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Definition of Happiness
Not an emotion in the usual sense
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JOY
An intense pleasant emotional experience in response to a particular event - a surprising gain or success of some sort.
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What do people do when they are happy?
- -act more optimistically
- -approach other people more boldly than usual
- -take more chances
- -react less strongly than usual to threats
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Smiling :)
- Duchenne smile = "REAL" positive emotion
- --- Raised cheeks & crow's feet + smiling mouth
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PANAS
- Positive Affect Scale of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS)
- -has 20 items, each is a single word:
- ---participant says, on scale of 1-5, how well that word describes his/her feelings during a certain time
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"TOP DOWN" vs. "BOTTOM UP"
- Top Down: Your personality or disposition controls your happiness
- Bottom Up: Life events control your happiness
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When people gain wealth do they become happier?
- Right after people have won a lottery, they rate their happiness very high.
- A few months later, their happiness ratings decline to about same as ave.
***Not sufficient evidence
Wealth does not guarantee happiness, but poverty generally leads to unhappiness.
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Dopamine
High levels contribute to extraversion and happiness
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Contrast effect
The emotional influence of whether an outcome was better or worse than some other likely outcome
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Anticipatory Enthusiasm
Pleasure from expecting a reward
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HOPE
High agency in a challenging situation combined with active generation of plans that can facilitate the desired outcome
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OPTIMISM
Generally defined as an expectation that mostly good things will happen
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Life Orientation Test
A test often used to measure optimism
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Neuroticism
A tendency to experience fear, sadness, and anger relatively easy.
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Cognitive Shift
Transition from thinking about some target from one perspective to thinking about it from a completely different, but still appropriate, perspective
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Positive Emotions
Feelings that enrich life, such as happiness, love, amusement, hope, compassion, pride, gratitude and awe.
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Zygomatic Major
Muscle that pulls mouth up in a smile
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Orbicularis Oculi
Muscle that crinkles your eye in a smile
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Felt Smiles
- O + Z
- symmetric
- smooth
- less than or equal to 4 sec
- difficult to fake
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Fake Smiles
- Z only
- assymetric
- too fast or slow
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~~~Brinkman et. al. (1978)
- Is Happiness relative? Study
- Subjects: 29 paraplegics & quadriplegics
- 22 major lottery winners
- DV: S-R happiness
- past
- Results:Mundane pleasures: Decreased pleasure for lottery winners
- Present happiness:
- Lottery Winners: Controls
- Accident victims: some decrease
- Prior happiness: Accident victims was higher
- General Comments:
- --may take weeks or months to fully adapt
- --study looks @ long term happiness
- May increase happiness shortly after winning
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~~Minnesota Twin Study~~
- Subjects:
- Fraternal (50% genes) vs. Identical (100%) genes
- Raisd together vs. raised apart
- DV:
- S-R contentment
- How happy/content are you, on ave, compared to others?
- Results:
- Identical twins showed relationships in happiness when reared together or separately
- Fraternal twins showed very little, if no, relationship in happiness in either living situation
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Overall Level of Happiness
- 50% genes
- 10% life events
- 40% stuff you might be able to change
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~~~Bachorowski Studies~~~
- Laughter Study 1:
- Voiced vs. Unvoiced
- DV: affect of laughter on listener & attributions
- Results: Voiced > Unvoiced
- Laughter may be nonconscious strategy designed to influence other people
- Laughter Study 2:
- Is your laughter diff. in diff. contexts?
- IV: 3 social situations
- 1. alone
- 2. Friend v. stranger
- 3. Same v. opposite sex
- DV: Subject's laughter types
- Results: M & F produce song-like laughter w/friends
- Male laughs are longer & more frequent w/friends
- F diff. laugh quality w/Males
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