Study Guide
Hey team. 70ish Questions total as of now which isn't including the study questions that Dr. Alfino hasn't put up yet. There are about 30 of us in each section on the e-mail list I have..If everyone could pick two that would be fantastic. If someone is feeling generous and wants to fill in 3 I think that everyone would appreciate it. Fill in the question but also try to put page numbers as to where you found your information.
SEP 4
1. What is the relationship between classical greek philosophical culture (from Pericles to Alexander) and traditional greek culture concerning happiness?
• The two seem to be at odds with one another. Greek culture: Religion of the gods, oracles, celebrations, olympics, periclean athens (450bc, Demonocracy Elevated the power of the individual). Cult of dionysis. On the other hand Plato’s symposium is making a critical critique of the culture. His main point is working against the powers of desire that drive the greek culture. Plato encourages replacing the lower desires (pleasure, drinking, etc.) with more real/permanent desires. Culture is giving false sense of desire-- ex. children missing the point of Christmas.
2. How does the Symposium represent Plato's view of happiness?
•Plato’s Symposium is void of wine and naked drunk people. He wants to have a thoughtful discussion on philosophical topics. Believes happiness is the result of reconstructing desires.
3. How does Aristotle alter Plato's view?
Plato model of happiness is more of a transcendence model, where one needs to go above the material world to find the true form of happiness. This model creates a idealism of reality. Aristotle is a naturalist, where he looks at happiness as the final end. This happiness is what is means to be human, and to be happy we must be the best we can be, or the best human we can be. Aristotle's happiness cannot be pursued without virtue.
• Plato’s view on happiness is boiled down to the desire to know beauty and its forms should replace our lower desires. Happiness will be the result of restructuring your desires.
• Aristotle goes a step further and asks what is the purpose of the human form. Happiness is the final end, but it cannot be pursued without virtue and excellence. Being happy involves being the best kind of thing you are.
4. In what ways are the Hellenic schools (Stoics and Epicureans) continuing and changing the classical philosophical model?
• The hellenistic schools put the power of happiness into the hand of the individual and not in fate. Both make strict measure of desire and clearly separate happiness from external goods. Happiness should be judged over a lifetime.
o Zeno (stoics) : The way to end is virtue which is found in when we are in agreement with the nature of the universe. Reject the importance of pleasure and pain, no secondary goals, only virtue.
o Epicurious: self knowledge, like knowledge of the world, allows us freedom from pain. Seeks to eradicate desire itself.
o Both saw happiness as being universal and not a god like esoteric trait.
5. What are some of the structural features of the Greek models of happiness?
SEP 9
1. How does Aristotle set up the problem of happiness? What are the key steps in the argument?
•Human’s have a natural purpose (telos) and to be happy we must act towards that telos through virtue. Happiness is within our control and is the highest self sustaining good. The kind of pleasure currently in society is beast-like and therefore not appropriate to the kind of being we are. Money doesn’t promote happiness because it is instrumental to further an end, is not the total end.
2. Critically evaluate Aristotle's view in light of criticisms developed in class.
• His view holds happiness to the select few god like creatures and he hold politics to be the highest form of good. While this notion of happiness is profound it does not encompass the variability in human nature and the problems with externalities. There are some serious moral underpinnings that this philosophy relies on (what if it was in your nature to be a serial killer?)
• Do we pursue happiness in spite of nature? Aristotle explained we pursue because it’s our natural state, but sometimes don’t we pursue things we against our nature? RESPONSE: Our nature gives us resources to be virtuous.
• Aristotle explains the virtue of humans is using reason. Doesn’t virtue require foregoing happiness sometime? RESPONSE: There may be momentary unhappiness to pursue an overall life of happiness.
3. What is the connection between our nature and the possibilities for happiness? Is human happiness part of a "plan" for humans?
• More than anybody else, Aristotle enshrines happiness as a central purpose of human life and a goal in itself. To be an ultimate end, an act must be self-sufficient and final, “that which is always desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else. ”For Aristotle, however, happiness is a final end or goal that encompasses the totality of one’s life. It is not something that can be gained or lost in a few hours, like pleasurable sensations. It is more like the ultimate value of your life as lived up to this moment, measuring how well you have lived up to your full potential as a human being.
