I like how Dan reffered to friendships such as mid-sex gangs. I've heard people use the phrase "way to go gang" or something to that effect but every other time I've thought of gangs my initial connotation is negative.
It is interesting that thought about self hypnotism and I wonder if there is any similarity to visualization. What I mean is what makes us react sharply or unforgiving a result of our quiet self talk. Can we tell ourselves instead to be nice and forgiving. Secondly I think it is interesting to think of happiness as somewhere in between internal and external. If it really is the small advantages day to day that determine our happiness.
I thought the data that the speaker showed regarding how drastically someone's life would change after winning the lottery or becoming paralyzed for life was interesting. At first it seemed like the graph couldn't possibly be correct since it showed a large drop in happiness followed by a reversion back to the baseline for the paralysis data and a small increase in happiness followed by a reversion to the baseline for the lottery data. One would think that those event would change your life much more significantly than the data showed, but it made sense when the speaker explained why the data looked like that. Certainly both are life-altering situations, at least for a while after they occur. However, after a certain amount of time the new situation you are in becomes normal and is not so much of a shock to you anymore, even if it was a tragic situation to begin with. Also, as the speaker said, if you become paralyzed for example, at first you think that your life is over and you will never feel better about what happened, but after you get over the initial shock, you begin to see every small step of progress and every god thing that happens as a wonderful thing, and your outlook changes, bringing you back to the level of happiness you were at before the accident.
Also, later on when the speaker talks about the advantages happy people have over unhappy people, particularly that happy people recover from adversity faster and grow from it, I had a thought. Does the fact that happier people recover more quickly from adversity mean that unhappy people won't revert back to their baseline level of happiness following a bad life event as was shown in the speaker's graph? Or does it mean that unhappy people will eventually go back to their baseline happiness eventually, just not as quickly as happier people?
I liked this video quite a bit. I think it did a good job compiling a lot of the ideas we have been talking about this semester and themes that I have noticed are common when talking about happiness. In this video it seems like happiness is being defined more as life satisfaction. I liked the idea of talking about 3 truths revolving around the 'psychology of happiness' and i think the speaker makes good points regarding each. I think the 2nd truth and the last truth stood out the most to me. The 2nd truth talks about the idea of "there is no reality, only perception". I think sometimes it can be difficult to understand how much control we can have over our thinking and perception. I think that is why it can be surprising to hear about data like the lottery winnings/paralyzed for life. It easy to assume that our lives would be better or worse due to these 'major life events' or even life altering events, which is where the speaker leads the next point. He talks about the idea of affective forecasting and how we tend to give more weight to these major life events than we do to our day to day emotions. I have personally been trying to pay attention more to the present moment rather than looking forward to whats next or what i will enjoy more later. I think it's really difficult to shift your thinking to living entirely in the present or without some forms of affective forecasting.
When the speaker talks about the final truth "happiness comes between" he concludes talking about a balance between yourself and different aspects of your life. I think the concept of balance is key especially when talking about happiness. He says to get the right relationships between yourself and something larger than yourself and yourself and work etc. To me it sounds like he is recommending finding a happy balance, which I think is good. The speaker does a good job of outlining many different potential ideas or ways we can look at happiness within ourselves and others and how we can possibly improve our current situation.
I thought the part about automatic cognitions verses controlled cognitions was very interesting. I feel that a lot of this can relate to our own happiness, when we are controlling our happiness we appreciate it more than if we are happy for no reason. I feel that this relates back to our conversation a few classes ago about the happiness button. If we have a button which allows us to be happy whenever we want, even if for no reason, we will still feel happy. If we can train our controlled movements and cognitions to be automatic, then they will be more likely to become habits. I also liked that if you can make your workouts more automatic, they will be more enjoyable for you than if you are controlling them, and you will be more likely to stick to them.
