HUMAN HAPPINESS - ITS NATURE & ITS ACHIEVEMENT
VOLUME I: THE NATURE OF HAPPINESS
CHAPTER 4

 

THE STORY OF HAPPINESS RESEARCH

This Chapter starts from a personal perspective, which coincidentally reflects the modern history of happiness science itself. It is an anecdotal history of my own research into the nature of happiness that I whimsically refer to, in my college lectures, as "The Second Greatest Story Ever Told: The Story of Happiness Research." It's a look behind the scenes, so to speak, at the way psychologists have studied human happiness and how the science has developed and grown over the years.

My own journey into happiness research began as I entered my graduate studies in Psychology. My academic history in diverse fields like philosophy, the humanities, art, history, and religion had led me to consider the larger questions of human existence. More and more, my thinking began to center on the issue of "happiness." As I asked myself the same question I've already presented to you, "What is the most important thing in life?", the answer, "happiness," continued to emerge.

Human happiness appeared, again and again, as the most valued of all human quests. It appeared to be the central concern of most all psychological, philosophical, and theological thinking. Thus it seemed to me that the scientific study of happiness would most certainly be among the most important topics a young research psychologist might devote a career to. After all, What grander enterprise could there be than to understand human happiness? And what greater achievement might there be than to find scientific clues to its attainment, if that were possible?

As I first became interested in happiness as a serious research topic, I assumed that there would be a wealth of scientific data already accumulated in the field. One would think that psychologists would have studied such an important topic as happiness extensively. But, in fact, this was not the case.

I was quite shocked, at first. An exhaustive search of the literature found that very few scientific studies had ever been done! The literature on depression and negative emotion, on the other hand, filled volumes in the references, but surprisingly, studies on happiness were few and far between.

It didn't seem right. Perhaps, I'd missed something... The most important thing in life? A central issue of philosophical and psychological theory? One of the most universal human desires? Hardly studied at all?

Sadly, it was true -- happiness had hardly been studied. I discovered, what Raymond Dodge (one of the early founders of the American Psychological Association) had seen over a half-century earlier:

"... the fact is uncontestable that happiness is an important, if not the most important, aim of human endeavor. Notwithstanding this fact, it has received no commensurate scientific attention. The theory of the happy life remains at about the level where Greek philosophers left it" (36).

It surprised me then, as much as it may surprise you now. After all, it seems that we're "happinessed to death" already. Everywhere one turns -- in books, in popular magazines, on television talk-shows -- you find someone talking about happiness. And this constant preoccupation with happiness in today's popular media is nothing peculiar to our times. Throughout history, novelists, philosophers, theologians, poets, playwrights -- and yes, even psychologists -- have expounded, at length, about happiness. Was it possible that all this talk was armchair speculation? Was none of it based on research facts? Sadly, the answer was yes.

Only since the late 1960's has the topic of happiness moved form fireside speculation into the research laboratory. Psychology has, only recently, come to commit itself to a true research understanding of the nature and caused of happiness -- an understanding based, not on philosophical conjecture, but rather, based solidly upon the results of scientific study and experimentation. The "Psychology of Happiness" is relatively new, historically speaking. So new, in fact, that the findings about happiness have yet to receive any wide attention among psychologists themselves, much less, the general public.

 

HAPPINESS: THE TOPIC
PSYCHOLOGY TURNED ITS BACK ON

For many years "happiness" was the forgotten topic of psychological research (224, 229, 260, 286). This seems especially surprising, considering how many psychologists wrote about it. If you read the works of Freud, Maslow, Carl Rogers, B. F. Skinner, Jung, William James, and the other "greats" -- they all mention happiness. All the great writers in psychology acknowledge the important role of happiness in life. But each seemed to consider it as the result of other psychological goals research professors typically study. Happiness, to the theorists, would naturally flow is humankind could develop better relationships, eliminate neurosis, raise and educate youngsters more effectively, or increase their mental health. Happiness would be the result of successful applied psychology in clinical, educational, marital, industrial, and societal settings.