SEP 11
1. How does Haidt contrast and evaluate the two main strategies for pursuing happiness (internal and external)?
• Using the story of Mary and Bob and using the happiness equation
• Buddhist/Stoic: Happiness comes from within and it cannot be found by making the world conform to your desires (Internal)
• Some things are worth striving for so there is some external value: Two kinds of externals-- 1. Conditions of your life (Things you can’t change: race, sex, age/ Things you can: marital status, wealth, where you live) 2. Voluntary activities you undertake--Meditation, exercise, learning a new skill
2. What are some of the key happiness makers and unmakers in Haidt's view?
• Strong relationships because they provide a dependable companion which is a basic need (ie. good marriage/church community), the elderly are happier because they have leisure time, a good job, acts of kindness and giving; at the lowest end of the spectrum (extreme poverty) money does affect happiness. Knowing own strengths is beneficial. Experiences give more happiness because they have greater social value
• Attractiveness, money, young age don’t have much of an effect. Unmakers: Noise, commuting, lack of control, shame, and some relationships
3. What does it mean to say that we have a "set point" for our happiness?
The "set point" for our happiness is our natural level on our happiness scale. individuals can have set points at different heights and raising or lowering your set point is somewhat a difficult thing because of the hedonic treadmill.
• Each of us has a relatively fixed baseline level of happiness. Some would consider it a range where you can operate on the high or the low side. There is a level of happiness that we are set to maintain, external events will pull up and down, but you will always come back to center level.
• Happiness= Set Point + Conditions + Voluntary Activities
4. What is the difference between hedonic adaptation and the hedonic treadmill?
Hedonic adaptation is the tendency for any pleasure increase to return to the natural set point. The Hedonic treadmill is the process to combat hedonic adaptation, where we would have to try to re-stimulate a pleasure after it has adapted. increasing intensity of the stimuli to re create the initial pleasure of an experience is an example of hedonic treadmill.
SEP 16
1. What does Schimmack conclude about: top down vs. bottom up theories of SWB, the relationship between PA and NA, and between cognitive and affective well being?
• Top down- Life satisfaction (overall happiness) determines domain satisfaction (health, family, romance, career, goals, money). Bottom up - DS determines LS (Product of efforts). Sophisticated model says that top down is direction since not all domains are equally important. Some domains are higher correlated to LS than others, which means LS is a product of more important domains. However, most studies of cognitive well-being show findings more consistent with bottom up theories. A complete theory of cognitive well-being includes both top down and bottom up processes.
• Important domain satisfaction leads to life satisfaction. The general life satisfaction then spreads to other domain satisfaction.
• Cognitive and affective components correlate positively (One goes up the other goes up); DS is a stronger determinant of LS than affective ( PA & NA) well-being-- More important to be happy in domain (career) as a whole than to just generally feel happy
• PA and NA are mostly independent. Having high PA does not necessarily mean you have low NA. However PA and NA cannot co-occur at full intensity at the same time.
2. How do positive and negative affect appear in your experience? What relationships can you notice between them in your experience. Does this lead to any hypotheses about changing your experience (presumably to increase the ratio of PA/NA)?
• PA and NA are clearly separable components of affective well-being, although they may not be strictly independent
• PA and NA are related to different personality traits-- Neuroticism strongly related to NA
3. What is a scientific theory? How does our phenomenal experience constitute evidence in relation to science?
• Scientific theory is observing data to create or test a model/prediction. Phenomenological data gives 1st person qualitatively rich experience (personal feeling) and science gives 3rd person quantitatively rich data leading to an objective model.
• Make model from observing reality, data come from observing and predictions come from model. Constantly refer back to model and realities and make adjustments accordingly
SEP 18
1. What features and structures of the brain does Haidt highlight in this reading?
• The structure of our brain creates a sense of more than one presence.
• Left vs. right: Left is tied to language (right eye)-- will confabulate stories to explain why made the connection between objects
• old (amygdala- fight or flight) vs. new ( frontal cortex- problem solving)-- new brain creates enjoyment in being social which will effect how we can make ourselves happy; our new self- awareness and rational thinking encourages humans to pursue happiness
• mind vs. body (gastrointestinal problems)-- Plato’s horse and rider; Meaning to Happiness-- we can’t always control happiness so may need primitive instincts to be happy
• controlled vs. automatic: example of constant checking, tell brain not to think about it (control) then brain automatically is checking to make sure we don’t think about it
2. What should we expect or not expect from a theory of happiness or our experience of happiness given that we have brains of this sort?