There was a lot going on in this video most of which we have already touched on in previous units. For example the idea again that money can't buy you happiness and the actual proof that to an extent it actually does. one new thing that he mentioned that I was curious about was happiness being a heritable trait. The way he described it sounded more like a personality trait that can often be passed down or I believe a learned behavior from those around them. I wanted to know if maybe he was talking about extroverts and more out going people. He says that optimistic people are happier and tend to do better. Is this true oh heritability or is this a mix of that and mimicry say a child and their parent? I like how he mentioned not to focus on fixing your weakness but rather using your strengths and how to use them in different ways. This is a lot like another video we watched where the speaker mentioned that even people who aren't mentally ill who are just not happy need to look at their strengths and what does make them happy, being grateful for the things we do have not the things we don't. Lastly the automatic cognition's and the controlled cognition's were very interesting and I think I agree to an extent that even though your mind knows whats right and you would think it would be that easy you still end up doing the opposite sometimes because there is something else that drives us as well.
He didn't supply any scientific data in his presentation. He used the term "I think" a lot instead of referring to studies, research and data. He talks about 12 weeks as a timeline into changing habits wheres I believe there is solid research that says 30 days in the number.
Maybe religious and/or spiritual experiences don't make people happy as much as they allow people to connect to something that will keep them from falling into an emotional debt where you loose sight of goodness in the world.
I may have mis-understood him but I think that it is damaging to put the message out there there people's baseline moods cannot be raised. I have known plenty of screwed up miserable people who either grew out of it or changed. It takes hard work and commitment but is possible.
His main message is that people need to be connected to other people and things which isn't very profound or new information.
I found the third hypothesis of happiness made a lot of sense. In order to find happiness, there needs to be the right relationships between "your rider and your elephant", yourself and others, yourself and work, and lastly, yourself and something larger than yourself. Having the right relationship with your rider and your elephant stuck out to me as the most important step. In order to make a change in one's life, there has to be training. For the most part, changes do not occur over night. Swimming every morning at 5 am won't necessarily make someone have a happier life because they're getting in better shape or losing weight. I also think it is important to have a strong/right relationship between yourself and work. Considering that a career is somewhere you spend a good chunk of time, its crucial to enjoy that time in order to have a positive life satisfaction.
I say, show me the money, mister. Work on "happiness between" and the meaning will come? It's a nice walk-through argument (QED, right?), but do you have any science that shows your final point? He had plenty of graphs in the sections addressing whether happiness comes from inside or outside, but none looking at happiness from "between," as he put it.
I have to say, I find it hard to believe that cognitive therapy and two books of self-exercises are the key to dealing well with sadness. I hope the books say, "Go ahead and wallow for a while. See how that feels. Remain conscious. Reflect."
I think Positive Psychology needs a specialized vocabulary to describe the different ways of being happy; and, primarily, definitions of those kinds of happiness.
I guess what really struck me about this video was just his enthusiasm to present his book and theories. It is much easier to listen to someone talk about their ideas and to actually get into what they are saying when they themselves believe what they are saying.
The divided self was interesting because although we all know that we have automatic and controlled cognitions it was interesting to see that intuition takes up so much more of our cognitive functioning than reasoning. I do believe also that happiness is contagious. I can see when I surround myself with positive people I too become more positive, that goes for motivation as well. The people you hang out with reflect who you are and the things you deem important.
Happiness comes from within and "nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so". These notions I whole-heartedly agree with. It was funny at the end when the guy asked about "The Secret" and he informed everyone that its basically a crackpot theory, but that is a completely different take on these thoughts. Yes what you think can determine the things that come your way, but its all about what you do to get those things, not just a cosmic force bringing you these things because you willed it. If this was the case I would be graduated from college by now and a billionare!
And finally, Happiness comes from between is another "truth" I agree with. You have to have good relationships with everything and everyone in your life in order to be happy, which comes full circle back to the thought that if you surround yourself with happy people you will be happier.
There were so many things in this that we, as a class, have touched upon. Such as the hedonic treadmill. But there were a few ideas that really stuck out to me. The idea of the divided self was one of them. We, as humans, usually only think of ourselves as our consciousness and fail to realize that our behavior is not fully controlled by what our consciousness wants. A personal example comes from a dance heavy show that I was in. During the course of our rehearsals I found that I knew the dances on a conscious level. But It was very difficult for me to get my body to move like I needed it too.
I also liked his idea of happiness being the result of your biological set point, your conditions, and your voluntary activities. It's an interesting framework to conceive happiness as. And anecdotally I could see how it might be plausible.
