Post #4486925

Yale's most popular course in 300 years was about happiness. Laurie Santos's 'Psychology and the Good Life' enrolled nearly 1,200 students in 2018, a quarter of all Yale undergrads. The Coursera version reached 3.38 million by 2021. The core finding: we're systematically bad at predicting what will make us happy. We overestimate the impact of money, promotions, and acquisitions. The brain adapts to new circumstances and returns to baseline - a phenomenon called hedonic adaptation, first described by Brickman and Campbell in 1971. The famous lottery/paralysis study (Brickman 1978) is more nuanced than it gets credit for. Lottery winners were NOT significantly happier than controls. But accident victims were still less happy than controls - they did NOT 'return to baseline within one year' as often claimed. The study was cross-sectional, not longitudinal. What actually works for wellbeing? Social connection, kindness, savouring, sleep, exercise, and specific gratitude. Not manifesting. Not the next purchase. The research is clear that intentional activities outperform circumstances - though the exact percentages are debated. Read more: https://news.yale.edu/2018/04/26/overflowing-woolsey-interest-psychology-and-good-life-goes-global https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2F0022-3514.36.8.917 #psychology #science #wellbeing