Happiness and Health

October 3, 2008

Dacher Keltner
University of California, Berkeley
keltner@berkeley.edu
www.greatergoodscience.org
A Roadmap
• Traditions in the Study of Happiness
• Positive Psychology, Parsing the Realm
• BREAK: 10:15 to 10:30
• The Evolution of Human Sociality
• Biological Foundations of Happiness
• LUNCH: 11:30 TO 12:30
• Styles of Thinking
• Happiness in Relationships
• Happiness at Work
• BREAK: 2:15 TO 2:30
• Stress
• Transcending Stress
• Beyond Happiness
• NIRVANA: 4:00
Goals

• New Ideas
• New Tools
• Evidence for the Good Life
Virtue Ethics in Classical
Thought
• Aristotle and moderation

• Eudamonia

• The feeling of virtue

Hedonism

• Happiness is the sum of our sensory

pleasures
Utilitarianism: J.S.Mill,
Bentham
• Happiness is found in actions that promote
happiness for the greatest number of people
• Happiness is an individual right:
The Declaration of Independence on inalienable
rights: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Happiness in the afterlife
• Judeo-Christian Thought
• To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not lov
”

• Happiness = impossible to attain

• Happiness is found in the release from the body,
passion
Buddhism

• Nirvana and the eightfold path

• Tibetan
• If you want others to be happy,
practice compassion, if you want to
be happy practice compassion. His
Holiness the Dalai Lama
Confucianism and Jen

• A person of jen, Confucius observes,

“wishing to establish his own
character, also establishes the
character of others.”
• A person of jen “brings the good
things of others to completion and
does not bring the bad things of
others to completion.”
Taoism and the mysterious
way
• When man is born, he is tender and weak
• At death he is stiff and hard
• All things, the grass as well as trees, are tender
and subtle while alive
• When dead, they are withered and dried
• Therefore the stiff and the hard are companions of
death
• The tender and weak are the companions of life
• If the tree is stiff, it will break
• The strong and the great are inferior, while the
tender and the weak are superior
Happiness is unknowable
(Dan Gilbert)
• Affective Forecasting and mispredicting
happiness
– Tenure decisions don’t alter happiness as
predicted
– Romantic breakups don’t either
– Ignore psychological immune system
New Science of Positive
Psychology
• Uncharted territory:
– Anger over gratitude
– Divorce over happiness
– Disease over positive health

• From +7 to +8

• Provocative studies

• Positive emotions, traits, institutions, health

• Table 11.5.
11.5. Positive emotionality, as assessed in the magnitude of the smile shown in a photograph at age
20, predicts adult personality, relationship satisfaction, and personal well—being over the next 30 years.
•
• Measure Positive Emotionality
• Negative Emotionality
• Age 21 -.37**
• Age 27 -.21*
• Age 43 -.21*
• Age 52 -.27**
• Affiliation
• Age 21 .33*
• Age 43 .18+
• Competence
• Age 27 .19+
• Age 43 .20*
• Age 52 .29**
• Well-being
• Age 21 .20*
• Age 27 .25*
• Age 43 .18+
• Age 52 .28**
• Marital Well-being
• Age 52 .20*
• Source:
Source : Harker & Keltner, 2001. Note: ** = p < .01, * = p < .05, + = p < .10.
Why Study Happiness?
(Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005)

• Experimental, Cross-sectional, Longitudinal data

• Health
• Happy Marriages: 5 to 1 ratio
• Happy Children
• Happy Neighborhoods: Happy individuals more
likely to engage in community service
• It’ll be good for our culture
Happiness and Health
• Happy nuns at 22 2.5 times less likely to
die between 80 and 90
• Happy about aging adds 7.5 years to life
• Happy at 70 adds 20 months to life
• Happiness associated with
– Fewer health symptoms
– Fewer strokes
– Fewer fatal accidents
– Reduced cardiovascular disease
– Reduced allergic reaction
Happiness at work
• Most cheerful college students make
$25,000/year compared to least cheerful
• Happy workers more productive, better job
performance
• Happiness leads to boost in creative
thought, problem solving
• Happiness makes for more integrative
negotiators
• Emotionally intelligent managers have
more satisfied teams
 Children's well-being
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Clarifying the Conceptual
Domain
• Well-being: “Overall my life is going well”

• Traits: “I am an enthusiastic person”

• Emotions: “I feel reverence and gratitude”