Meanwhile, most research psychologists tended to follow their own, highly particular research interests. To the outsider, these interests often seem peculiar, if not downright bizarre: genetically altered rats in mazes; babies responding to photos of adult facial-expressions; comparing task-performance with different kinds of background music; studying eye-blink responses to various forms of modern art; examining the emotional effect of selected four-letter words on overworked police officers; etc.. But, as esoteric as these research interests appear, scientists in every field assume (albeit implicitly) that their discoveries will eventually lead to the overall understanding, and, hopefully, betterment, of the human condition -- and that this betterment, in turn, will lead to greater human happiness.

It's a valid assumption: understand all there is to know about human psychology, use this knowledge to eliminate human problems and difficulties one-by-one, and science makes life happier for all of us.

We could refer to this basic strategy of science as "the bottom-up approach." First, you study and understand the causes of human problems. Second, you find ways to eliminate or reduce them. And third, then happiness will surely result.

But hardly anybody had studied the result from the "top-down." In other words, few had bothered to study happiness, itself.

Like most of us tend to do, psychologists tend to become preoccupied with the (assumed) causes of happiness, rather than happiness itself. But why not a "top-down" approach to the issue? Why not research and investigate the implicit goal of all science directly? Why not study happiness first, then let the findings dictate the course of other investigation?

The main answer, it seems, is that the idea had simply never occurred.

But there are other answers...

First, there is the historical answer. Up until recently, the orientation of psychology has been very negative. The major topics have been pain, hunger, mental illness, hostility, aggression, psychopathology, suicide, fears, anxiety, depression, and so on. Negative topic, after negative topic, is the typical fare for the student of psychology.

Research on emotions reflects this negative trend. It has been found that unpleasant emotions have receive far more attention in both the research and in basic textbooks than pleasant emotions like happiness (28, 203, 425). One study, specifically examining the research on emotion, revealed that 83% of the research in psychology dealt with negative feelings (203).

Why such a negative focus?

Historically speaking, psychology came into being to study the personal nightmare of mental illness. Binet in France; Freud in Austria -- all were called to deal with the social concern of mental disabilities. As Freud was purported to have said, the goal of psychoanalysis was, at best, to move a patient "from hysterical misery to common unhappiness."

Naturally, therefore, the study of emotional pain, anxiety, and depression has always been a critical mission of psychology. It remains so today. Certainly this focus is highly desirable and beneficial. But in focusing only on illness, psychology, as a science, had caught the disease. In it's furor to understand the most severely disturbed, psychology itself developed an almost a neurotic fixation on a distortedly negative view of human behavior. The positive side of the human equation was largely ignored, both in theory, and more importantly, in the research...

As psychology developed, however, its attention gradually began to include a focus on the the positive, healthy side of life. Theorists like Abraham Maslow, Carl Rodgers, Eric Fromm, and more, began to focus attention to the more positive side of human existence and stimulated new research into areas such as the study of peak experiences, optimal mental health, self-actualization, love, and other positive topics. Psychologists were slowly moving to earnest study of the best of human traits, not just the worst.

But still, happiness was left alone and hardly studied. There was something else beyond this basic negative bias that kept researchers from studying happiness.

 

MYTHS ABOUT HAPPINESS

I believe the reluctance to seriously and scientifically study happiness was founded on an number of cultural myths and superstitions that have existed for centuries regarding the nature of happiness.

These myths are not often expressed, nor are they specifically a part of any formal or informal educational or cultural teaching. But they are generally assumed and widely held.

Myth Number 1: Happiness is unexplainable! It is widely believed and written that happiness cannot be understood. It is generally seen as one of life's mysteries - inexplicable, illusory, undefinable, ephemeral. We all seem to sense what it is, but nobody knows what it is - nor, can anyone know. Happiness is just there. It exists -- but it defies human explanation.

Myth Number 2: Happiness just happens! Some people are happy and some people aren't. But there's no rhyme or reason to it, according to this second, widely-held belief. Happiness, according to this myth, just happens -- it's all a matter of luck or fate. It simply falls on some people and doesn't on others. There's nothing that really explains it.