• We should not expect to think about happiness idealistically; we need to be self-aware and social-- we have a force pulling us that ways so then we must direct it, truly be honest with ourselves
SEP 23
1. Summarize major findings from Argyle on correlations between happiness and Age, Education, Social Class, Income, Marriage, Ethnicity, Employment, Leisure and Religion.
• Age- elderly slightly happier because have lower expectations, and increased religious activity
• Education-- weak effect: can be powerful in countries with more class distinction; higher the education the more goal setting
• Religion-- Strong correlation because social support, feeling close to God, and typically results in better health behavior
• Social Class-- depends on the country: effect on other things
• Income-- stronger effect on lower incomes; levels out then rises with extreme rich (downward compare and volunteering)
• Marriage-- overall improves happiness, but varies with the middle class
• Ethnicity--is a factor but more so in how it affects other aspects of life (similar to social class)
• Employment--involuntary unemployment is negative correlation; retirement improves because of leisure time.
• Leisure--Large influence but better if done actively (ie. Not watching tv); helps if it’s something you can get good at
2. What generalizations, if any, stand out from these correlations and the methodological issues associated with them?
• One factor can affect another factor (multifactors) (ex. Age and Religion - older people increase their religious activity.
• Majority influence comes from categories relating to socializing and what can be controlled about things.
3. What methodological issues (limits) do happiness researchers face if they apply quantitative methods from the social sciences to understanding "happiness-makers" (demographic and otherwise)?
• Different cultures have different scales and ways of showing happiness
• Common cause fallacy - Even if A is corr. to B, there could be another factor C causing both A and B
• post hoc ergo proctor hoc - Just because B follows A doesn’t mean A causes B-- correlation and causation difference
• direction of cause - which variable is dependent or independent
• false cause - multiple factors could cause conclusion.
SEP 25
1. How do Diener and Suh explain the differences summarized in the World Values Study (p. 436)?
• There are real and substantive differences in well-being across nations
• Individualism correlates with higher SWB and suicide rates. Collectivists working with a different model of happiness
• Causal links to well-being not understood, but there is some correlation
• SWB higher in nations where it is thought to be important
2. What methodological difficulties beset international comparisons of happiness?
The difficulty with the methodological is that we are not sure if we are measuring real differences in International happiness or if the instrument of comparison is working differently in different cultures.
• Wealth is clustered with other factors that predict H (right, equality, fulfillment of needs, and individualism)
• Transnational similarities
• General validity concerns about self-reports are offset by research using multiple measures
• Russian vs US Student: Russians more likely to rate happiness lower and recall fewer pleasing events
• Are nations a meaningful units of analysis? Looking at subgroups suggests yes.
3. What models have been proposed to explain national and cultural differences in general?
(off the final)
SEP 30
1. How is the Stoic worldview related to the specific philosophy in the Enchiridion?
• Like the stoic worldview, the Enchiridion emphasizes rationality and realizing our rational nature. Stoics advise us to distinguish between what we can control and what we can’t control in life. The Enchiridion says we need to adjust our thinking about our lives to what we know about reality.
• Stoics see God (Theos) in everything; Corporealist--all things have matter; and see reason as sacred
o Therefore: should respond appropriately to what you know: should expect car to be broken into because possible and can’t control
2. What is the stoic counsel of happiness (consider various hypotheses)?
• Must protect the Hegimonikon (guiding principle of mind, relates to the integrity of your reason); protect the divine in us by acting only in accordance with reason (Avoid Hypocracy)
• Encourage self-discipline
• Enjoy daughter and value of things now because when its lost won’t feel regret
• controllable vs. uncontrollable
3. Do Stoics have good advice about happiness give what we have read from contemporary social science?
• Negative evaluation of stoicism - Stoics seem to encourage passivity
• Positive evaluation of stoicism - Stoics accept the reality they’ve been put into and they have self-knowledge
OCT 2
1. Identify principle doctrines of Epicureanism and their rationales, especially consider the role of virtue in hedonism and the rationale for the sort of hedonism Epicurus advocates.
