Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt

A book about happiness that uses a clever metaphor to describe the conflict between primitive motives and conscious thought.

Neurological System Basics

• The mind can be viewed as an elephant and a rider. The rider (our conscious thought) can direct the elephant (our more primitive neurological systems) to turn, stop, or go. But, when the elephant has a desire of its own, the rider is no match to control it
• Limbic system (limbus means border/margin) wraps around rest of the brain, forming a border
  • Hypothalamus: coordinates basic drives and motivations
  • Hippocampus: specialized for memory
  • Amygdala: specialized for emotional learning and responding
• The neocortex (meaning new covering in Latin) developed later as the grey matter characteristic of the brain, providing functions such as impulse control, planning ahead, thinking, and decision making
  • Individuals with a compromised prefrontal cortex normally see increases in sexual aggression, inability to control impulses
• The bottom third of the prefrontal cortex is the orbitofrontal cortex, just above the eyes, and is related to emotional responses (i.e feelings of pleasure and pain)
• The elephant is like the limbic system (reptilian brain), and the rider is like the neocortex. The rider evolved to serve to the elephant
• Stimuli are first passed through the amygdala (part of the limbic system) prior to reaching the neocortex. Amygdala has direct connection to flight or fight response, and detects patterns associated with previous fear episodes. Therefore neural impulses tend to be negative, because we react before we can even process them, and rightfully so, since in some situations we need as immediate a reaction as possible (i.e jump scares in horror movies) • Cognitive triad of depression: I’m no good, my world is bleak, and my future is hopeless

  Reciprocity

• Other ultra social species (ants, bees) evolved such that all offspring are siblings, due to a single shared queen, with most offspring being sterile. Thus, the group had no problem sacrificing themselves for each other as it optimizes the continuation of genes
• Humans in large societies, on the other hand, need a different strategy, as they are not all siblings and live outside the hive. Hence, reciprocity emerges - scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours
• Gossip evolved to keep track of bad actors in society, gain trust of others, and gauge allegiances
• A common sales tactic is to use reciprocity against you, offer something for free and people will feel an urge to return the favour

  Hypocrisy

• Moral hypocrisy: many studies have shown people that think they are particularly moral believe they are more likely to “do the right thing”. But, when the coin flip comes up against them (and to the benefit of someone else), they find a way to ignore what is right and follow self interest
• Motivated reasoning: a one-sided search for supporting evidence only
• When asked relative contributions to housework, couples combined perceived contributions come out to an average of 120%. Same with MBA students, who when asked for their contributions to a group project the total came to be 139%

  Pursuit of Happiness

• Progress principle: pleasure comes more from making progress towards goals than from achieving them
• Adaptation principle: people’s judgements about their present state are based on whether it is better or worse than the state to which they have become accustomed
  • Nerve property: nerve cells respond vigorously to new stimuli, but eventually “habituate, firing less to stimuli that they have become accustomed to”. Change contains vital information, not steady states
• Genetics have a strong level on one’s average level of happiness
• A good marriage is one of the life factors most strongly associated with happiness. An inverse correlation is that happiness causes marriage (happier people are more appealing as partners and easier to live with)
• Happiness has a weak relationship to environment: as long as someone has basic needs satisfied, attractive people aren’t as happy as less attractive, people in warm places aren’t as happy as cold places, younger people aren’t as happy as older, etc.
• Happiness Formula: (H)appiness = S(baseline genetic) + (C)onditions + (V)oluntary activities • Conditions have little effect for the most part (i.e race, sex, disability, wealth, marital status, where you live). The conditions that do matter are:
  • Noise
  • Commute (traffic)
  • Lack of control (providing workers, students, patients with a sense of control increases happiness)
  • Shame (breast augmentation surgeries on average report increases in quality of life and decreases in depression and anxiety. It helps to alleviate the shame associated with a daily burden of feeling less than others, though I imagine one must be careful such that cosmetic surgeries do not become a primary source of personal well-being
  • Relationships
• Voluntary activities include pleasures (food, sex) and gratifications (challenging tasks that match one’s abilities)
• The key to finding your own gratifications is to know your strengths
• Why do people spend money on luxuries, to which they adapt completely, rather than on things that would make them lastingly happier?
  • Conspicuous consumption: things that are visible to others that advertise elevated status (bigger house, nicer watch, better purse)
  • Inconspicuous consumption: things/activities consumed privately, not bought for the purpose of achieving status (long vacations, short commutes)
  • Inconspicuous consumption leads to more happiness. But the elephant cares about prestige (what others think of me), not happiness
• Happiness comes from within, and happiness comes from without

