Happiness is a Deal of the Cards

How much of happiness is genetic? Apparently, fifty percent, according to this study:

Psychologists at Edinburgh University found that inherited genes control up to half of the personality traits that keep us happy.

The group, working with researchers in Australia, studied nearly 1000 pairs of twins.

They built up a picture of each individual's personality by assessing factors such as how sociable and outgoing they were, or how anxious or angry they feel.

The group were able to identify evidence of common genes that result in certain personality traits, which in turn predispose people to happiness.

It is believed that those who inherit the right mix of personality genes build an "affective reserve" of happiness which can be called on in times of stress or act as a buffer when things go wrong.

Imagine that. A "reserve" of happiness that can be called upon in times of stress of crisis. I wonder if one day, scientists will be able to quantify this reserve so that human beings would, in effect, be able to keep track of how much "happiness stock" they have left. Sounds like an interesting premise for a science fiction movie.

Two things I can remark on about this. First, this officially gives credence to every time someone says that life "dealt me a crummy hand." I have a feeling that if studies like these become more legit, we'll be seeing more people bottom out. But this is thinking way into the long-run.

Of course, fifty percent of happiness being environmental has some deeper implications. It means that, despite a supposedly genetic component, knowing the right tricks to lead a happier life can probably hold a substantial influence over that other component. The article mentions that scientists are working to identify how behavior and positive psychology can influence happiness. So, don't fret all you sad ones.

Psychological Economics

Here's another reason why the proposed tax rebates aren't the most efficient way to stimulate the economy:

Changing the way that identical income is described can significantly affect how people spend it. In an experiment I conducted at Harvard with my colleagues Dennis Mak and Lorraine Chen Idson, participants were given a $50 check. They were told that this money came from a faculty member’s research budget, financed indirectly through tuition dollars. Roughly half of the participants had this money described as a “rebate,” whereas the others had it described as a “bonus.” When unexpectedly contacted one week later, participants who got a “rebate” reported spending less than half of what those who got a “bonus” reported spending ($9.55 versus $22.04, respectively).

Consequently, it is more likely that those who receive a tax rebate will actually spend it soon if it is referred to as a "bonus" or "gift" rather than a "rebate." The only thing I don't understand about this is that if the term "rebate" implies earning money back that has already been spent, wouldn't someone be more likely to spend it again (since psychologically it's already spent, might as well blow the money)?

Yet another example of how economists should increasingly take psychology into account--in this case, "framing effects"--when crafting policies. The premise that individuals are all rational decision makers is slowly being overshadowed by the one that we are all victim to our own subconscious.

Worry. Don't be Happy

It seems as though the latest stir in social science academia, spanning across such disciplines as sociology, psychology, and even economics, is on happiness. What makes us happy? Are men happier than women? Do human beings derive pleasure from committing performing "altruistic" actions?

These are some fundamental questions that have traditionally been approached by those in fields such as neuroscience and philosophy, but have now permeated into cross-discipline studies. For example, the fields of neuroeconomics and behavioral economics are becoming increasingly well-respected. Here's a recent study done on individual preferences on hyperbolic discount rates (essentially a time-inconsistency problem). It uses fMRI scans to determine which areas of the brain respond to making an economic decision regarding personal benefit and future discounts. Here's Vox Baby on the same subject.

This naturally begs the question of just how important happiness is. In light of these cross-disciplined studies and given society's obsession with achieving and extending happiness, living out long-desired dreams, and curbing depression (even if it means over-medication), these fields could become increasingly important and could eventually extend beyond philosophical speculation. They could, theoretically, pinpoint specifically what drives human happiness.

But, is society's emphasis on happiness actually a disadvantage? Are we as human beings gradually losing grip of melancholy and sadness--emotions that are just as important to our survival as happiness? My guess is no. In the U.S. clinical depression still affects 14 million adults per year. However, an article I read today seems to think that our over-emphasis on happiness is slowly annihilating a very crucial human trait:

A recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center shows that almost 85 percent of Americans believe that they are very happy or at least pretty happy. The psychological world is now abuzz with a new field, positive psychology, devoted to finding ways to enhance happiness through pleasure, engagement, and meaning. Psychologists practicing this brand of therapy are leaders in a novel science, the science of happiness. Mainstream publishers are learning from the self-help industry and printing thousands of books on how to be happy. Doctors offer a wide array of drugs that might eradicate depression forever. It seems truly an age of almost perfect contentment, a brave new world of persistent good fortune, joy without trouble, felicity with no penalty.

Why are most Americans so utterly willing to have an essential part of their hearts sliced away and discarded like so much waste? What are we to make of this American obsession with happiness, an obsession that could well lead to a sudden extinction of the creative impulse, that could result in an extermination as horrible as those foreshadowed by global warming and environmental crisis and nuclear proliferation? What drives this rage for complacency, this desperate contentment?

[...]

I for one am afraid that American culture's overemphasis on happiness at the expense of sadness might be dangerous, a wanton forgetting of an essential part of a full life. I further am concerned that to desire only happiness in a world undoubtedly tragic is to become inauthentic, to settle for unrealistic abstractions that ignore concrete situations. I am finally fearful of our society's efforts to expunge melancholia. Without the agitations of the soul, would all of our magnificently yearning towers topple? Would our heart-torn symphonies cease?

While it is true that melancholia and general sadness are just as important to our development as happiness--and it is certainly true that there is a tendency for psychiatrists to over-prescribe anti-depressants (no less, of course, than those who are willing to take them)--I do not think that one can overemphasize happiness. Happiness has been the crutch of our existence since the dawn of time. It is the over-arching theme of every action and every study. It is what human individuals strive for whether they know it or not. Here's more from the article:

My sense is that most of us have been duped by the American craze for happiness. We might think that we're leading a truly honest existence, when we're really just behaving as predictably and artificially as robots, falling easily into well-worn "happy" behaviors, into the conventions of contentment. Deceived, we miss out on the great interplay of the living cosmos, its luminous gloom, its terrible beauty.

This to me seems to be the talk either of someone who is extremely depressed or someone who has no idea what true sadness is. For if he did, he would then understand the true value of happiness and not underwrite it as something that turns humans into automatons. Human beings are prone to rationalization--we convince ourselves that we are happy all the time because that is how we survive and evolve. Even if we "dupe" ourselves into believing we are happy, is the feeling not still the same? Is it somehow less desirable than what this other deems "true joy?"

What, then, is general joy and happiness and how is it different than rationalized happiness? How is one to tell? Thinking about this makes me frustrated...

...personally I'd rather be happy.