Tag: Facts

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Who Else Wants Long Lasting Happiness, to Use Any Dissatisfaction Optimally for the Best Change, and to Know How to Use What Most Affects Happiness?

Who Else Wants Long Lasting Happiness, to Use Any Dissatisfaction Optimally for the Best Change, and to Know How to Use What Most Affects Happiness?

Who Else Wants Long Lasting Happiness, to Use Any Dissatisfaction Optimally for the Best Change, and to Know How to Use What Most Affects Happiness?

What Does Lasting Happiness Depend On?

Neither Rising Prosperity nor Severe Misfortune Permanently Affect Happiness

  • Research implies that neither rising prosperity nor severe misfortune permanently affect happiness. After a period of adjustment, individuals return to their baseline levels of well-being, leaving humanity on a ‘‘hedonic treadmill’’ (Brickman & Campbell, 1981; Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999; Kahneman, Krueger, Schkade, Schwartz, & Stone, 2004). Similarly, as entire countries become richer, relative gains and losses neutralize each other across populations, bringing no overall increase in the happiness of their citizens (Easterlin, 1974; Kenny, 2004).

 

Neither Individual Efforts nor Social Policy Can Bring Lasting Changes in Happiness

  • Insofar as this set point is biologically determined, neither individual efforts nor social policy can bring lasting changes in happiness.

 

Happiness Depends on Popularly Accepted Social Norms

  • Another explanation for the apparent stability of the aggregate happiness of nations is social comparison theory (Easterlin, 1974, 2003). According to this account, happiness stays the same in the face of rising income because of a shift in reference. If happiness is shaped by one’s relative position in a society, then even if a nation’s overall economy grows, only those with above-average gains will experience rising happiness, and these increases will be offset by decreases among those with below-average gains.

–Ronald Inglehart, Roberto Foa, Christopher Peterson, and Christian Welzel,  “Development, Freedom, and Rising Happiness A Global Perspective” (1981–2007).

 

 

The Functions of Happiness and Dissatisfaction

Happiness Is Functional and Generally Leads to Success

  • Recent research indicates that happiness is functional and generally leads to success.

 

All Organisms are Motivated to Approach Things that Bring Pleasure and Avoid Pain

  • People consider happiness and pleasantness to be conceptually similar, and indeed, they usually experience these two emotions together (Schimmack, 2006). It simply feels good to be happy, and all organisms are motivated to approach things that bring pleasure and to avoid things that bring pain.

 

Happiness = The Most Important Human Attribute

  • In a recent large international survey led by Ed Diener and with over 10,000 respondents from 48 nations (Diener & Oishi, 2006), the average importance rating of happiness was the highest of the 12 possible attributes, with a mean of 8.03 on a 1 to 9 scale (compared with 7.54 for ‘‘success,’’ 7.39 for ‘‘intelligence/knowledge,’’ and 6.84 for ‘‘material wealth’’).

 

Being Happy = Better Job Performance, Higher Income, More Likely to Marry, Longer Life

  • On the basis of this theory, researchers have begun to systematically examine the consequences of happiness beyond simply feeling good. Lyubomirsky, King, and Diener (2005) conducted a meta-analysis of 225 papers on diverse life outcomes in the domains of work, love, and health and found that, in all three domains,
    • Happy people did better on average than did unhappy people. For instance, happy people receive higher job performance assessments from their supervisors (Cropanzano & Wright, 1999) and have more prestigious jobs (Roberts, Caspi,& Moffitt, 2003).
    • In addition, happy people earn higher incomes than do unhappy people, even many years after the initial assessment (Diener, Nickerson, Lucas, & Sandvik, 2002).
    • Happy people are more likely to get married than are their unhappy counterparts (Lucas, Clark, Georgellis, & Diener, 2003), and they are also more satisfied with their marriages (Ruvolo, 1998).
    • Psychologists even live longer if they express more positive emotions and humor in their autobiographies (Pressman, Cohen, & Kollnesher, 2006).

