The Science of Happiness
What is happiness? Is it something we can define and measure? Maybe and maybe not. You might have seen charts that rank the countries with the happiest people. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Harvard class or the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) called “The Science of Happiness” from the University of California at Berkeley that promises to teach the “ground-breaking science of positive psychology.” The University of Pennsylvania even offers a master’s degree in the Science of Happiness. But is happiness really scientific?
Positive Psychology
Positive Psychology is a branch of science interested in discovering what makes people happy. Studies in Positive Psychology have shown that there are specific ways of thinking and behaving that have a direct relationship with our personal sense of happiness. Unlike other branches or styles of psychology, many of which focus on patients’ flaws, Positive Psychology is interested in studying people’s strengths and merits. You might be familiar with 1950s scientific experiments that studied issues like depression, neurosis, or perhaps most famously, conformity and malleability, such as the lab test in which the subjects were given orders to inflict pain on another person. Positive Psychologists, on the other hand, conduct lab experiments that show what conditions foster positive qualities like courage, selflessness, or even laughter and creativity. Hundreds of people have attended academic conferences related to the science of happiness, such as the three-day Positive Psychology Summit in Washington, D.C. in 2007. Many books have been published on the topic, some academic, and some more like self-help books. Positive Psychology is interested in bringing scientific rigor to the field. What are some of the scientific principles behind happiness? The Hippocampus, an area near the middle of our brains, is responsible for our happiness and positive memories. Neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin help regulate our sense of wellbeing. These neurotransmitters can be synthesized from proteins and are released through activities like exercise.
Fiction?
It used to be believed that a person’s genes determined how happy he or she could be. Current research demonstrates that only around 50 percent of our happiness is related to our biology. Ten percent is related to our life circumstances, and the remaining 40 percent is up to us! That’s where some of the fiction might come in. If we determine the rest of our happiness capabilities, it is difficult to quantify and scientifically examine something so subjective. What one person experiences as beaming joy might only be experienced as mild happiness by another person. Furthermore, other scientists have determined that humans haven’t really evolved for happiness. Humans, like other species, have evolved for survival and reproduction. The pleasure areas in the brain helped early humans evolve because the pleasure sensations override fears of taking risks, like a positive-reward system. However, just because something, say an attractive face in a crowd, activates this area of your brain, does it really make you happy? Biological and social responses to pleasant things don’t necessarily mean they make people happy. After all, many of the happiness studies have shown that more developed countries with higher affluent populations have much higher rates of depression per capita.
Conclusion
Whether or not you believe the science of happiness is fact or fiction, it’s worth trying out some of the techniques positive psychologists have developed to increase your sense of well-being. One method is to repeat activities that have caused you happiness in the past, even if it is something simple like taking the more scenic route home from work. Another is to use your strengths and virtues to make a positive impact on your community or engage in work you find worthwhile.