  Love and Attachment

• Attachment theory: two basic goals guide a child’s behaviour: safety and exploration. A child who stays safe survives, a child who explores and plays develops the skills and intelligence needed for adult life
• Mammal babies play, the larger the frontal cortex the more the need to play
• Secure, avoidant, resistant behavioural patterns are developed genetically and from parental/environmental influence
  • Happier babies (genetic) could make mothers more loving
  • More loving mothers (behavioural) could make happier babies
• These patterns follow us throughout romantic relationships as well, more secure adults enjoy happier, longer relationships with lower rates of divorce
• Most other mammalian babies’ brains are mostly developed at birth. Hence, there is less of a long burden for the mother, and the father can go and mate with other females. Human brains continue to develop years after birth. The mother incurs a longer burden, therefore male support is required for longer, helping to explain why pair bonding was required to best pass on genes
• Origin of “my other half”: Aristophanes said that people started off with four legs, arms, and 2 faces. But, one day the gods cut them in half. Ever since, people have been looking for their other half. As this was a Greek story, some people originally had 2 males faces, 2 female, male/female, showing the diversity in sexual orientation of that time

  Adversity

• Coping with trauma:
  • If you have more pessimistic inclinations, try meditation/cognitive behavioural therapy/medication to help guide the elephant in the right direction
  • Have a few social attachments you can go to talk to
  • At some point afterwards, write about what happened. Make sense of it in your mind, it will help you move on. Why did this happen? What good might I derive from it?
• For adversity to be maximally beneficial, it should happen at the right time (young adulthood), to the right people (secure attachment, social resources, etc.) and to the right degree (not so severe that it causes PTSD)

  Virtues

• Trying to make children behave ethically by teaching them to reason (i.e giving scenarios and telling them what the right thing to do is) is like trying to make a dog happy by wagging its tail for him. The child learns how (not what) to think. This teaches the rider, but the elephant learns nothing
  • You can be morally against factory farming, but unless you are faced with the horrors (see it in action) you will likely still eat meat

    Meaning of Life

• People gain a sense of meaning when their lives cohere across the three levels of their existence (physical, psychological, and sociocultural)
• Happiness comes from between, from coherence between internal experiences (mind and body) and external experiences (work, relationships, community)
• There was initial puzzlement on why humans have altruistic tendencies, an initial explanation was that we are guided by group selection as well as individual selection
  • Bees and ants have no issue with altruism, sacrificing themselves for the pack, as they all share genes. The queen bee is the ovary, the bees are the body
  • But bees share genes, so why are humans altruistic? Early simulations showed that group selection, when one chooses the good of the group over themselves, was bound to be taken advantage of by selfish players (free rider problem)
  • These simulations lacked a cultural component though, and it seems like religions developed with culture to reduce the influence of free riders so that group selection could flourish (e.g marriage prevented gigachads from taking all the women)
• Liberals and conservatives use the myth of pure evil to demonize the other side and unite their own
  • Liberals are experts in thinking about issues of victimization, equality, autonomy, and the rights of individuals
  • Conservatives are experts in thinking about loyalty to the group, respect for authority and tradition, and sacredness
  • Both are necessary, individual and group motives are needed. A society without liberals would be harsh and oppressive to many individuals. A society without conservatives would lose beneficial social structures and constraints. The Ying and Yang are necessary
• A good place to find wisdom is in the minds of your opponents. If you can take off the blinders of the myth of pure evil, you might see some good ideas for the first time