Happiness Read online

  Praise for Happiness

  "This is the most authoritative and informative book about happiness ever written. That's not surprising, given that its authors are the world's leading happiness researcher and his psychologist son, whose vocation is coaching people toward happier lives."

  David G. Myers, Hope College, author, The Pursuit of Happiness: Who is Happy, and Why

  "A great gift from the leading professional scientist of happiness in the world and his son, the 'Indiana Jones' of positive psychology."

  Martin E. P. Seligman, Fox Leadership Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania and author, Authentic Happiness

  "This book is a must read! If you want science-based advice on what can make you truly happy, Dr. Diener, with his son Robert-Biswas Diener, bring to life over thirty years of cutting-edge research on how to achieve real psychological wealth. The Dieners are the real deal. No one has studied happiness more than Ed Diener, and few people have conducted field research in more exciting places than Robert. You'll quickly see why Ed Diener is called Dr. Happy and why Robert is called the 'Indiana Jones' of Positive Psychology."

  David J. Pollay, B.A. Yale, M.A.P.P. University of Pennsylvania, President of The Momentum Project, syndicated columnist, and author, The Law of the Garbage TruckTM

  "The collaboration between the foremost authority on happiness research and the 'Indiana Jones' of psychology makes for a great mix of interesting examples and solid research. I have never seen a book that does such a good job offering useful practical advice while basing this advice on completely sound empirical research."

  Richard E. Lucas, Professor of Psychology, Michigan State University

  "This is a happiness book by the world authority, the pre-eminent scholar in the field along with an in-the-trenches coach who teaches and adapts this material every day for practical use with coaching clients. Robert is also an international researcher and coaching scholar in his own right. This is to say that these are scholars who do the research and not just journalists or pop psychologists reporting it second hand. These folks know happiness from the inside out."

  Michael B. Frisch, Psychologist and Neuroscientist, Baylor University; Positive Psychologist/Coach and Clinical Psychologist

  "In the huge happiness industry that has grown up over the past few years, this hook is the very best overview of research and self-help manual available. It is written by the most productive, respected psychologist in the field of happiness studies and his son. It is the most readable, comprehensive overview and self-help manual available on happiness. If an ordinary citizen wanted to know about the contemporary science of happiness, it would be the place to begin.

  Alex C. Michalos, Ph.D., F.R.S.C., Chancellor Director, Institute for Social Research and Evaluation

  Happiness

  Unlocking the Mysteries of

  Psychological Wealth

  Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener

  To our wives, Carol and Keya, who have been so helpful to us in our writing of the book, and to the Gallup Organization, for their encouragement and support.

  Contents

  Foreword

  Acknowledgments

  Part I Understanding True Wealth

  1 Psychological Wealth: The Balanced Portfolio

  2 Two Principles of Psychological Wealth

  Part II Happy People Function Better

  3 Health and Happiness

  4 Happiness and Social Relationships: You Can't Do Without Them

  5 Happiness at Work: It Pays To Be Happy

  Part III Causes of Happiness and Genuine Wealth

  6 Can Money Buy Happiness?

  7 Religion, Spirituality, and Happiness

  8 The Happiest Places on Earth: Culture and Well-Being

  9 Nature and Nurture: Is There a Happiness Set Point, and Can You Change It?

  10 Our Crystal Balls: Happiness Forecasting

  11 Take AIM on Happiness: Attention, Interpretation, and Memory

  Part IV Putting It All Together

  12 Yes, You Can Be Too Happy

  13 Living Happily Ever After

  14 Measuring Psychological Wealth: Your Well-Being Balance Sheet

  Epilogue: About the Science of Happiness

  Further Reading

  References

  Index

  Foreword

  With so many books about happiness on the market, why should you read this particular one? David Myers, psychologist and author of many books, including The Pursuit of Happiness, calls Ed Diener the "Jedi Master of Happiness Studies." He is referring to the fact that - over the course of a thirty-year career in psychology - Ed has pioneered the field of happiness studies, publishing more than two hundred scholarly papers and chapters on the topic. And Robert, labeled the Indiana Jones of Positive Psychology by one of the field's leaders, has pursued the secrets of psychological wealth in places such as India, Greenland, Kenya and in remote areas around the globe. Intrigued? Let me tell you a bit more about the authors, who happen to be my husband, Ed, and our son, Robert.

  The road to being a world authority on happiness began for Ed on a farm in California. Ed grew up in the years after World War II, the youngest of six children. As his older siblings grew up and moved away, and his parents were busy with farming, Ed was often left to entertain himself. Of course, like many an unsupervised boy, he got into trouble. His curiosity led him to make a flame thrower, to throw bullets into an open fire, and to drive a car at age ten. By the time Ed was twelve, he drew up plans for a genetically modified monkey-dog (smart like a monkey but loyal like a dog!). Ed was intrigued by numbers and science. He filled his afternoons reading biographies of scientific luminaries such as Isaac Newton and the astronomer, Tycho Brahe, and attempted to recreate some of their classic studies at home. He discovered how to calculate the amount of water displacement of a brick and other objects by immersing them in the bathtub to determine their volume.