 

Dissatisfaction = Impetus to Make Change in Your Life

  • It is possible to find examples where unpleasant states motivate beneficial action. Consider the work domain. Job dissatisfaction can be thought of as a signal that the work environment does not fit one’s personality and skills. Thus, job dissatisfaction might motivate job change. In fact, a longitudinal study in Switzerland showed that work dissatisfaction predicted job turnover (Semmer, Tschan, Elfering, Kalin, & Grebner, in press) and that those who changed jobs experienced a subsequent increase in job satisfaction in their new job. This study suggests that individuals who are dissatisfied but make efforts to change their life circumstances can improve their satisfaction. Conversely, individuals who consistently experience positive affect and never experience dissatisfaction might be less likely to make a change to improve their life circumstances. Thus, a very high level of satisfaction might lead individuals to fail to attain their full potential.
  • Although positive moods induced in the laboratory are generally associated with more creativity and better cognitive performance (see Fredrickson, 2001; Isen, 1999, for review), in some circumstances, positive moods are associated with inferior cognitive performance. For instance, in a syllogism task, participants in a positive mood condition performed significantly worse than did participants in the control condition (Melton, 1995). Participants in a positive mood condition also performed more poorly at a moral reasoning task than did those in neutral or sad mood conditions (Zarinpoush, Cooper, & Moylan, 2000). Similarly, participants in a positive mood condition performed worse than did participants in control or negative mood conditions in an estimation of correlation task (Sinclair & Marks, 1995). Finally, participants in a positive mood condition were repeatedly shown to use stereotypes in a person-perception task more frequently than did those in a neutral mood condition (e.g., Bodenhausen, Kramer, & Susser, 1994).
  • Thus, these studies suggest that people who experience appropriate amounts of negative affect can adopt their cognitive strategy to the task at hand.
  • Moreover, the literature summarized above suggests that the relation between happiness and various life outcomes may be nonlinear; that is, happier is not always better.
  • Successful individuals are characterized as those who have loving relationships and contribute to society via their work and civic engagements.

–Shigehiro Oishi, Ed Diener and Richard E. Lucas, “The Optimum Level of Well-Being: Can People Be Too Happy?” Perspectives on Psychological Science.

 

What Affects Happiness the Most?

 

The Factor Most Affecting Happiness = Social Connections

The factor most affecting happiness – social connections. In 2008, at the request of the British government and financed by the British Ministry of Science, (New Economic Foundation – NEF), in cooperation with the University of Cambridge, a comprehensive project was carried out, summarizing and comparing studies, identifying which factors affect the citizens’ happiness. The most influential factor is social connections. Out of the 5 recommendations suggested, 2 of them are directly connected to social relationships.

–Jody Aked, Nic Marks, Corrina Cordon, Sam Thompson, “Five Ways to Well-Being.” The New Economics Foundation.

 

Social Factors = More Important Factor for Happiness than Income

Happier countries tend to be richer countries. But more important for happiness than income are social factors like the strength of social support, the absence of corruption and the degree of personal freedom.

— “First World Happiness Report Launched at the United Nations.” The Earth Institute: Columbia University.

 

Problem: We Often Do Not Recognize the Importance of Social Connection as a Leading Factor for Happiness in Our Lives

Studies indicate that “social capital” (connections within and between social networks) is one of the biggest predictors for health, happiness, and longevity. The problem is that we often do not recognize the importance of social connection. Our culture values hard work, success, and wealth. We do not set aside enough time for social ties because we think security lies in material things rather than other people. The truth of the matter is that people have better survival rates for diseases when they have social support. If you don’t belong to a group and you join one now, you’ll cut your chance of dying in half for the next year.

–Cecile Andrews, “Social Ties are Good for Your Health.” Stanford University.

 

What Do You Think?

  • In a society with competitive individualistic values of individuals working to gain in wealth and prosperity against other individuals, how does this affect the level of happiness?
  • Why do you think happier people generally have better job performance, higher income, are more likely to marry, and live longer?
  • How can dissatisfaction with a certain life situation be used advantageously to make a change in your life? What kind of change would be the optimal one?
  • As more and more research finds that social connections are the most important factor affecting people’s happiness, what is something you can see in your life that correlates to this idea, that social connections are what affects happiness the most?

Please write your answers in the comments below!