• Sensations: “This February sun feels good on my

skin”
Measurement Approaches
• Self-report: “Overall how satisfied are you with
your life” (Diener)
• Women = Men
• $ matters little for middle class and above
• No midlife crisis
• Happy countries: Dutch
• Surprisingly unhappy countries: the Japanese
• Love and work
• Cultural Differences: Social engagement (East)
vs. disengagement (West)
Measurement: Domains and
the nuances of happiness
(Carol Ryff)
Autonomy
Environmental mastery
Personal growth
Positive relations with others
Purpose in life
Self-acceptance
POSITIVE EMOTION: A
language for the 3 to 1 (own life) and 5
to 1 ratios (Marriage)
• Resources
EnthusiasmApproach Goal
Contentment Satiation

• Social Relations
Love Attachment
Desire Reproduction
Compassion Nurturance
Pride Elevated Status
Gratitude Reciprocity/Friendship
Awe Leaders

• Distress Reduction
Relief

• Knowledge
Interest Learning
Amusement Transformation/Insight
Other measures

• Face and voice

The Jen ratio

• The Good brought out in others/The

bad brought out in others
Origins of Happiness: Are we
designed to be happy?
• Evolution of our Ultrasociality
Hunter gatherers
Archeology
Primate predecessors
Dimensions to our
Ultrasociality
• Care-taking
• Flattened Hierarchies
• Conflict and Reconciliation
• Coordination
• Fragile Monogamy
Take care or die
The Amygdala as Preconscious
Evaluator
– Anatomical description
• Input from sensory systems prior to
hippocampus

– Evidence from animals with amygdala

lesions.

– Evidence from fMRI research

• Responds to threat, affective salience of stimuli
• Shut down during love
Nucleus Accumbens
• Rich with dopamine receptors
• Dopamine: Wanting
• Opiates: Liking
• Activated by:
– pretty faces
– food, musice
– Pleasurable scenes
– winning money
– heroin, amphetamines, cocaine

The Dopamine, Opiate interplay (DePue)

The Frontal Lobes and
Executive Control
• Anatomy
• Patient work: Orbitofrontal Patients
• fMRI Work
Emotion Regulation, appraisal
Empathy: mPFC
Secondary rewards: social status, touch
Emotions in Decision Making
Oxytocin and Trust

• Functions of Oxytocin
• Faithful and frisky voles
• Oxytocin and love
• The Neuroeconomics of Trust
• LOVE DESIRE HAPPY
• Z.O. Par Z.O. Par Z.O. Par
• _______________________________________
• Affiliation cues
• Self-report .26* .28* .06 -.11 .17 .04
Partner Estimate .25* .21* .17 .05 .10 .00

• Sexual Cues
• Self-report -.01 -.19 .30* .34** -.03 -23*
• Partner Estimate -.01 -.17 .31* .34** -.04 -.07
• _______________________________________
• Affiliation Cues Sexual Cues
Contr. for Sexual Cues Contr. for
Affiliation Cues
• __________________________________________________
• Oxytocin Reactivity .50** .11
•
• Oxytocin Recovery .15 .12
• __________________________________________________
Oxytocin and Trust

Oxytocin and T rust

60
% Who Give Away Maximum

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Oxytocin Control
Happiness and Hemispheric
Asymmetry
• The Left Frontal Cortex and Positive
Emotion
Emotion Studies:
approach related positive emotion
trait happiness
Studies of Buddhist Monks
Studies of Meditation
 0.4
Beta correlations between trait affect and

0.3

0.2
similarity ratings

0.1
Compassion
0
Pride
Low Vulnerability Moderate Vulnerability High Vulnerability
-0.1

-0.2

-0.3

-0.4
 Epoch change in RSA

Self-reported .33*
compassion
Self reported pride -.30*

Self-other similarity .29*

Time 5: 6 months Resting Vagal Tone:
later Time 1
Extraversion .40**
Agreeableness .32*
PANAS Positive Affect .40**

PANAS Negative .05

Affect
Optimism .30*
Pessimism -.21*
Health -.21*
Spiritual .26*
Human genetics, set points,
and change
• Heritability co-efficients and happiness
– Twin studies: Extraversion .5 identical twins, .2
fraternal
– Dopamine, oxytocin polymorphisms

• The equation (Lyubomirsky)

– 50% genetics
– 10% environment
– 40% voluntary activity
Vagal Tone

• Increased positive emotion

• More resilient response to
bereavement
• More sympathetic prosocial children
• Trusted more in interactions with
strangers
Styles of Thinking:
OPTIMISM
• Definition: Expectations about the
future that it will be socially desirable,
good, pleasurable
• Measures:
“In uncertain times, I usually expect
the best”
“If something can go wrong for me it
will”
Optimism and Happiness
• Optimistic people report higher levels of overall
well-being and happiness
• Optimistic people report higher levels of positive
emotion
• Optimistic people have higher resting vagal tone
• Optimism measured in 1945 (in men) predicts
better reports of health 35 years later
• Optimism rated in coded acceptance speeches in
20th century presidential candidates predicted
the victor 18 of 22 times
• Writing about best self: Greater Happiness, health
Explanatory Style

