Americans are obsessed with happiness. The pursuit of it, after all, is woven into the Declaration of Independence.
But while the wealth of the US has expanded during the past 50 years, well-being hasn't always kept pace. Edward Diener, a psychology professor at the University of Illinois, has spent the past 25 years trying to figure out why.
Rather than see the subject in traditional psychological terms of treating negative emotions, Diener looks at factors that generate contentment. Time magazine dubbed him "Dr. Happiness" last year.
In other words, his glass is half-full, and he's ready to share it.
Don Mayhew: Can we cut to the chase? What's the secret to happiness?
Edward Diener: There's a question you want to know before then. That is, "Do you really want to be happier? Should you be happier?" ... Because we don't want to make you happier if you're then going to be a goofball and be ineffective.
Don Mayhew: All right, is it good to be happy?
Edward Diener: The answer is a surprisingly strong yes. You're more susceptible to some diseases if you are not happy, if you're stressed-out. Stress reduces the effectiveness of your immune system. There's also some data to suggest that happy people live longer. Unhappy people tend not to be very popular, not to be self-confident, not to be a lot of good things socially.
Don Mayhew: Laughter -- the best medicine?
Edward Diener: Laughter is not a bad thing. There are some emerging data that show that laughter has some good effects on people. It does counter stress response. ... Laughing is a good thing? Yes. Humor is a good thing? Yes. Is it the only thing? Is it sufficient? No.
You have to be careful of these people who say laughter is a magic answer. Because beyond laughter, you need meaning and purpose in life. I'm very suspicious of any answer that's simplistic.
People say, "What's the key to health?" And they say, "Eating right. Well, wait a minute. Exercise. Well, not smoking. Wearing your seatbelt." There's a lot of keys to health. And I think happiness is the same way.
Don Mayhew: Do friends make you happy?
Edward Diener: There's probably some truth to that. But you can do experimental studies where you put people in a good mood, and then they can wait in a room by themselves, or they can wait in a room with other people for the next thing. People who are in a good mood are more likely to wait in the room with other people and to be talkative.
Don Mayhew: What about money?
Edward Diener: After a certain point, it doesn't look like higher and higher income makes people happier. So if you go from poverty up to the middle class, you see a fairly substantial rise in various measures of well-being, like life satisfaction. Going from middle class to wealthy, there still is a rise, but it's pretty small.
We don't say caring about money makes you unhappy. Everybody's going to care about money to some degree. But if you care about money more than you care about love, on average, you're not going to be as happy.
A longitudinal study we did was people at age 18, entering college, said how happy they were. We followed them up in their 30s and found how much money they made. The people who entered college being happy made more money later --
controlling for all the things we could think of: their major, their occupation, their parents' income and their sex.
RSS