  When he arrived at college, Ed focused his curiosity on human behavior. Why do people laugh and cry, why do people seek social situations, why do people do things that are bad for their health, and most importantly, what is happiness and how is it achieved? Ed suggested this last question as the topic of his research in college. Specifically, he proposed to study the happiness of farm workers. However, his professor would not approve the study, informing Ed that "it is impossible to study happiness ... it can never be measured." Besides, the professor opined, "I already know the answer. Farm workers cannot be happy." Discouraged, Ed wrote a paper on conformity instead.

  After pursuing other research studies, Ed landed a faculty position at the highly ranked University of Illinois. When Ed earned tenure, we took a sabbatical to the Virgin Islands. There the idea of making a serious study of happiness returned. Ed spent much of his time reading the works of Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, Maslow, and other great thinkers. He mapped out an ambitious plan for the serious study of happiness which he termed "subjective well-being" to lend it an air of scientific legitimacy to a skeptical academic world. During this same year, we took our three children out of school for trips to Haiti and South America. We motored up remote tributaries of the Amazon and were virtually alone in the deep jungle, surrounded by river porpoises, wooly monkeys, macaws, and piranha. After hours of travel we arrived at a settlement of Yagua people. The Yagua, who lived in stick houses and wore almost no clothing, were as fascinated by us as we were with them. But no one was more intrigued by the interactions than Robert. The tribal children crowded around him to look at his Mickey Mouse watch, and they let him shoot their blow darts at tree trunks. A village elder tried to give Robert curare poison for use with his blow gun, which we sensibly declined. However, the impact of this trip on Robert was
immense. The realization that there were people who lived so differently from our neighbors in the American Midwest was a revelation that had a great influence on his adult career.

  Following that sabbatical, Ed published his first article on subjective well-being. Over the years, he has studied how to effectively define and measure happiness, the relation between income and happiness, how cultures differ in happiness, how memory affects happiness, the benefits of happiness, and mental processes that affect people's happiness. He has turned a scientific eye to the role that people's values, relationships, resources, genetics, and economics play in the happiness equation. He has measured the happiness of people from the Forbes list of richest Americans, of identical twins, of cloistered nuns, and of sex workers. He has collected and analyzed data on happiness from hundreds of thousands of people from representative samples of more than a hundred countries. Because he has done more research on human happiness than any other individual in the world, Ed is frequently quoted and relied upon by other happiness scholars and popular writers. He has dialogued with the Dalai Lama on the subject of happiness and talked with world leaders about measuring societal happiness.

  And most recently, his idea of using a gross national happiness index, in conjunction with the commonly used gross domestic product, to measure the wealth of cities, states, and countries is gaining momentum and interest throughout the world. This is a man who in the evening says, "I am tired so I think I will go analyze some data." The study of happiness has energized him for the past thirty years.

  Not only is Ed a psychologist, but so am I, our twin daughters, Marissa and Mary Beth, and our son, Robert. An unusual atmosphere of psychological inquiry and experimentation filled our household from the time there was the patter of little feet. On the weekend and evenings, we sometimes carried out psychology projects with our children. For example, Robert did his first science project on the relation of mood and weather. As the children grew into teenagers, dinner table discussions frequently centered around topics such as "how people differ and how they are the same" and "how emotion affects memory." In this atmosphere of intellectual curiosity, Ed and Robert forged a partnership that combined scientific inquiry with real world application.

  Building on his childhood experiences and his curiosity about foreign cultures that began in the Amazon, Robert pursued research on happiness in atypical places such as Greenland, the African savannah, and the slums of Calcutta. To give you a taste of just how adventurous his field research has been, Robert had a small grant to conduct research among the Maasai in Kenya. In order to garner the trust of the Maasai and to obtain accurate data, Robert allowed himself to be branded by the Maasai, not once but three times, to prove his worthiness to work with them. He also billed the granting agency for a goat which he bought as a sacrifice for a good hunt. Certainly not your typical laboratory research!

  Robert has continued to travel and study happiness throughout the world. He visited the gold souks of Dubai, the markets of Istanbul, the gardens of the Vatican, the mountain villages of Morocco, the Inuit of Greenland, seaside towns in Nicaragua, cultural festivals in Taiwan, markets in Cambodia, the Australian outback, and countless other places. Everywhere he went he was more captivated by conversations with local inhabitants than he was by the famous tourist sites. Like his father, Robert is intensely interested in the quality of life of everyday people such as postal employees, bus drivers, and hairdressers around the globe.

  The father-son collaboration is a natural fit. Robert extended Ed's work from the research laboratory to the field. Robert contacted remote and hard-to-access groups such as tribal Kenyans, the Greenland Inuits, and the Amish, and conducted subjective well-being research in these communities. Although Robert has published nearly two dozen professional articles on happiness, he is also interested in how this research can be applied to help people live better lives. He opened a coaching practice as a way to put innovations in the science of happiness into practice, and works with dozens of clients across the English-speaking world. He co-authored a book on using positive psychology in practice and regularly consults with organizations interested in applications of positive psychology.