• Key Idea: Pleasure is the Good. (Notice how that sets up the need for an original (relative to classical Greek philosophy) analysis of desire and pleasure.)
1. Don't fear gods - the gods’ lives are a lot better than ours, so they don’t need to think about us humans
2. Death is nothing. - note his arguments here and the similar in method to stoicism - need to live the awareness. Fear requires awareness and death is a lack of awareness. when death “is” you are “not”
3. What is good is easy to get.
4. What is evil is easy to endure.
5. Confine desires to necessary natural desires (food, water, friendship, security, sleep) instead of unnecessary natural desires and groundless desires
• Different from hedonists because they want natural and necessary desires (Maslow’s hierarchy of needs); Hedonism is maximum physical pleasure. Virtuous person knows the value of things around, understand the limits and see the connectedness of everything
o Friendship is important to Epicureans; promote savoring
• Rationale: Don’t want groundless or unnecessary natural desires because complicate live when indulge; instead should focus on nature needs
2. Critically evaluate Epicureanism as a happiness strategy.
OCT 7
no class to to administrative events.
OCT 9
1. What is negative visualization and how is it theorized as a strategy in happiness?
• As we go about our daily lives, we should periodically imagine what it would be like to lose the things we are holding onto in that moment. Maybe its our friends, our car, or any sort of situation. In this process we realize that in losing these things we would be sad, thus we begin to better appreciate their value. With regards to happiness this helps us see more than just what is temporary while keeping us mindful and appreciative of all the positive reasons we have to be happy. While this is a psychological “hack” or shortcut, it can be used as a habit that further enhances our values, attitudes and beliefs thus a useful approach to happiness.
2. Is the "trichotomy of control" an innovation in Stoic theory? What problem does it address? Does it succeed?
• This is an innovation from Irvine on stoic thought that address the middle ground between what we can control and what we cannot control. The new category being “Things we have some control over.” The tennis match examples shows that we have control over how well we train and focus on the match and how much we want to win that tennis match. While we may still be beat by our opponent, we still have a stake in the outcome of that situation and in order to be happy we have to accept that level of control and empower ourselves to do our best. Simply put if we do our best in any situation, no matter that outcome, we always will win.
• NEW: some control
3. Does Irvine responds successfully to the traditional criticisms of Stoics: that they their philosophy might lead peole to avoid attachment or involvement in the world?
• If you really play these ideas of negative visualization and trichotomy of control, then stoicism can work really well to form strong attachments and happy trends.
• Internalized goal- I want to play to the best of my ability vs I will win this-- ability to control internal goals [ Answers how they can be involved and act: care about what they have control over]
• Do it because it reverses hedonic adaptation; help appreciate independence from externals; enhanced appreciation of joy
OCT 14
1. What does the story of Perpetua and Felicitas tell us about early Christian ideals of happiness and about happiness in general?
• These two women were willing to die for the idea of happiness via martyrdom. Perpetua gives up her child. They met their deaths happy, smiling. They were so certain in their belief which is beautiful. For them, dying for Christianity brings happiness. Heavy emphasis on happiness in the “next- life;” nothing here to hold us back
2. How does the Roman culture of Horace and Virgil model happiness?
• Carpe Diem (Sieze the day). Sounds like a robust hedonism and stoicism “have enough and know that that is enough” Satisfaction with earthly bounty. This could be a response to social decadence, similar to our modern commercials of retirement lifestyle and wealth.
3. What is specifically radical about the Christian conception of happiness and how does it evolve in the 5th, 9th, and 13th centuries?
• in the 5th : suffering for others and with Christ = happiness. Martyrdom.
• Augustine: happiness is personal. Influenced by Plato. “To be happy is to be suffused with god” The belief is greatly changed by stance on original sin. Because we have not rid ourselves of original sin we cannot be happy in this world and will only be happy at death when we are with god. We now have a relationship with God
• 9th: John the Scot. Mystical bliss as a higher form of happiness; could experience ecstasy and be with God in this world
• 13th: Aquinas imperfect can be achieved in this world, and perfect happiness is achieved in the afterlife. The synthesis of Aquinas and Aristotle advocates the contemplative life with the Christian goal of god as the highest end. aka We should contemplate on god to be happy.