I think that there were a lot of points. The one i found most intriguing was about how happier people recover faster from adversity then unhappy people
Is this something that is because of the state of mind they are in which just makes it take more time in order to recover from issues. That happier people have more of a bounce back because they have more happiness to bounce off and unhappy people stay at a lower state and are unhappy to begin with so it takes a while to recover. Can unhappy people truley recover? I think this goes along good with Lorraine Harmons's question of do they go back to baseline or not?
The main concept that I keep thinking about is when he Haidt mentioned there is no reality only perception. This is a statement philosophers and psychologists have argued for centuries now.I think this statement about perception means is that there are no absolutes. As long as we are living and have the will power to change than we can create our own reality through our perceptions.
I think it is extremely interesting that the speaker opens up his presentation to the connection between automatic processes and control processes. I think his body of thought regarding the automatic and thought-provoked processes is somewhat similar to the physical being and the mental or spiritual being - which are dependent on each other. Like the speaker said, asking everybody if they want to alleviate the effects of poverty does nothing if those thoughts aren't implemented with physical behavior. Similarly, I believe if we want to make a change in the way we mentally process situations, we also have to be willing to take the physical steps in order to accomplish our goals, and vice versa. In this sense, I think it would be reasonable to suggest that we have to be balanced in our body and in our minds in order to be successful - which is not a point the speaker makes directly, but I believe can be easily infer-able given the ideas he presents.
I also found the advice he offered about making long-term changes with immediate reward systems and self-training as helpful. He says it takes 12 weeks before a habit becomes easier - which he does not provide any empirical evidence for, but his argument is convincing.
His remarks about baseline happiness after winning the lottery, or changes in happiness after becoming paralyzed is an idea that I learned about through my own curiosity by watching a TED talk a few years back. I think it is remarkable how we're able to adapt to our life circumstances regardless of what happens to us. That being said, I question whether individuals are able to get back to baseline without any outside assistance - or intense psychotherapy treatments or the like. I do not contest our ability to avoid falling into a miserable depression, but I'm curious to know the extent in which one would need to go in order to get back to baseline levels of happiness.
Like other students pointed out, I think he touches on a lot of the concepts we've been talking about throughout the course, such as the relation between money and happiness, and the patterns of social groups between people who are optimistic or happy compared to those who are less or not.
I really like what he says about set point, life conditions and volunteer activities, and how we can intervene in our personal lives in order to alter our set points to increase our levels of happiness. I have done some personal research about the ideas he presents and have implemented them myself, so it was neat to me that he presented ideas that I am familiar with on a personal level.
Reviewing all of the other comments, I believe all I have to say has already been stated and would be redundant to reiterate.
I can really relate with the last truth he talks about, basically that happiness comes from something greater than ourselves. I believe the greatest things in life are the shared ideas that transcend the individual. Concepts like love, truth, and friendship are common threads in the human experience. These ideas are shared between people and would not truly exist without others. I also wanted to say that I enjoyed the two videos this week (including the one with Barbara Ehrenreich) the most out of any of the videos so far.
I greatly enjoyed the aspect of acting in selfless pursuit, “for the greater good.” He stated that we are all good at doing things for ourselves, but that when we focus on goal that is selfless in nature it springs up with us a level of mission and purpose. This leads to a more fulfilling experience. I teach various types of dance and what I have witnessed after years of teaching is that if I focus on the betterment of the person (E.g. Calmness, creativity, being in the moment, self-expression, self-understanding, better ability in social interactions, etc.) and I express the desire for the betterment of the dance community at large, I get more profound results. The person better experiences the nature of dance (being in the moment), but they can also see the need for others to achieve the same experience. Thus, they get invested in the betterment of others because they can see the direct impact it has on themselves. I feel this way as well. I am helping a person to enjoy the dance more, but more to the point, I can see them enjoy themselves more, be more relaxed, have fun, and generally have more joy. My teaching has become more about this and it has so little to do with the dance itself. Paul Bavineau
17 comments:
I like how Dan reffered to friendships such as mid-sex gangs. I've heard people use the phrase "way to go gang" or something to that effect but every other time I've thought of gangs my initial connotation is negative.
