When he won $22 million in the lottery, Ross was only happy for less than a year.
Seligman, a famous American psychologist, told a story. Ross is a middle-aged woman in the suburbs of Chicago. She has been divorced for many years. In order to make her life more hopeful, she spends five yuan a week to buy a local lottery ticket. Because she is always depressed, she needs to take antidepressants to keep her mood calm. This bad mood began in middle school and lasted for more than 20 years, but it was more serious after her husband had an affair and abandoned her three years ago. However, a miracle happened. Ross won the lottery prize in her state, totaling $22 million. She almost fainted with excitement. She quit her job as a laundryman, bought a villa with room 18, and sent both her children to the best private school. Surprisingly, her happiness began to deteriorate in less than a year. By the end of the year, her depression appeared again, as usual. ...
Wealth and success can't stay happy forever, but the optimist's mood is stable. Money can't buy happiness?
Psychologists surveyed 22 people who were usually depressed but won the lottery. When the winning event passed, they quickly returned to their previous depressed state and felt unhappy again. But it is gratifying that if an optimistic person encounters a temporary traumatic event, the negative impact on them is short-lived, and they will return to normal after a few months of unfortunate events. The survey shows that even a paraplegic patient, who was originally an optimistic person, will recover positive emotions and overcome negative emotions after eight weeks of illness. A few years later, they reported only slightly lower happiness than normal people. It seems that the mood of optimists is stable. The overall level of money and wealth has little to do with a happy life. In order to investigate people's subjective well-being in rich countries and poor countries, psychologists such as seligman investigated their subjective well-being from samples of 1000 people in various countries and found the relationship between people's happiness and purchasing power. (The left table is calculated with the purchasing power of the United States as 100. )
Human nature is psychologically adaptable to good luck and success. When a good thing happens, people will adapt quickly and think that this good thing is reasonable and there is nothing to cherish. For example, when you have no money, you feel how happy you are to have money, but when you have money, you will not feel happy for a long time, but will stimulate more desires and hope to have more money. The same is true of career success. If you succeed in your career, you will set yourself a higher goal. You won't stay happy for long, but have higher ambitions. So neither wealth nor success will make people happy forever. In less than three months, the impact of important events such as dismissal or promotion on people's happiness will weaken.
● Per capita GDP is positively related to happiness, but over $8,000, happiness is much smaller. Generally speaking, per capita GDP is positively correlated with happiness. The more per capita income, the happier people are. However, when the per capita GDP exceeds $8,000, the correlation between happiness and economy no longer exists. Rich Swedes are happier than Bulgarians, but if a person lives in the United States or Italy, there is no substantial difference in happiness with Swedes.
Poverty is not necessarily painful. People in the top 100 of Forbes are slightly happier than middle-income people.
However, there are also some cases where economic income does not match happiness. People in Brazil, Argentina and China have higher happiness or life satisfaction than their income expectations, while Russian and Eastern European countries have lower happiness than their actual economic income expectations. The biggest contrast with income is Japan, which has a high level of national economic income but a low sense of happiness. This may be related to the political systems of different countries. In the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, people were disappointed with life because of the unsuccessful political reform and economic transformation. Although China, Brazil and other countries have low absolute economic income, their societies are always thriving and their development is relatively stable. The happiness of Japanese people is similar to that of Brazilians in China, indicating that income and happiness are sometimes out of proportion. Seligman believes that wealth will have a great impact on happiness only when it is lacking. A particularly poor person will not feel happy, but when wealth increases to a certain extent, the correlation between wealth and happiness is much smaller. Even billionaires in the top 100 of Forbes list are only slightly happier than middle-income people.
So what is the happiness and life satisfaction of the poorest people in the world? The survey shows that the life happiness of the poorest people is not particularly bad, and their happiness is only slightly lower than that of middle-income people. Poverty is not necessarily a mental pain. Poverty is a social disease, which is caused by the imbalance of employment, education and economic development, and has little to do with mental health. How do you view money affects your happiness more than money itself. A person who pays special attention to money will be less satisfied with his income and his overall satisfaction with life.
There is no bilateral happiness in the siege of bilateral marriage. The sign of the happiest person is that he is willing to share his life with others.
As the saying goes, marriage is a besieged city. Some people want to go in, others want to come out. A survey of 35,000 people in the United States shows that 42% of married people think that life is very happy, while only 24% of unmarried, divorced and widowed people think that life is very happy. In individualistic culture, people who live together but are not formally married will feel very happy, while people in collectivist culture will not feel this way. However, it should be noted that if your marriage is unhappy, your happiness will be lower than that of unmarried or divorced people. Generally speaking, married people are happier than unmarried people.
In terms of social life, seligman's research shows that 65,438+00% of the happiest people are diverse, but they have rich social lives. One sign that distinguishes them from ordinary people and unhappy people is that they are willing to share their lives with others instead of being alone. This is related to marriage. A person who likes to be with others is willing to get married, and a person who likes to be alone is not inclined to get married. It can be said that happy people are sociable people and have a rich social life.
● Youth is no longer as important as before, and life satisfaction increases with age.
Does age affect happiness? Wilson's research more than 30 years ago found that age is an important factor affecting happiness, and it may change now. Youth is not as important as it used to be. An authoritative study investigated more than 60,000 people in different countries, and divided satisfaction into three aspects: life satisfaction, happy mood and negative mood. It is found that life satisfaction increases with age, but happy mood decreases slightly with age, and negative mood does not change with age.
Education level, climate, race and gender have no influence on happiness.
There is no evidence that these factors have any effect on happiness. Educated people with high academic qualifications are not happier than uneducated people, and so are their intelligence levels. Whether it is sunny or humid climate, it has no effect on people's happiness. Race does not affect happiness. People of all races have happy people and unhappy people, and gender has no effect on happiness. Women are happier and sadder than men, so they are as happy as men on the whole.
Wealth, especially the increase of wealth, has only a low correlation with happiness. It is reported that the rich are only a little happier than ordinary people. In the last half century, the per capita income of developed countries has increased a lot, but the happiness has only increased a little.
The recent increase in income can increase happiness, but in general, the increase in income will not increase people's happiness.
The attractiveness of appearance will not affect people's happiness.