Myth Number 3: There's nothing you can do about happiness! This myth naturally follows the first two. If one cannot explain or understand happiness, and if happiness just happens according to whim, then, obviously, there's nothing one can concretely do about it. According to this myth, one is basically stuck with their happiness lot in life. There's nothing to try, because there's nothing one can do.

Myth Number 4: It's dangerous to think about happiness! This is the most insidious myth of all. It suggests a sense of taboo about happiness -- the threat of a Pandora's box. The superstition here is that thinking about one's happiness can actually destroy it. Centuries of folk-wisdom supports this myth. Consider these saying often quoted:

"The surest way to loose happiness is to pursue it directly."

"Happiness is like a butterfly. Chase after it and you'll never catch it. But if you turn your attention to other things, that butterfly may come to land on your shoulder..."

The mythical message is clear: happiness comes only to those who ignore it. It is best not to think too much about happiness. Don't ever examine it too closely. Don't analyze it. And, most certainly of all, don't try chasing after it!

Without giving too much away, research in the field has proven each of these "myths" to be completely false. However, in the begining days of happiness research, most scientific psychologists believed them, and therefore believed research on happiness was an unscientific exercise in frivilolity.

A careful reading of past writing about happiness shows that psychologists tended to believe the myths regarding happiness. Could happiness be scientifically researched? "Certainly not!" was the answer. It was seen as too "fuzzy" a concept. It couldn't be defined or measured (an ironical position, considering the fact that these same psychologists had studied other emotions like depression and anxiety extensively for years). Could anything be learned from studying happiness? "Highly unlikely!" was the consensus. Psychologists then believed the common myth that happiness had no concrete explanation, thus research in this area, they implied, would prove to be an exercise in futility. Nothing would be found. Indeed, even some contemporary psycholgists still incorrectly assume that "there is no formula for happiness, and perhaps there will never be.." (Freedman, Happy People).

And for the possibility of actually increasing happiness? It was then considered the wildest of dreams...

 

SILENT GROWTH

Yet, outside the mainstream, a "psychology of happiness" was slowly incubating.

Historically, it all began in 1930, with a pioneering study by psychologist Gordon Watson entitled "Happiness Among Adult Students of Education" (129). Yet after Watson's study, happiness research fell asleep until the late 1950's when a few more isolated studies about happiness were published. Then in the 1960's, several book-length research reports on happiness appeared  (27, 55, 132), marking what I believe is the classical beginnings of a true "psychology of happiness."

Still. it was only in the 1970's that happiness research really came into its own. It was only then that actual reasearch on happiness began as a regular and serious endeavor by the psychological community.And as the years have gone by, more and more research attention has been rightfully paid to happiness, and more and more researchers around the world have come to focus on this important psychological topic. Currently (according to one major data-base) there are over 2,000 researchers in some 42 countries actively involved in happiness research today (330, 332, 333), and it appears that the volume of happiness studies is practically doubling itself, each and every year.

The field has grown quite dramatically in a relatively short period of time. Among past milestones:

1973 - Psychological Abstracts (the major reference source of all research studies in Psychology) started listing "happiness" as a separate research category.

1984 - the first professional journal, devoted  to happiness and other socio-economic incicies of global well-being, Social Indicators Research, began publication.

1994 - the first professional journal, exclusively dedicated to scientific research on human happiness, The Journal of Happiness Studies, began publication.

As we look at the state of happiness research today, it is clear that the research has come to produce the ultimate scientific dream of humankind: a true understanding of human happiness.

In over four thousand years of recorded human civilization, we have finally come to actually study the one thing we sought all along.

Yet even now, few people know about it because it is so new. Only in the last few years, has any of the findings in this area been mentioned in basic college textbooks (381 through 385, & 390). And although some attention has been paid by the popular press over the years (347 through 376), hardly anyone knows about the scientific findings you will learn about in these volumes on "Human Happiness."

As it stands, this new "psychology of happiness" appears to be among the most reliable areas of scientific inquiry -- and thus, you can place faith in it.

