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I find two problems with these kinds of studies: (1) How are you defining "happiness"? If you define happiness as social interaction, obviously the introverts

I find two problems with these kinds of studies: (1) How are you defining "happiness"? If you define happiness as social interaction, obviously the introverts will be "unhappy". Here, this study seems to define it as "psychological well-being (measured by self-esteem, life satisfaction, and happiness)". Is being unsatisfied bad? I would argue that it is not necessarily true. Unsatisfied people tend to bring change to society. So what are we trying to optimize for? You improve what you measure. Are we measuring the right metric? If having high levels of dopamine is happiness, is it ok to inject everyone with dopamine to make them "happy"? (2) Are these activities symptoms of unhappiness or causes? I think they are just symptoms. The more I study about this, the more I feel that "unhappiness" is more of a trait. Mostly genes and internal hormones and chemistry and biology. This constant push to be "happy" makes life worse for the "sad" people.

eiieirurjdndjd 8y ago
To be satisfied means having one’s own needs or desires met. What we are optimizing for, in this case, is people’s self-reported evaluation of their own value function. That being said, I think there is merit to your second point, although I don’t believe we have enough evidence to know.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > That being said, I think there is merit to your second point, although I don’t believe we have enough evidence to know. There was a nice research summary posted on LessWrong some long time ago: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZbgCx2ntD5eu8Cno9/how-to-be-happy https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZbgCx2ntD5eu8Cno9/how-to-be-... It mentions various "factors that correlate with subjective well-being (individuals' own assessments of their happiness and life satisfaction)". Quoting from it: <<< Factors that don't correlate much with happiness include: age[7], gender[8], parenthood[9], intelligence[10], physical attractiveness[11], and money[12] (as long as you're above the poverty line). Factors that correlate moderately with happiness include: health[13], social activity[14], and religiosity[15]. Factors that correlate strongly with happiness include: genetics[16], love and relationship satisfaction[17], and work satisfaction[18]. (...) Genes account for about 50% of the variance in happiness[19]. Even lottery winners and newly-made quadriplegics do not see as much of a change in happiness as you would expect[20]. Presumably, genes shape your happiness by shaping your personality, which is known to be quite heritable[21]. So which personality traits tend to correlate most with happiness? Extroversion is among the best predictors of happiness[22], as are conscientiousness, agreeableness, self-esteem, and optimism[23]. >>> Numbers I put in square brackets in the quote above are all references to papers. The article goes on to discuss how those correlates suggest effective ways of improving your own happiness. I'm not in the field so I won't judge the quality of the referenced research, or how much results have changed since 2011, but still, it seems that we do know quite a lot about this. (Also note that, despite it being very unpopular fact, genes seem to pop up as strong - even leading - predictor in very many personal traits, including intelligence.)
liftbigweights 8y ago
Interesting points. Also, I've always wondered how you do prevent lying when it comes to self-reporting? Extroverts, who are expected to be happy, could just self report as being happy, even when they are not. How do we know that participants are really being honest? > This constant push to be "happy" makes life worse for the "sad" people. It also makes it worse for "happy" people because they have a higher bar to climb. Lately, I've been seeing a lot of "teens are lonely", "teens are depressed", "loneliness epidemic", etc. We know that media content influences everyone, especially teens. What effect are the news stories themselves having on the kids.
AtlasBarfed 8y ago
Psychology has decently defined conditions for depression and gauging risk factors, so it might be the absence of depression factors and symptoms rather than defining the eternally debated philosophical nature of "happiness".

eiieirurjdndjd 8y ago

To be satisfied means having one’s own needs or desires met. What we are optimizing for, in this case, is people’s self-reported evaluation of their own value function. That being said, I think there is merit to your second point, although I don’t believe we have enough evidence to know.

TeMPOraL 8y ago
> That being said, I think there is merit to your second point, although I don’t believe we have enough evidence to know. There was a nice research summary posted on LessWrong some long time ago: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZbgCx2ntD5eu8Cno9/how-to-be-happy https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZbgCx2ntD5eu8Cno9/how-to-be-... It mentions various "factors that correlate with subjective well-being (individuals' own assessments of their happiness and life satisfaction)". Quoting from it: <<< Factors that don't correlate much with happiness include: age[7], gender[8], parenthood[9], intelligence[10], physical attractiveness[11], and money[12] (as long as you're above the poverty line). Factors that correlate moderately with happiness include: health[13], social activity[14], and religiosity[15]. Factors that correlate strongly with happiness include: genetics[16], love and relationship satisfaction[17], and work satisfaction[18]. (...) Genes account for about 50% of the variance in happiness[19]. Even lottery winners and newly-made quadriplegics do not see as much of a change in happiness as you would expect[20]. Presumably, genes shape your happiness by shaping your personality, which is known to be quite heritable[21]. So which personality traits tend to correlate most with happiness? Extroversion is among the best predictors of happiness[22], as are conscientiousness, agreeableness, self-esteem, and optimism[23]. >>> Numbers I put in square brackets in the quote above are all references to papers. The article goes on to discuss how those correlates suggest effective ways of improving your own happiness. I'm not in the field so I won't judge the quality of the referenced research, or how much results have changed since 2011, but still, it seems that we do know quite a lot about this. (Also note that, despite it being very unpopular fact, genes seem to pop up as strong - even leading - predictor in very many personal traits, including intelligence.)

liftbigweights 8y ago

Interesting points. Also, I've always wondered how you do prevent lying when it comes to self-reporting? Extroverts, who are expected to be happy, could just self report as being happy, even when they are not. How do we know that participants are really being honest? > This constant push to be "happy" makes life worse for the "sad" people. It also makes it worse for "happy" people because they have a higher bar to climb. Lately, I've been seeing a lot of "teens are lonely", "teens are depressed", "loneliness epidemic", etc. We know that media content influences everyone, especially teens. What effect are the news stories themselves having on the kids.

AtlasBarfed 8y ago

Psychology has decently defined conditions for depression and gauging risk factors, so it might be the absence of depression factors and symptoms rather than defining the eternally debated philosophical nature of "happiness".