• Success: external, transient,

specific: (“This promotion was due
to a good break”)
• Failure: Internal, stable, global (“My
difficulties at work are due to
character flaws”
Gratitude/Appreciation/Reveren
ce
• The grateful disposition and
increased happiness, health,
optimism (Emmons)
• “Count your blessings (Lyubomirsky):
5 blessings 1/week leads to
increased happiness and health
• “Thank you”: 11% increase in tips
Positive Illusions and Well-
being: Taylor & Brown, 1985
• The Big Three: Optimism, control,
self-enhancement
• The mechanisms: Positive moods,
motivation, positive relations
• The outcome: Well-being
 Trust in fellow citizens

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• Cynicism and the Decline of Trust
Toxic Thoughts: Materialism
• No study finds associations between material gain
and increased well-being

• Materialistic values in college predict less happiness

• The irony of materialistic actions

– commuting
– disrupts pleasure
Toxic Thoughts: Cynicism
Behavior in ultimatum game

• People are selfish, competitive,

aggressive: Homo Economicus 80

Percentage making offer

70
60
50
40

• Self-fulfilling prophecies of 30

competition 20
10
0
40--50% < 40%

• Hostile Attribution Bias (Ken

Dodge)

• Blame in couples
An Intellectual Legacy of
Cynicism
• The very emphasis of the commandment: Thou shalt not kill, makes
it certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of
generations of murderers, whose love of murder was in their blood
as it is perhaps also in ours. Sigmund Freud

• If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men

have to reject. Ayn Rand

• Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and

greedy of gain. Machiavelli

• The natural world is “grossly immoral”. Natural section “can

honestly be described as a process for maiximizing short sighted
selfishness” George Williams
Toxic Thoughts:
Perfectionism
• Parents who praise for being perfect
rather than effort, hard work (Dweck)
• Priming the “ideal self” leads to
dejection
• Maximizers experience less pleasure
than satisficers (Schwartz)
Keeping up with the Jonses

• Upward social comparisons lead to

dissatisfaction, dejection
• Very happy people rarely compare
themselves to others (Lyubomirsky)
Rumination (Nolen-
Hoeksema)
• Dwell on problems, overthink
• Measured by:
“I go to my room alone and think about my feelings”
“I isolate myself and think about the reasons I’m feeling this
way”

• Related to:
– gender differences in depression
– ruminative style leads to depression, transforms negative moods
into enduring dysphoric states
– rumination leads to less optimism, reduced energy, less motivation,
worsened concentration, depressive emotion and though
A Need to Belong: Happiness is
found between
• “Feral” children, solitary confinement
• Psychopathology, violence related to loneliness
• Social support and immune system
– Cohen: more friends, fewer colds
– Kiecolt-Glaser: stronger marriages, better immune systems
• Intimate relationship and happiness
• One friend rule for children with difficulties
Losing Intimacy?

• Divorce rate high (40% to 50%)

• Marital satisfaction has declined

• Americans have lost on average 1

close friend in the past 20 years
The Attachment Perspective

• The healthy lives of securely

attached

• The problems of anxiously attached

partners
The Dynamic Interaction Style
Perspective
• Naturalistic methods
• The Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse
-Contempt
-Criticism
-Stonewalling
-Defensiveness
Beyond 15%: Toward the
magical 5 to 1 ratio of positive
to negative
• Humor: playful nicknames, laughter and escapes from negative affect
cascades, playful teasing

• Gratitude: Appreciation exercises boost happiness of couples

• Loving Kindness: interventions boost happiness of couples (Neff)

• Forgiveness: letting go of grudges calms stress-related physiology;

forgiveness interventions boost well-being

• Disclosure: Suppressing emotion elevates stress-related physiology of others

• Idealization (Sandra Murray)

Work
• Potent predictor of happiness (but not too much:
leisure time consistently predicts well-being)
• Flow: Skills match challenges
• Meaning (work for greater good)
• Matching Strengths (Peterson)
– Wisdom: creativity, learning
– Courage: Bravery, authenticity
– Humanity: Kindness, love
– Justice: fairness, leadership
– Temperance: Modesty, prudence
– Transcendence: gratitude, spirituality
The Emotionally Intelligent
Leader
• Human power requires continual emotional
intelligence
– Negotiations, mediation, resource allocation,
maintaining morale

• Emotional Intelligence =
– Intelligent encoding
– Intelligent decoding
– Intelligent insight into own emotions
– Intelligent management of emotions
Caring:
Respect is paramount