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12 Ways Positive Social Connections in the Workplace Increases Business Success

12 Ways Positive Social Connections in the Workplace Increases Business Success

12 Ways Positive Social Connections in the Workplace Increases Business Success

1) More Positive Emotions = More Productivity & Creativity

Whether we looked at entrepreneurial startups or large, established enterprises, the same holds true: People are more productive and creative when they have more positive emotions.

–Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work, 2011.

 

2) Negative Emotions Have the Opposite Effect

We find that human happiness has large and positive causal effects on productivity. Positive emotions appear to invigorate human beings, while negative emotions have the opposite effect.

–Economist Team led by Andrew Oswald, Warwick Business School, July 2010, in “A New Happiness Equation: Worker + Happiness = Improved Productivity.”

 

3) Positive Workplace Interactions = Improved Employee Health

Positive social interactions at work have been shown to boost employee health, e.g. by lowering heart rate and blood pressure, and by strengthening the immune system. Happy employees also make for a more congenial workplace and improved customer service. Employees in positive moods are more willing to help peers and to provide customer service on their own accord. What’s more, compassionate, friendly, and supportive co-workers tend to build higher-quality relationships with others at work. In doing so, they boost co-workers’ productivity levels and increase coworkers’ feeling of social connection, as well as their commitment to the workplace and their levels of engagement with their job.

–Emma Seppala, “Why Compassion in Business Makes Sense,” Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, April 2013.

 

4) Business Success Depends on Empathetic Leaders

Business success depends on empathetic leaders who are able to adapt, build on the strengths around them, and relate to their environment.

–Jason Boyers, “Why Empathy Is the Force That Moves Business Forward,” Forbes, May 2013.

 

5) Happy Employees = Happy Customers and Happy Shareholders

Loyal, passionate employees bring a company as much benefit as loyal, passionate customers. They stay longer, work harder, work more creatively, and find ways to go the extra mile. They bring you more great employees. And that spreads even more happiness — happiness for employees, for customers, and for shareholders.

–Rob Markey, “Transform Your Employees into Passionate Advocates,” Harvard Business Review, January 2012.

 

6) The Frequency Employees Help One Another Predicts Sales Revenues

Evidence from studies led by Indiana University’s Philip Podsakoff demonstrates that the frequency with which employees help one another predicts sales revenues in pharmaceutical units and retail stores; profits, costs, and customer service in banks; creativity in consulting and engineering firms; productivity in paper mills; and revenues, operating efficiency, customer satisfaction, and performance quality in restaurants.

–Adam Grant, “Givers Take All: The Hidden Dimension of Corporate Culture,” McKinsey & Company, April 2013.

 

7) 5 Ways Organizational Effectiveness Is Increased When Employees Freely Contribute Their Knowledge and Skills to Others

Across these diverse contexts, organizations benefit when employees freely contribute their knowledge and skills to others. Podsakoff’s research suggests that this helping-behavior facilitates organizational effectiveness by:

  • enabling employees to solve problems and get work done faster
  • enhancing team cohesion and coordination
  • ensuring that expertise is transferred from experienced to new employees
  • reducing variability in performance when some members are overloaded or distracted
  • establishing an environment in which customers and suppliers feel that their needs are the organization’s top priority

–Adam Grant, “Givers Take All: The Hidden Dimension of Corporate Culture,” McKinsey & Company, April 2013.

 

8) More Cooperative Work Teams = More Accuracy in the Work Done

In a landmark study led by Michael Johnson at the University of Washington, participants worked in teams that received either cooperative or competitive incentives for completing difficult tasks. For teams receiving cooperative incentives, cash prizes went to the highest-performing team as a whole, prompting members to work together as givers. In competitive teams, cash prizes went to the highest-performing individual within each team, encouraging a taker culture. The result? The competitive teams finished their tasks faster than the cooperative teams did, but less accurately, as members withheld critical information from each other.

–Adam Grant, “Givers Take All: The Hidden Dimension of Corporate Culture,” McKinsey & Company, April 2013.

 

9) Diversity in the Workforce Is Necessary to Drive Innovation and Promote Creativity

A diverse and inclusive workforce is necessary to drive innovation and promote creativity – 85% of respondents agreed (48% strongly so) that diversity is crucial to gaining the perspectives and ideas that foster innovation.

