness to one point, then after that, money might not
matter anymore (i.e. past basic needs level, money doesn’t make a difference), or not
matter as much, or even negatively affecting your happiness.
But what is happiness?
Prof tells a story about 2 people he’s known since kindergarten/ grade 1. Guy’s name is Dave,
girl’s name is Susan. They started off at age 5 in more or less the same circumstances: same
culture, same town, same socioeconomic, no disabilities, similar parental education, both very
smart. Key defining feature for both is intelligence. Both come from some what dysfunctional
families. The biggest difference between them is that Susan was given quite a bit of pressure to
succeed. Her parents wanted her to succeed, had high expectations, high standards, more
attention to her education. Dave’s parents were more “neglectful.” Didn’t give a lot of parental
restrictions etc. If you create a happiness scale with reference to positive emotions etc., and to
measure Dave and Susan as they grow up, Dave would win. Because he had more fun and less
stress when he’s growing up. Then adolescence comes along, Susan is now more concerned
about doing well in school. Dave yoloed 7 years of high school. he had the greatest time. If you
gave them the happiness scale, he would win again. By the time they are in their 20s, Dave
didn’t finish high school, but Susan went abroad to study with scholarships etc., stuff was
happening in her life. She’s still stressed but started to feel good about herself. Dave started to
feel it’s going nowhere and life is passing him by etc.. By the time when they are 25, in the
happiness scale, Susan would be winning, but Dave was at the bottom. Here’s the weird thing,
for the past 10-15 years, Dave was happier than Susan. But now, Susan is happier. The trajectory
changed. So there must be more to wellness than just happiness. You can’t just focus on
happiness. It’s not sufficient. What if there are parts of wellness that are hard to measure?
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Because most of the time you measure happiness as subjectivity. What if people only have
access to how they feel right now, but no access to whether it’s a good thing to feel this way?
Can you think of situation where you are affectively bleh but still healthy? Ex. When you are
studying for an exam. You feel bleh but you know it’s gonna be good for you in the future. so
it’s possible that people’s subjective feelings do not represent happiness or wellness.
But then again, who decides what’s wellness and what is not?
Affective Forecasting: the researchers looked at if people’s predictions of their future affective
state would be accurate. You can get people’s forecast under different conditions. Ex. If I give
you $50,000, would you happier 1 minute later? Would you be happier by the end of day?
Would be happier after 10 years? You can make a forecast based on the person’s response.
Ex. Winning a lottery might make me more miserable because everybody is coming to me to
borrow money and people break into my house to steal etc.
They tested many conditions. One of the things is academic tenure (life time job security for a
prof). Tenure is a big deal. So you gotta start studying hard since high school, and then through
undergrad, and then masters, and PhD. You do a lot of hard work. If you are successful, you get
a PhD and then go to a post doc. You work more. Then you get a academic job when you are 30
ish. Now you have 5 years to show the uni what you are worth. You teach and work harder etc..
You do all this hard work for 5 years. You are 35/36. The committee does a evaluation on you.
At the end of it, they will either say, yay for you, or you are fired. It’s a binary decision. :O
If you do a forecast 3 months before the tenure decision, people will say if I get it, I will be
happy, if I don’t get it, I won’t even know how to live.
Think about how powerful this forecast is though? It’s because you believe you will be happy if
you get the tenure, you started working hard since high school and passed so many many
hurdles. You are willing to work hard just because you believe getting tenure will make you
happier, even though in reality it may or may not.
People predict that external changes in the conditions will dramatically affect their happiness.
And they are right. But in the long term, they are so so wrong. 15 years later, getting tenure
wouldn’t make you any happier than the guy that didn’t get it. Happiness went all the way back
to baseline.
Short term – contract effect: change/difference in condition makes you happy in the moment.
Could be very powerful. But short term. Contrast with present moment brings you short term
happiness. Ex. You are going about your day, and somebody buys you a beer. You are happy!
Long term – adaptation effect: the beer won’t make you happy for the rest of your life. But
what if it’s a $1000,000 instead of a beer. You might change your lifestyle, and maintain an
elevated happiness baseline.
Affective Forecasting scales fall in to the category of “Subjective Well Being” (SWB) – the
presence of positive emotions, the absence of negative emotions, and life satisfaction (your
overall evaluation of life). This is problematic because:
• It’s subjective
• It’s short term. You can be happy in the moment and screwed for future.
• Cultural standards can differ.
• Different individual standards.
• …
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Document Summary
Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about other people"s approval and you will be their prisoner. So how come ,000 makes you happier if money can"t buy happiness: short term vs. long term. In our society, food and shelter is closely tied to money. Prof tells a story about 2 people he"s known since kindergarten/ grade 1. Guy"s name is dave, girl"s name is susan. They started off at age 5 in more or less the same circumstances: same culture, same town, same socioeconomic, no disabilities, similar parental education, both very smart. The biggest difference between them is that susan was given quite a bit of pressure to succeed. Her parents wanted her to succeed, had high expectations, high standards, more attention to her education. Dave"s parents were more neglectful. didn"t give a lot of parental restrictions etc.