It is interesting that thought about self hypnotism and I wonder if there is any similarity to visualization. What I mean is what makes us react sharply or unforgiving a result of our quiet self talk. Can we tell ourselves instead to be nice and forgiving. Secondly I think it is interesting to think of happiness as somewhere in between internal and external. If it really is the small advantages day to day that determine our happiness.
Jonathan Bellino
I thought the data that the speaker showed regarding how drastically someone's life would change after winning the lottery or becoming paralyzed for life was interesting. At first it seemed like the graph couldn't possibly be correct since it showed a large drop in happiness followed by a reversion back to the baseline for the paralysis data and a small increase in happiness followed by a reversion to the baseline for the lottery data. One would think that those event would change your life much more significantly than the data showed, but it made sense when the speaker explained why the data looked like that. Certainly both are life-altering situations, at least for a while after they occur. However, after a certain amount of time the new situation you are in becomes normal and is not so much of a shock to you anymore, even if it was a tragic situation to begin with. Also, as the speaker said, if you become paralyzed for example, at first you think that your life is over and you will never feel better about what happened, but after you get over the initial shock, you begin to see every small step of progress and every god thing that happens as a wonderful thing, and your outlook changes, bringing you back to the level of happiness you were at before the accident.
Also, later on when the speaker talks about the advantages happy people have over unhappy people, particularly that happy people recover from adversity faster and grow from it, I had a thought. Does the fact that happier people recover more quickly from adversity mean that unhappy people won't revert back to their baseline level of happiness following a bad life event as was shown in the speaker's graph? Or does it mean that unhappy people will eventually go back to their baseline happiness eventually, just not as quickly as happier people?
I liked this video quite a bit. I think it did a good job compiling a lot of the ideas we have been talking about this semester and themes that I have noticed are common when talking about happiness. In this video it seems like happiness is being defined more as life satisfaction. I liked the idea of talking about 3 truths revolving around the 'psychology of happiness' and i think the speaker makes good points regarding each. I think the 2nd truth and the last truth stood out the most to me. The 2nd truth talks about the idea of "there is no reality, only perception". I think sometimes it can be difficult to understand how much control we can have over our thinking and perception. I think that is why it can be surprising to hear about data like the lottery winnings/paralyzed for life. It easy to assume that our lives would be better or worse due to these 'major life events' or even life altering events, which is where the speaker leads the next point. He talks about the idea of affective forecasting and how we tend to give more weight to these major life events than we do to our day to day emotions. I have personally been trying to pay attention more to the present moment rather than looking forward to whats next or what i will enjoy more later. I think it's really difficult to shift your thinking to living entirely in the present or without some forms of affective forecasting.
When the speaker talks about the final truth "happiness comes between" he concludes talking about a balance between yourself and different aspects of your life. I think the concept of balance is key especially when talking about happiness. He says to get the right relationships between yourself and something larger than yourself and yourself and work etc. To me it sounds like he is recommending finding a happy balance, which I think is good. The speaker does a good job of outlining many different potential ideas or ways we can look at happiness within ourselves and others and how we can possibly improve our current situation.
I thought the part about automatic cognitions verses controlled cognitions was very interesting. I feel that a lot of this can relate to our own happiness, when we are controlling our happiness we appreciate it more than if we are happy for no reason. I feel that this relates back to our conversation a few classes ago about the happiness button. If we have a button which allows us to be happy whenever we want, even if for no reason, we will still feel happy. If we can train our controlled movements and cognitions to be automatic, then they will be more likely to become habits. I also liked that if you can make your workouts more automatic, they will be more enjoyable for you than if you are controlling them, and you will be more likely to stick to them.
Chelsea Craig
There was a lot going on in this video most of which we have already touched on in previous units. For example the idea again that money can't buy you happiness and the actual proof that to an extent it actually does. one new thing that he mentioned that I was curious about was happiness being a heritable trait. The way he described it sounded more like a personality trait that can often be passed down or I believe a learned behavior from those around them. I wanted to know if maybe he was talking about extroverts and more out going people. He says that optimistic people are happier and tend to do better. Is this true oh heritability or is this a mix of that and mimicry say a child and their parent?