OCT 16
1. What area the major changes in the Christian European view of happiness through the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution?
• Shift from sociocentric to individual focus; revival of civic virtue (state can be run for the well-being of the people)-- becoming self-aware of happiness
• increase in wealth (democratic shift, longer life span, healthy - all contributors to happiness)
• Reevaluation on the different methods of happiness
o People can either move up towards God or down towards beasts
• Differences in images (smiles in pictures, melancholy seen as a disease) - Neo-platonism
2. In what sense are we the inheritors of the cultural model that emerges in the Englightenment? Consider Locke's view for example.
• Living in the individualist model
• Locke--Blank slate erases original sin so we can be whoever and create own experiences
OCT 21
1. What is Patanjali's Yoga? Describe it in terms of its metaphysics and goals and account of suffering, but also give the psychological interpretation that a contemporary yogic might offer.
• Goal of yoga is to move toward the spirit. Don’t disconnect from the world, rather understand how entanglement in the world can cause unnecessary suffering. If you access the right practices ( 8-fold path) then you can disentangle yourself from material matter
2. What are the four Brahmavihara? Do they constitute good advice?
• the five kleshas are ways we go wrong
• the brahmavihara are ways we can correct these kleshas
• Friendliness toward joyful-- joy also related to the spirit
• Compassion for those who are suffering--go out of way to help; make sure how we interact with the world isn’t causng undue pain
• Celebrating good in others-- recognize the good in others vs always going to bad first
• Remaining impartial to faults and imperfections of others (impartial meaning you should not entangle or involve yourself in someone elses problems, faults or imperfections)
o Being direct makes people defensive
OCT 28
1. Develop a reconstruction of Buddhism both as a metaphysically grounded worldview and as a psychology of happiness.
2. Why is liberation and enlightenment hard to describe for a Buddhist? How would you describe a bodisatva (an enlightened person who is still alive)?
''''3. How is mindfulness supposed to help us, according to a Buddhist?' According to a Buddhist, mindfulness is part of the Eightfold Path, by developing mindfulness a person can observe the aspects of their being, and then in turn learn how to control the mind and how it reacts to internal and external stimuli. According to Buddhists mindfulness is not a way of disconnecting from the environment, instead it is a way of intensely connecting with the environment.
OCT 30
'1. How does a modern Buddhist articulate the nature of suffering?' The mind is the source of all happiness, but it is also the source of the experience of happiness.
If we could remove suffering we would experience joy, however it is possible to stimulate positive emotions towards something that causes suffering and "deal" with it versus eliminating it all together.
Suffering is inevitable, however if we recognize the truth of Buddha's teaching (suffering doesn't equal happiness) through out own experiences, and can verify through our own experiences, then we can begin to say that we are making progress on the road to enlightenment.
2. How does a modern Buddhist articulate the the doctrine of no-self (the idea that the self is an illusion)?
3. Is "egolessness" an attractive goal? Could it be the basis of an organized personality? Would it lead to joy?
NOV 4
1. What is savoring and how is it related to pleasure, culture, mindfulness, social and esteem needs?
Mindfulness--Savoring is a more narrow concept than mindfulness: a more restrictive focus on internal and external stimuli associated with positive affect. Versus Mindfulness is just being alert about their changing environment.
Meditation--both involve how people focus attention, but savoring focuses on the consciousness of feeling or the arrangement of ideas that elicit feelings. Meditation, on the other hand, focuses in a nonanalytic way, either on a single object or on all possible intern or external stimuli.
2. How is gratitude theorized from a social and anthropological perspective?
3. What are some of the key findings of gratitude research? (include Watkins reading from Thursday)
NOV 6
(add notes to question 3 from previous class) 1. What common enhancing factors do coping and savoring share?
Social Support--sharing one's feeling provides a buffer to the negative effects of stress on individuals. Strong relationship between sharing positive feelings to other and the greater enjoyment of positive events
Writing about Life Experiences-- writing about traumatic events enhances the immune functioning and sharing positive experiences can boost positive moods.
Downward Hedonic Contrast--cognitive evaluation that make one's current state seem better in relation to comparative standards.
Humor-- enhances the capacity to cope with negative experience and derive benefits from positive experience.