One reason for this, is the amazing consistency happiness statistics have shown over the years. Although many different researchers have studied many different groups in many different places over many different years, the basic findings about happiness have been found to be virtually identical. Study after study, year after year, the basic findings have remained practically unchanged since the first beginning studies in the field (108, 129, 130, 135, 144, 201). Across cultures and even over decades of time, the most basic findings in happiness research have remained essentially unchanged (27, 65, 130, etc).

This amazing stability and constancy of happiness findings is something we will turn our attention to, in detail later. But for now, suffice it to say that few areas in psychology demonstrate such consistent repeatability and reliability in their data.

Another thing that adds veracity to the happiness findings is the large numbers of people included in many of the major studies in happiness. Generally, most scientific studies in psychology or medicine are limited to a dozen individuals. Rarely are studies reported where hundreds of people are examined. Yet many of the major studies in happiness have several thousands of people at a time in massive polling and interviews. Across cultures and nations; people of every age, occupation, social-strata, and region of the globe have been studied. Indeed, happiness researchers have literally combed the world to include the widest and most heterogeneous sampling of people ever studied in psychology. Thus, although happiness is one of the lessor studied topics in terms of the actual number of studies conducted, it may be among the most widely studied topics in terms of the number of people studied!

Another support for the happiness findings comes from the wide variety of methods used in the research. Happiness researchers have used a wide variety of techniques and measures to investigate happiness (the variety of which we shall outline in coming Chapters). Yet no matter how different the method used to study happiness, different techniques have continued to produce similar findings.

The fact that the happiness findings appear so universal across cultures; that they appear to be so consistent and reliable over time; and that they hold true for most individuals no matter how we psychologists assess them; truly indicates that "happiness" is something fundamental to the basic condition.

 

THE TWO FACES OF HAPPINESS

In the previous chapter, we defined happiness as simply an emotion. Indeed that's all it is. Yet in actual experience, as well as in research studies, happiness has two rather distinct faces. First, happiness is a good emotional feeling ("I'm in a happy mood"); second, happiness is a more general feeling people have about how their life is going ("I'm a happy person") (21, 55, 132, 147).

Let's look at these two faces of happiness more closely...

First, how happy do you feel at this very moment? Did you have a happy mood today? Did you have a happy time this weekend?

If you're feeling happy today, or can recall feeling that way recently, you understand what we mean when we talk about the first face of happiness. It is "happiness as a good mood."

This is the face of happiness that most people have the keenest connection with: the happy mood. It is generally of short duration; a fleeting feeling lasting anywhere from a few seconds to several hours, sometimes even for days. But it is a mood; something psychologists find come and go over short periods of time.

Now ask yourself another everyday question: "How happy a person are you?" Or, "how happy have you been lately? As you answer this question, you understand the second face of happiness: an overall, emotional evaluation of the recent past.

People, it seems, carry with them a sense of their general emotional morale. They know how they've been feeling lately. They know their typical disposition. Happiness, in this sense, is a generalization we make about how life has been treating us. It is an index of satisfaction with life, or as the dictionary defines it, it is a "positive feeling of well-being and contentment."

Our emotions act as a continuous measure of how life is going. When things are going well, we experience many happy moods. When things go badly, we have more unhappy, uncomfortable moods. When we're asked about our happiness, we recall the predominate mood, just as much as we recall the events that have taken place. "I'm a happy person" is a statement that tells you a lot about the quality of life a person is living; it is probably the most important information a person has about himself, yet one word, "happiness", communicates it all.

Happiness, therefore, has two faces. Both are similar in that they both connote emotional feelings, and both are highly interconnected. Happiness is a feeling of well-being we experience in immediate situations and it is also a feeling of general well-being based on the recent past. The feeling is essentially the same in both cases, and most people commonly use the term "happiness" in both ways, depending on the situation at hand (21, 55).

In the next chapter, therefore, we'll begin our exploration with an close examination of the happy mood, or what it feels like to be happy. And in the chapters after that, we'll enter the world of the happiest people and learn what it's like to be really happy.

 

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