I like how he mentioned not to focus on fixing your weakness but rather using your strengths and how to use them in different ways. This is a lot like another video we watched where the speaker mentioned that even people who aren't mentally ill who are just not happy need to look at their strengths and what does make them happy, being grateful for the things we do have not the things we don't. Lastly the automatic cognition's and the controlled cognition's were very interesting and I think I agree to an extent that even though your mind knows whats right and you would think it would be that easy you still end up doing the opposite sometimes because there is something else that drives us as well.
the one above is Jacqueline Nizers post...
He didn't supply any scientific data in his presentation. He used the term "I think" a lot instead of referring to studies, research and data. He talks about 12 weeks as a timeline into changing habits wheres I believe there is solid research that says 30 days in the number.
Maybe religious and/or spiritual experiences don't make people happy as much as they allow people to connect to something that will keep them from falling into an emotional debt where you loose sight of goodness in the world.
I may have mis-understood him but I think that it is damaging to put the message out there there people's baseline moods cannot be raised. I have known plenty of screwed up miserable people who either grew out of it or changed. It takes hard work and commitment but is possible.
His main message is that people need to be connected to other people and things which isn't very profound or new information.
I found the third hypothesis of happiness made a lot of sense. In order to find happiness, there needs to be the right relationships between "your rider and your elephant", yourself and others, yourself and work, and lastly, yourself and something larger than yourself. Having the right relationship with your rider and your elephant stuck out to me as the most important step. In order to make a change in one's life, there has to be training. For the most part, changes do not occur over night. Swimming every morning at 5 am won't necessarily make someone have a happier life because they're getting in better shape or losing weight.
I also think it is important to have a strong/right relationship between yourself and work. Considering that a career is somewhere you spend a good chunk of time, its crucial to enjoy that time in order to have a positive life satisfaction.
-Nick Randall
I say, show me the money, mister. Work on "happiness between" and the meaning will come? It's a nice walk-through argument (QED, right?), but do you have any science that shows your final point? He had plenty of graphs in the sections addressing whether happiness comes from inside or outside, but none looking at happiness from "between," as he put it.
I have to say, I find it hard to believe that cognitive therapy and two books of self-exercises are the key to dealing well with sadness. I hope the books say, "Go ahead and wallow for a while. See how that feels. Remain conscious. Reflect."
I think Positive Psychology needs a specialized vocabulary to describe the different ways of being happy; and, primarily, definitions of those kinds of happiness.
I guess what really struck me about this video was just his enthusiasm to present his book and theories. It is much easier to listen to someone talk about their ideas and to actually get into what they are saying when they themselves believe what they are saying.
The divided self was interesting because although we all know that we have automatic and controlled cognitions it was interesting to see that intuition takes up so much more of our cognitive functioning than reasoning. I do believe also that happiness is contagious. I can see when I surround myself with positive people I too become more positive, that goes for motivation as well. The people you hang out with reflect who you are and the things you deem important.
Happiness comes from within and "nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so". These notions I whole-heartedly agree with. It was funny at the end when the guy asked about "The Secret" and he informed everyone that its basically a crackpot theory, but that is a completely different take on these thoughts. Yes what you think can determine the things that come your way, but its all about what you do to get those things, not just a cosmic force bringing you these things because you willed it. If this was the case I would be graduated from college by now and a billionare!
And finally, Happiness comes from between is another "truth" I agree with. You have to have good relationships with everything and everyone in your life in order to be happy, which comes full circle back to the thought that if you surround yourself with happy people you will be happier.
-Christi Ledwith
There were so many things in this that we, as a class, have touched upon. Such as the hedonic treadmill. But there were a few ideas that really stuck out to me. The idea of the divided self was one of them. We, as humans, usually only think of ourselves as our consciousness and fail to realize that our behavior is not fully controlled by what our consciousness wants. A personal example comes from a dance heavy show that I was in. During the course of our rehearsals I found that I knew the dances on a conscious level. But It was very difficult for me to get my body to move like I needed it too.
I also liked his idea of happiness being the result of your biological set point, your conditions, and your voluntary activities. It's an interesting framework to conceive happiness as. And anecdotally I could see how it might be plausible.