Spirituality and religion--
2. What are the essential preconditions for savoring?
1. Becoming relatively free of social and esteem concerns 2. Focusing on the Present 3. Enhancing attentional focus on positive experience
NOV 11
1. How do our judgements about our happiness and our experience of happiness interact to create subjectivity of happiness?
2. Why is it not straightforward to say that we "know what we're feeling"?
3. How does the Law of Large Numbers help address objectivity and measurement concerns in happiness research?
4. What models of mind are ultimately at stake in developing a construct for the research evidence Gilbert cites?
NOV 13
1. How does Csiksentmihalyi's theoretical position as a humanistic psychologist inform his main theoretical claims in Chapters 1-3? What are those claims?
2. What is "flow" and what is it's relationship to happiness?
3. What, if anything, can ESM tell us about the way we experience different "affect/motivation" structures of everyday life?
NOV 18
1. What is Csiksentmihalyi's theory of relationship and how is it connected to culture and social life, in his view?
2. Compare and assess Csiksentmihalyi and the Dieners on their view of solitude. Should we cultivate a capacity to be happy alone?
- Csiksentmihalyi believes that we are fundamentally social, but we have to accept that solitude is necessary. He cautions that it can be a determinate to happiness. The research supports that solitude is not a happiness maker, but they are likely missing something that solitude can be a possible happiness maker ( as discussed in class).
Csiksentmihalyi sees solitudes as a risk factor because of our social nature. Dieners also come to this conclusion of a negative correlation with solitude. They could be missing key aspects where solitude could create happiness in proper amounts.
3. What is the current evidence on the relationship between marriage and childrearing and happiness? What is the Dieners' explanation of it?
NOV 20
1. How does attachment theory help us think about nature of love?
- Haidt: Contrary to what a behaviorist might suspect, animals bond not only with nourishment but also with comfort
- A.T suggests that intimate love is a repurposed version of parental love.
- A.T tells us that attachment isn't genetic: "love is for species with big heads" meaning that in order to have our type of human love, an animal needs to understand social order, culture, and imagination, etc. rather than just biological cues.
2. How are different "cultures of love" (culture ideas about what love is and how it is attained, but also philosophical and religious thought on love) related to the larger phenomenon of love?
3. Is Brooks right to suggest that parallel to our phenomenal experience of love there is are psycho-physical processes that define the experience? What insights about happiness might follow from this?
- Phenomenal experience: dating.---> bio research supports that there are underlying psycho-physical processes that occur simultaneously as the phenomenal experience of the date occurs: EX: you see date has clear skin (phenomenal) indicates good health(psycho-physical), Hair flip/ chest heave (phenomenal) indicates erotic arousal (psycho-physical).
- Make love more of a happiness maker: lower expectations for unrealistic happiness from love. Challenge media's conception of love, become more aware of attachment styles in order to maximize happiness.
NOV 25
1. What is classic liberalism and why does it pose challenges for happiness.
2. What is Toqueville's critique of the "American experiment"? How does Mill's endorsement of the liberty of the individual and Weber's analysis of capitalism add to this critique?
- He notices the contrast between individualism and the european class structure. He is critical of the strange melancholy from the pressure of an individualistic culture. Mill contributes that you cannot violate someone’s liberty to make them happy. Weber argues that protestant theologies favor those who are successful in business; thus reinforcing a capitalist ethos that is not all that great for our happiness.
3. How is seeing things in the future like seeing like distant in space?
4. What is the significance of the U. Va. sports fan study, reported in Gilbert?
NOV 27
DEC 2
1. In what ways do we fail to account for the effect of future experience on future preferences? How good are we at "prefeeling" the future?
2. How does the spatialization of time, and in particular the reference point of the "now," affect our ability to judge our future preferences? What other biases add to our difficulties in judging our feeling in the future.
3. What, if anything, can we do to reduce the distorting effect of our cognitive limitations in predicting future preferences and satisfactions?
DEC 9
1. What does Gilbert mean by saying that we respond to meanings and representations of the world, not just stimuli? Why does that matter for understanding happiness?
2. What is the "psychological immune system" and "investment system". How do they work?
3. How do the asymmetries of prospective and retrospective judgments work and how might they impact our happiness?