–Debbie Weathers, “Forbes Insights Study Identifies Strong Link between Diverse Talent and Innovation,” Forbes Insights, July 2011.

 

10) Different Experiences and Different Perspectives Build the Foundation Necessary to Compete on a Global Scale

Companies have realized that diversity and inclusion are no longer separate from other parts of the business. Organizations in the survey understand that different experiences and different perspectives build the foundation necessary to compete on a global scale.

–Debbie Weathers, “Forbes Insights Study Identifies Strong Link between Diverse Talent and Innovation,” Forbes Insights, July 2011.

 

11) The Ability to Deal with People = the Highest Value

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee, and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.

–John D. Rockefeller Senior, stated while setting up the Standard Oil Company.

12) Effective Engagement of Employees = Higher Productivity and Better Financial Outcomes

The most successful organizations effectively engage their employees, leading to higher productivity and better financial outcomes. …

When organizations successfully engage their customers and their employees, they experience a 240% boost in performance-related business outcomes compared with an organization with neither engaged employees nor engaged customers. …

Actively disengaged employees alone cost the U.S. between $450 billion to $550 billion each year in lost productivity, and are more likely than engaged employees to steal from their companies, negatively influence their coworkers, miss workdays, and drive customers away.

–Gallup research, “The State of the American Workplace: Employee Engagement Insights for U.S. Business Leaders.” Gallup, 2013.

Image: "Corporate Express Meeting" by Office Now.
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15 Reasons Why More Positive Social Connections are Good for Your Health

15 Reasons Why More Positive Social Connections are Good for Your Health

15 Reasons Why More Positive Social Connections are Good for Your Health

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

—The World Health Organization’s Definition of Health

 

1) The Problem of Overseeing the Importance of Social Connection

We often do not recognize the importance of social connection. Our culture values hard work, success, and wealth, so it’s no surprise some of us do not set aside enough time for social ties when we think security lies in material things rather than other people.¹

 

2) The Problem of Loneliness

Olds and Schwartz (Associate Clinical Professors of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School) argue in The Lonely American that loneliness is often mistaken for depression. Instead of connecting with others, we consume a pill. Being lonely is outside of our individualistic world view so we don’t even see it as a problem. ¹

 

3) More Social Connection = More Active Democracy

Harvard’s Robert Putnam writes about social capital in his book, Bowling Alone, and shows how social ties are not only important for personal well-being, but also for our democracy. To paraphrase Putnam, “the culture in which people talk to each other over the back fence is the culture in which people vote.” Apparently, when you feel part of a group, you’re more likely to contribute to it — such as by voting. ¹

 

4) Social Connection Is Central to Progressive Social Change

UC Berkeley’s George Lakoff has said that we can only bring about progressive social change by evoking empathy. You can’t get people to change by loading them up with facts or shaking your finger at them. You must talk to others with respect and caring — and then you connect. Social capital is thus central to progressive social change. ¹

 

5) More Social Connection = Better for the Environment

Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben says that we won’t have sustainability without community. Until we see other people as our main source of security, we’ll keep turning to things, using up oil and other resources and heating and polluting the planet. Until we have community in our neighborhoods, we’ll keep going to the mall for our evening’s entertainment. ¹

 

6) More Social Connection = More Happiness

In the book The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies, by Robert E. Lane, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Yale, he brings together much of the research done on social capital over the last several years and shows how social ties not only affect our personal health, but also our societal health. He observes that as prosperity in a society increases, social solidarity decreases. Happiness not only declines, people become more distrustful of each other as well as their political institutions. Lane argues that we must alter our priorities; we must increase our levels of companionship even at the risk of reducing our income. ¹

 

7) Social Integration = Reduced Mortality Risks and Better Mental Health

A search of the literature published since the mid-1970s (under the MEDLINE key words, “social ties,” “social network,” “social isolation,” “social environment”) presented strong evidence that social integration leads to reduced mortality risks, and to a better state of mental health. … Available data suggest that, although social integration is generally associated with better health outcomes, the quality of existing ties also appears to influence the extent of such health benefits. Clearly, individuals’ networks of social relationships represent dynamic and complex social systems that affect health outcomes.²