  So what does all this life history of the Diener clan have to do with this book? Why should you listen to Ed's and Robert's views on the topic of happiness? After all, it seems that everyone has a theory of happiness and "knows" what is important for happiness. I believe that the answer lies in the fact that not all opinions are created equal. Most of us would prefer to get investment tips from the BBC's financial analyst and car maintenance advice from an experienced mechanic, and not the other way around. We seek expert advice on everything from health care to hair coloring. Ed and Robert are the experts - in the modern scientific sense of the word - on the topic of happiness. They spend many, if not most, of their waking hours considering the fine points of emotional well-being, and have conducted a rigorous investigation of this topic for decades by collecting data from tens of thousands of people from all walks of life and every corner of the globe. They have examined the happiness of billionaires and homeless people and have looked at potential influences of happiness ranging from old age to the spring break trips of college students.

  Happiness is Ed's and Robert's job and their passion. In this book they combine their scientific knowledge with personal wisdom and diverse experiences. There are many myths, half-truths, fact and fiction in the popular media on happiness. Here is the opportunity to let the Jedi Master and Indiana Jones of Happiness unlock the mysteries of psychological wealth for you and to find out the true secrets of happiness.

  Carol Diener, PhD, JD

  Acknowledgments

  We are grateful to the many people who have made this book better, through their advice and encouragement. We have discussed the ideas in this work for endless hours with our spouses, Carol Diener and Keya Biswas-Diener. We thank them also for reading countless drafts and giving us insightful feedback. Chris Cardone at Blackwell Publishing has been of great help to us, especially because of her continuing encouragement. A number of assistants were responsible for searching for relevant studies, and for readying the book for publication, and we express our gratitude for the hundreds of hours they spent: Rebecca Sigmon Hernandez, Deborah Dexter, Alice Moon, and Lindsey Markel.

  A group of scholars went beyond the call of duty in reading a draft of the entire document, and their comments served to strengthen many aspects of this book: Michael Frisch, Richard Lucas, Alex Michalos, David Myers, and Chris Peterson. We are also thankful to the reviewers who read individual chapters and gave us helpful feedback: Shigehiro Oishi, Sarah Pressman, John Helliwell, Rutt Veenhoven, Harry Reis, Gerald Clore, Raymond Paloutzian, Robert Emmons, George Vaillant, Chu Kim-Prieto, Timothy Wilson, Barry Schwartz, Andrew Clark, Ulrich Schimmack, Thomas Wright, Timothy Judge, Jim Clifton, Amy Wreszniewski, Jeanne Tsai, Christopher Hsee, William Pavot, Sheldon Cohen, Christie Scollon, and Nansook Park.

  Part I

  Understanding True Wealth

  1

  Psychological Wealth:

  The Balanced Portfolio

  Recently, the world held its breath for the final Harry Potter installment. The boy wizard is an international phenomenon, and the author, J. K. Rowling, a surprise literary sensation. As captivating as the stories of magic wands and Muggles are, Rowling's personal story is equally compelling. A single mother writing on cocktail napkins in Edinburgh pubs to save money on heat at home, Rowling spun a hobby into a multibillion-dollar franchise. Currently, Rowling is among the richest women in the world, and reportedly is worth more than the Queen of England. As such, she has entered into the public discourse about the fabulously wealthy.

  Most of us are fascinated by financial stardom, and television shows, magazines, and exposes offer tantalizing peeks into the lives of the superrich. For example, we ask, who is the richest person in the world? Is it the computer billionaire Bill Gates? Maybe it is the oilrich sultan of Brunei, or the business-savvy sh
eik of Dubai? Why not consider the highly influential Oprah Winfrey? Perhaps a dictator who has squirreled away billions in a Swiss bank? You would be wrong if you thought of any of these folks. Although they are extremely wealthy when it comes to money, these well-heeled people with private jets and homes around the world may not be at the top when it comes to true riches, psychological wealth.

  In this book, we will describe the new concept of psychological wealth, which extends beyond material riches and beyond popular concepts like emotional intelligence and social capital. Psychological wealth is your true total net worth, and includes your attitudes toward life, social support, spiritual development, material resources, health, and the activities in which you engage. In this book, we show how psychological wealth depends on happiness and life satisfaction, and the factors that lead to them. We will explain why monetary wealth is only one component of true wealth, and why other aspects are usually more important. In our final chapter, you can measure your own psychological wealth and see if you qualify for our Richest 400 list.

  We have devoted our professional lives as psychologists to the careful study of happiness. We have worked from the ground up to re-examine long-held conclusions about well-being, and ask new questions about the subject. We have investigated the emotional lives of the very wealthy, and of the destitute. We have looked at the role that relationships, religion, culture, and positive attitudes play in happiness. We have collected data from tens of thousands of people in dozens of nations, including postal workers in India, tribal people in Kenya, Inuits above the Arctic Circle, and Hispanic students in California. The results of our studies of happiness have shown us that there are many important, and often counterintuitive, aspects of this emotional Holy Grail. After decades of research, we have findings that will re-confirm some of your beliefs about happiness, and turn others on their head. Our book is intended to help laypeople and psychologists alike to rethink their beliefs about happiness, the core of psychological wealth.