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Happiness
Lessons from a New Science
In Happiness, economist Richard Layard examines what it is that makes us happy and how anyone can achieve greater happiness. Basing his studies on insights from such diverse fields as psychology, philosophy and neuroscience, Layard presents compelling arguments that are great food for thought, encouraging readers to question their daily habits and practices.
- Anyone interested in research on happiness
- Anyone who wants to find out why money won’t necessarily make them happy
- Anyone searching for ways to increase their general level of happiness
Richard Layard (b. 1934) is a renowned British economist and the director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. Layard’s research on unemployment was the basis for the 1998 reformation of the job market in the United Kingdom, which significantly decreased the level of unemployment.
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Happiness
Lessons from a New Science
- Read in 19 minutes
- Audio & text available
- Contains 12 key ideas
Synopsis
In Happiness, economist Richard Layard examines what it is that makes us happy and how anyone can achieve greater happiness. Basing his studies on insights from such diverse fields as psychology, philosophy and neuroscience, Layard presents compelling arguments that are great food for thought, encouraging readers to question their daily habits and practices.
Key idea 1 of 12
Contrary to popular belief, happiness can be measured.
Most of us believe that happiness is a mysterious phenomenon – a feeling or state of being that eludes measurement and explanation. Yet, in fact, there are several scientific ways to measure happiness.
In most studies, participants are asked to simply assess how happy they are with their life situation in general. For instance, the General Social Survey – a longitudinal study conducted in the United States – asks participants the following:
Taken all together, how would you say things are these days – would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy or not too happy?
The resulting data of such studies suggests that the average rating of US citizens’ happiness hasn’t significantly increased since 1945.
Clearly, such studies depend on rather subjective assessments of one’s own happiness. However, neuroscientists have also experimented with some more objective methods.
Using EEG, for instance, they were able to identify certain areas of the brain that were active whenever subjects were happy or when they encountered things associated with increased happiness – like receiving a gift or compliment, or when presented with images of people they like.
Such studies have revealed that positive feelings – such as pride, joy or gratefulness – usually correspond to greater activity in the left frontal area of the brain. In contrast, negative emotions – like fear, anxiety or anger – are linked with the right frontal area.
The EEG approach can even work with infants: when they suck on sweet foods, their brains’ left frontal area is activated. Sour tastes, on the other hand, lead to greater activity in the right frontal area.
Moreover, it’s even possible to directly induce human emotions. For example, experiments have demonstrated that stimulating the left frontal part of the brain with a strong magnet can automatically lift a person’s mood.
Key ideas in this title
- Contrary to popular belief, happiness can be measured.
- Happiness is good for your health.
- The pursuit of happiness is a main driver of human behavior.
- For decades, we’ve been getting wealthier – but not happier.
- Money doesn’t make you happy – as long as you earn less than your neighbor.
- We get used to everything, so material gain can’t make us happy in the long run.
- While more money doesn’t make you happier, too little of it can make you unhappy.
- Mostly, happiness depends on things you can’t buy.
- A country’s goal shouldn’t be economic growth, but the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
- One effective way of achieving greater happiness in a society is increasing taxation.
- Politicians should focus on what really makes us happy.
- Final Summary
