May 12, 2009
What Makes Us Happy? from The Atlantic is an article discussing a longitudinal study of the lives of a group of Harvard men starting in the 1930's and continuing even today. The underlying and fascinating question is "What does it take to live a happy and fulfilling life?" The equally interesting B-story discusses how the field of psychology and its methods has changed since the days of measuring head size. (I suspect there is enough tired methodology from the early days and simplification of explanation to drive TheWestIsTheBest up the wall).
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happy? ugh, my reading of the lit (and the results of 1 positive psych course) is that we all have a "happiness setpoint." the researchers are trying to figure out how to move it, but long term it seems fairly immutable for now. there's some fun ways to feel happy in the short run tho.
for the record, i differentiate between happiness and joy. happiness is short term pleasure, while joy comes from fulfillment. my best guess is that the lit will bear me (and most religious traditions) out on this. relationships are where the money is =) money and experiences are where short term pleasure is
posted by TheWestIsTheBest at 09:35PM CST on May 31