• People in general care an enormous amount about respect

– 70% of people surveyed would forego a pay raise for a more
prestigious job title

• Providing acknowledge-
ment increases productivity
as much as monetary
incentives
Monetary incentives Monetary incentives
+ acknowledgement
How to build trust? A few
tips

• Neutrality, respect, transparency

– Procedural justice can be more important than
distributive justice

• Show trust in your subordinates

– The act of trust by itself encourages trustworthiness
• Why? Evidence points to oxytocin levels in the brain; people are
predisposed to trust those who trust them
– Micro-managing and frequent check-ins can harm this
process
The Body, Stress, and
Disease
• The Embodied Mind
– pencil in mouth experiment and happiness
– Furrowed eyebrows and injustice
– Lifting up makes people use more uplifting
metaphors
– Furrow brows, tighten lips: cardiovascular
arousal
The Hypothalamic Pituitary
Adrenal (HPA) axis (Sapolsky)

• Chronic stress and:

– Increased feelings
of vulnerability
– Stress, anxiety, fear,
nervousness
– Vigilance to threats
– immune system compromise, ulcers, damage to
DNA, damage to brain cells, shortened lives in
response to disease
The Core Meaning of Stress

• When demands exceed capacities

• Threats to social identity, connection

(Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004)
Transcending stress: Adaptive
Coping
• Adaptive coping associated with positive responses
to traumas such as bereavement
• Measurement:
• “I concentrate my efforts on doing something
about it”
• “I do what has to be done one step at a time”
• “I try to come up with a strategy about what to do”
• “I make a plan of action”
• “I try to get advice from someone about what to
do”
Exercise, Yoga, Sports

• Endorphins
• Breathing
• Catharsis
• Social Contact
Nature
• Biophilia (Wilson)

• Green spaces in urban areas and increased well-being, calm,

concentration, reduced crime (Frances Kuo)

• the Muir experience

We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling
enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and
cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as
glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it,
thrilling with the air and trees, streams, and rocks, in the waves
of the sun – a part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor
well, but immortal… How glorious a conversion, so complete and
wholesome it is, scarce a memory enough of the old bondage
days left as a standpoint to view it from.
Functions of Touch

• Reward
• Reinforce Reciprocity
• Signal Safety
• Soothe
• Power
Touch and the spread of goodness

Emotion and T ouch

Frequency Choosing Correct

70
60
50

Emotion
40 Correct Label
30 Next choice
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Meditation (Kabat-Zinn;
Wallace)
• Core Principles
– Breathing reduced cariovascular arousal
– Awareness of sensations Frontal control of limbic
– Awareness of mind
– Loving Kindness shift in asymmetry

• Empirical Evidence
– Monks
– Kabat-Zinn, Davidson (2004): software engineers
– Fredrickson, 2008: boosts in happiness over 2 months
– mindful people happier, more optimistic
Laughter (la petite vacation)
• Its evolution in play

• Its many varieties

• Laughter promotes cooperation

• Reduction of cardiovascular stress

• Humor enhances immune function

• Healthier response to bereavement, sexual trauma

Life as Narrative
• Writing and Insight (Pennebaker)
– Writing about most intense feelings associated with trauma:
happiness and health
– reduction of stress; gains in perspective
• Neuroscience of narrative
• Inductive Parenting
Awe and the Sacred

• Transcendent purpose, spirituality

associated with health, happiness
• Awe promotes higher purpose
A Quick Summary

• Simple truths: Connect, work, beyond

materialism
• Rooted in our bodies, brains, genes,
species
• Power of Thought
• Love, work and the jen ratio
• Countering Stress
• An Ethics of Happiness?
Beyond Happiness: GIVE

• Dunn, 2008: Giving $20 improves

happiness more than spending $20
on self

• neuroscience of cooperation:
activates Nucleus Accumbens
CARE
• Bequeath(ed) humans with a sense of empathy –
an ability to treat other people’s interests as
comparable to one’s own. Unfortunately, by
default we apply it only to a very serious narrow
circle of friends and family. People outside that
circle were treated as subhuman and can be
exploited with impunity. But over history the
circle has expanded… from village to the clan to
the tribe to the nation to other races to other
sexes… and to other species
LOVE (Coontz)

12

10
Experience of Love

8 Parent-Child
Sexual Desire
6
Romantic
4 For Humanity

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Play
IMAGINE
The great secret of morals is love, or
a going out of our own nature, and an
identification of ourselves with the
beautiful which exists in thought,
action or person, not our own. A
man, to be greatly good, must
imagine intensely and
comprehensively; he must put
himself in the place of another and of
many others; the pains and pleasures
of his species must become his own.
The great instrument of moral good is
the imagination (Shelley).
Narrative
 THANK YOU!

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