Unit 90

The Secrets of Happiness

You just think you know what will make you happy. Researchers in the new science of happiness know better. They have evidence that married people on average end up being no happier than they were before the wedding. Winning the lottery will probably reduce your pleasure in the ordinary events that used to make you happy. And being in good health isn't as much of a factor as the right genes when it comes to life satisfaction.

Depressing, isn't it? Well, there is one bit of good news: Research from around the world suggests that most people are happy, not unhappy. "It's one of the things we're absolutely sure abut," says Michigan psychologist Richard Lucas.

Once 222 Illinois college students were under a study aimed to find out what the happiest 10 percent had in common. They were extroverts, had more friendships and romantic relationships, but didn't exercise more and didn't feel they had more good events in their lives than those who weren't as happy. No real surprises there, but like other research in the field, it produced a bit more hard data.

"It's amazing how long happiness has been a problem, but how recently science has turned its attention to it," says Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard professor of psychology. "It's only been in the last 10 years that what was a hobby of a few has become a central focus in psychology."

Some of the results come as a surprise. A classic study of lottery winners and people with spinal cord injuries, for instance, found that neither event changed their lives as much as observers thought they would.

Gilbert is looking into how accurately people predict what will make them happy. It turns out, not accurately at all. What we think will bring us pleasure -- a new car, the home team winning the NCAA championship -- usually doesn't bring us as much as we expected, and the positive impact doesn't last as long. The good news is that we also overestimate the impact of catastrophic events.

Why that matters, of course, is that we base our present actions on our inaccurate predictions. As Gilbert says, "The future spoils the present." "The first thing to realize," he adds, "is that you could know exactly what would be in your future and not know how you'll feel about it. So is there any way to be more accurate in predicting how happy we'll be? Yes," says Gilbert, "but almost no one wants to do it."

Even with data from research pouring in, scientists still don't have an easy answer to what we all want to know: How do I get long-term life satisfaction? The answers they do have are often the same ones that philosophers and priests have been giving us for centuries. It's just nice to have them backed up with hard data.