Interesting Reflections on People and Happiness: A Passage from an Atlantic Monthly Article
The following is a passage from an article in the June editionof the ATLANTIC, entitled “What Makes Us Happy?” by Joshua Wolf Shenk. (It is about a longitudinal study conducted of men who were Harvard undergraduates in the late 1930s.)
The person currently overseeing the study is George Valliant, and the article is about him, as well as about the study, as well as about the men who have been followed from age roughly 20 to the present (where the survivors are roughly 89).
This passage occurs about half way through the piece.
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As Freud was displaced by biological psychiatry and cognitive psychology—and the massive data sets and double-blind trials that became the industry standard—Vaillant’s work risked obsolescence. But in the late 1990s, a tide called “positive psychology” came in, and lifted his boat. Driven by a savvy, brilliant psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania named Martin Seligman, the movement to create a scientific study of the good life has spread wildly through academia and popular culture (dozens of books, a cover story in Time, attention from Oprah, etc.).
Vaillant became a kind of godfather to the field, and a champion of its message that psychology can improve ordinary lives, not just treat disease. But in many ways, his role in the movement is as provocateur. Last October, I watched him give a lecture to Seligman’s graduate students on the power of positive emotions—awe, love, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, joy, hope, and trust (or faith). “The happiness books say, ‘Try happiness. You’ll like it a lot more than misery’—which is perfectly true,” he told them. But why, he asked, do people tell psychologists they’d cross the street to avoid someone who had given them a compliment the previous day?
In fact, Vaillant went on, positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. One reason is that they’re future-oriented. Fear and sadness have immediate payoffs—protecting us from attack or attracting resources at times of distress. Gratitude and joy, over time, will yield better health and deeper connections—but in the short term actually put us at risk. That’s because, while negative emotions tend to be insulating, positive emotions expose us to the common elements of rejection and heartbreak.
To illustrate his point, he told a story about one of his “prize” Grant Study men, a doctor and well-loved husband. “On his 70th birthday,” Vaillant said, “when he retired from the faculty of medicine, his wife got hold of his patient list and secretly wrote to many of his longest-running patients, ‘Would you write a letter of appreciation?’ And back came 100 single-spaced, desperately loving letters—often with pictures attached. And she put them in a lovely presentation box covered with Thai silk, and gave it to him.” Eight years later, Vaillant interviewed the man, who proudly pulled the box down from his shelf. “George, I don’t know what you’re going to make of this,” the man said, as he began to cry, “but I’ve never read it.” “It’s very hard,” Vaillant said, “for most of us to tolerate being loved.”
Vaillant brings a healthy dose of subtlety to a field that sometimes seems to glide past it. The bookstore shelves are lined with titles that have an almost messianic tone, as in Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment. But what does it mean, really, to be happier? For 30 years, Denmark has topped international happiness surveys. But Danes are hardly a sanguine bunch. Ask an American how it’s going, and you will usually hear “Really good.” Ask a Dane, and you will hear “Det kunne være værre (It could be worse).” “Danes have consistently low (and indubitably realistic) expectations for the year to come,” a team of Danish scholars concluded. “Year after year they are pleasantly surprised to find that not everything is getting more rotten in the state of Denmark.”
Of course, happiness scientists have come up with all kinds of straightforward, and actionable, findings: that money does little to make us happier once our basic needs are met; that marriage and faith lead to happiness (or it could be that happy people are more likely to be married and spiritual); that temperamental “set points” for happiness—a predisposition to stay at a certain level of happiness—account for a large, but not overwhelming, percentage of our well-being. (Fifty percent, says Sonja Lyubomirsky in The How of Happiness. Circumstances account for 10 percent, and the other 40 percent is within our control.) But why do countries with the highest self-reports of subjective well-being also yield the most suicides? How is it that children are often found to be a source of “negative affect” (sadness, anger)—yet people identify children as their greatest source of pleasure?
May 17th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Denmark is one of the most a-theistic countries.
America uses too many stimulants.
May 17th, 2009 at 9:50 am
If there was a silver bullet for happiness, we would share it with humanity: there is no bullet. Tasking, engaging in a purposeful endeavour, leaves little time to dwell on the issue. My doctor pointed out that many persons who aspire to wealth, become suicidal, once the millions have been accumulated. I spent many an afternoon strolling in the glen, seemingly wasting time, while ignoring the pursuit of fame and fortune, while the song-birds and verdant forest, engaged my senses. I`m not sure if I want to experience happiness – a heightened feeling of gayness – clowns never impressed me!
May 17th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Children bring happiness and joy because of the wonder of youth, innocence, spontaneity, uncalculated affection, their simple trust and respect for maturity. And in each is the ‘promise’ of unknown potential as we want to guide, guard and protect and see them grow.
The anger sometimes, or bitterness or disappointment sometimes comes\
as reality takes the place of unknown possibilities. But, of course, that’s where love comes in. And something else I always counsel people when I hear somewhat bad reports of what is disappointing JUST REMEMBER
It is NOT over ’til it’s over. Life is often a long time and many are the changes along the way.
As for the ‘power’ of negativity in the cultivation of happiness I have recently learned a new approach. As the day begins I know that some things will probably go wrong. The first person who asks how’s it going
I may say terrible ( we’re supposed to say a phony GREAT ! no ? Nah!
“Have a great day” some say . . My answer: How can that be ? They usually smile. If you start the day at the bottom every good thing that happens is a plus and it adds up through the day. As I pull up finally at night and gaze up into the awesoime southern sky and think for a moment of ‘forever’
Yes, it really has been a good day. Is that happiness ? It ain’t bad.
May 17th, 2009 at 11:21 am
May 17th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Good reporting, Duane. Thanks.
May 17th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Just serendipity! You’re welcome.
The remainder of the article notes that even in europe the participation rate is higher for religionists but that other factors raise the overall “social capital”. My suspicion is that skepticism gets more more respect and that “tolerance” is only the surface of a deeper sympathy and joie de vivre.
Yeah, don’t bother me about skinheads till you’ve got the statistics.
May 17th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
Thanks, Andy, for posting this. Interesting article.
“It’s very hard,” Vaillant said, “for most of us to tolerate being loved.”
I would agree!
‘But why, he asked, do people tell psychologists they’d cross the street to avoid someone who had given them a compliment the previous day?’
That’s funny. I would do the same thing.
‘In fact, Vaillant went on, positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones.’
I agree!
About the danish. I have been to Denmark a dozen of times. It was only an hours drive from where I grew up.
Cigarettes and alcohol are very expensive there and they all smoke and drink, pretty much. They are sort of ‘matter of fact’, not over emotional, and ‘real’. Not overfriendly.