I think that there were a lot of points. The one i found most intriguing was about how happier people recover faster from adversity then unhappy people
Is this something that is because of the state of mind they are in which just makes it take more time in order to recover from issues. That happier people have more of a bounce back because they have more happiness to bounce off and unhappy people stay at a lower state and are unhappy to begin with so it takes a while to recover. Can unhappy people truley recover? I think this goes along good with Lorraine Harmons's question of do they go back to baseline or not?
Christina Valeriani
The main concept that I keep thinking about is when he Haidt mentioned there is no reality only perception. This is a statement philosophers and psychologists have argued for centuries now.I think this statement about perception means is that there are no absolutes. As long as we are living and have the will power to change than we can create our own reality through our perceptions.
-Lauren Goudreau
I think it is extremely interesting that the speaker opens up his presentation to the connection between automatic processes and control processes. I think his body of thought regarding the automatic and thought-provoked processes is somewhat similar to the physical being and the mental or spiritual being - which are dependent on each other. Like the speaker said, asking everybody if they want to alleviate the effects of poverty does nothing if those thoughts aren't implemented with physical behavior. Similarly, I believe if we want to make a change in the way we mentally process situations, we also have to be willing to take the physical steps in order to accomplish our goals, and vice versa. In this sense, I think it would be reasonable to suggest that we have to be balanced in our body and in our minds in order to be successful - which is not a point the speaker makes directly, but I believe can be easily infer-able given the ideas he presents.
I also found the advice he offered about making long-term changes with immediate reward systems and self-training as helpful. He says it takes 12 weeks before a habit becomes easier - which he does not provide any empirical evidence for, but his argument is convincing.
His remarks about baseline happiness after winning the lottery, or changes in happiness after becoming paralyzed is an idea that I learned about through my own curiosity by watching a TED talk a few years back. I think it is remarkable how we're able to adapt to our life circumstances regardless of what happens to us. That being said, I question whether individuals are able to get back to baseline without any outside assistance - or intense psychotherapy treatments or the like. I do not contest our ability to avoid falling into a miserable depression, but I'm curious to know the extent in which one would need to go in order to get back to baseline levels of happiness.
Like other students pointed out, I think he touches on a lot of the concepts we've been talking about throughout the course, such as the relation between money and happiness, and the patterns of social groups between people who are optimistic or happy compared to those who are less or not.
I really like what he says about set point, life conditions and volunteer activities, and how we can intervene in our personal lives in order to alter our set points to increase our levels of happiness. I have done some personal research about the ideas he presents and have implemented them myself, so it was neat to me that he presented ideas that I am familiar with on a personal level.
Reviewing all of the other comments, I believe all I have to say has already been stated and would be redundant to reiterate.
-Bianca Sturchio
I can really relate with the last truth he talks about, basically that happiness comes from something greater than ourselves. I believe the greatest things in life are the shared ideas that transcend the individual. Concepts like love, truth, and friendship are common threads in the human experience. These ideas are shared between people and would not truly exist without others. I also wanted to say that I enjoyed the two videos this week (including the one with Barbara Ehrenreich) the most out of any of the videos so far.
-Jesse Miller
I greatly enjoyed the aspect of acting in selfless pursuit, “for the greater good.” He stated that we are all good at doing things for ourselves, but that when we focus on goal that is selfless in nature it springs up with us a level of mission and purpose. This leads to a more fulfilling experience. I teach various types of dance and what I have witnessed after years of teaching is that if I focus on the betterment of the person (E.g. Calmness, creativity, being in the moment, self-expression, self-understanding, better ability in social interactions, etc.) and I express the desire for the betterment of the dance community at large, I get more profound results. The person better experiences the nature of dance (being in the moment), but they can also see the need for others to achieve the same experience. Thus, they get invested in the betterment of others because they can see the direct impact it has on themselves. I feel this way as well. I am helping a person to enjoy the dance more, but more to the point, I can see them enjoy themselves more, be more relaxed, have fun, and generally have more joy. My teaching has become more about this and it has so little to do with the dance itself.
Paul Bavineau
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