 

8) Social Isolation and Nonsupportive Social Interactions = Lower Immune Function and Higher Heart Rate

Social isolation and nonsupportive social interactions can result in lower immune function and higher neuroendocrine and cardiovascular activity while socially supportive interactions have the opposite effects. ²

 

9) Strong Social Relationships = A Longer Life

Researchers analyzed 148 studies that examined the effect of social relationships and death risk. Together, these studies included 308,849 people who were followed for about 7.5 years on average. People were 50% more likely to be alive if they had strong social relationships. This finding held regardless of age, gender, or health status and for all causes of death.³

 

10) Seniors Living in Better Social Conditions are Also Physically More Mobile

In a study of 14,000 adults in Southeastern Pennsylvania, after measuring the levels of mobility among the seniors living in those neighborhoods, it was found that those living in areas with greater social capital had significantly higher physical mobility scores than those living in lower social capital neighborhoods.4

 

11) More Social Connection in Your Neighborhood = More Likely to Treat Diseases Earlier

In a study looking at how social capital related to positive health-seeking behavior – specifically getting recommended cancer screenings – although this study was not focused only on the elderly, it was found that in neighborhoods with higher levels of social capital, adults were 10-22 percent more likely to get screened at the recommended ages, suggesting earlier diagnoses and treatment for serious diseases.4

 

12) More Social Connection = Better Cognitive Functioning

In a study that looked at how social activity affected cognitive decline, over 1,100 seniors without dementia at baseline were measured on their social activity levels and then tested periodically on their cognitive functioning over a 12-year period. The rate of cognitive decline was 70 percent less in people with frequent social contact than those with low social activity.4

 

13) More Social Connection = Lower Levels of Disability

In a study that looked at a community-based cohort of older people free of dementia and measured social activity levels and their disability levels—in terms of their ability to care for themselves, findings showed that those with more frequent social activity maintained lower levels of disability in several areas, suggesting that they would be able to live independently longer than their less social counterparts.4

 

14) Social Isolation = Increased Mortality Risk

There is now a substantial body of evidence that indicates that the extent to which social relationships are strong and supportive is related to the health of individuals who live within such social contexts. A review of population-based research on mortality risk over the last 20 years indicates that people who are isolated are at increased mortality risk from a number of causes.

–Source: Lisa F. Berkman, “The Role of Social Relations in Health Promotion.” Psychosomatic Medicine.

 

15) 12 Ways Loneliness Is Bad for Your Health

According to the research of Dr. John Cacioppo, loneliness has a major impact on your overall health – both mental and physical.

In his research, Dr. Cacioppo employed brain scans, monitoring of autonomic and neuroendocrine processes, and assays of immune function to test the influence that social connection has upon our health. His research showed how our perceptions, behavior and physiology are strongly affected by a loss of that connection.

Dr. Cacoppo’s research has shown that loneliness can cause:

  • an increase in your blood pressure
  • an increase in your level of stress and cortisol production
  • a negative impact on your immune system
  • an inability to get a good night’s sleep
  • an increased level of depression and anxiety
  • an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease
  • a reduction in your will to exercise
  • an increase in your cravings for comforting foods high in processed carbohydrates
  • an increase in caloric consumption
  • an increase in alcohol consumption
  • an increase in the consumption of a variety of drugs…both legal and illegal, and…
  • a feeling of sadness that feeds upon itself, causing even more isolation and an even greater sense of loneliness.

Source: Douglas Robb, “Loneliness Worse for Your Health than Smoking and Obesity.” Health Habits.

 

Sources:

¹ Cecile Andrews, “Social Ties are Good for You.” Stanford University.

² Teresa E. Seeman, “Social Ties and Health: The Benefits of Social Integration.” Annals of Epidemiology: The Official Journal of the American College of Epidemiology.

³ Denise Mann, “Social Ties Can Add Years to Your Life.” WebMD.

4 Jill Suttie, “How Social Connections Keep Seniors Healthy.” Greater Good: The Science of a More Meaningful Life.