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September 4, 2012

Haidt, Happiness Hypothesis, ch. 5

• Major theme -- happiness as internal or external pursuit.

• Buddha and Epictetus take a relatively "internal" path. Haidt suggests research shows this to be somewhat extreme -- there are things to strive for outside of yourself, happiness in the journey ("progress principle") "Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing."

• Haidt's list of happiness makers and unmakers(correlates and major causes)

• Adaptation, hedonic treadmill, set point theory, Bob and Mary comparison (87): relationship, meaningfulness. Bob's list more susceptible to adaptation.

• Happiness Formula

• H = Set point + Conditions + Voluntary action
• understanding lack of adaptation for cosmetic surgery. what's shallow vs. what matters.
• from 92f: Noise, Commuting, Lack of Control, Shame, Relationships,
• "It is vain to say that human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it." (Charlotte Bronte, 1847)

• Complicating factors

• Flow and Seligman's strengths test www.authentichappiness.org
• Comparisons and biases. Conspicuous consumption.
• Schwartz maximizers and satisficers.

Schimmack, "The Structure of SWB"

• Problem: How to explain independence of PA and NA?
• Review basic diagram on p. 98.

• bottom up vs. top down -- see conclusion at
• problems of measurement -- "shared method variance"
• more sophisticated model -- domain importance

• Research Question: What could explain variance in LS besides DS?

• Positive illusions
• Money
• "direct evidence" of bottom up theory -- if people are thinking of important domains while assessing LS, then. ... 107

• Research Question on Structure of Affect: What explains independence of PA and NA? Are they really independent?

• structural - imp. research by Diener, Smith, and Fujita (p. 109) verify independence, crit. Bradburn. ""The more items assess pure valence and focus on pervasive moods rather than emotional episodes, the more negative is the correlation between PA and NA."
• causal - maybe neuroticism drives NA and extraversion drives PA? Note Conclusion.
• momentary - 114: "PA and NA can be independent over extended time periods, even if they are fully dependent at each moment. "It. For example, even if love and hate were mutuallyexclusive at one moment in time, some individuals could experience more loveand more hate over extended periods of time than others (Bradbum, 1969;Schimmack & Diener, 1997).