The One With The Second Week Of Pos. Psyc.

So this week in Positive Psychology wasn't AS interesting as last. There were still some things worth talking about though.

First off, the discussion question that I mentioned in my last post, we talked about as a group. Just to remind you: if you and a friend made a bet as to who was going to have the better life and came together around 60 years old to decide who it was, how would you determine who had the better life? Here are some of the more interesting answers given by my classmates.

1. When you make the bet at age 17, or whatever, also make a list of 100 goals you'd like to have accomplished. Then at 60, go through them and see how many you accomplished. Whoever has the bigger percentage wins. Now I like this idea, but it obviously has a lot of flaws in it. For one, someone could put really easy things to accomplish and the other could put difficult things. It'd be like comparing apples and oranges. Another flaw is the fact that it doesn't include any of your relationships, which I think are an important part of a successful life. (some may argue against me on that one though). 
2. Another person said that they should document whether or not they were feeling positive or negative every day and take the average for the week, and whoever has the most positive weeks is the winner. I actually really disagree with this one. For one, you could NEVER prove that that person actually had a positive affect on those days he/she documented it. It doesn't prove anything. And secondly, I don't think having a positive affect the most really makes your life better. I don't know, it just doesn't seem like the end all thing to measure a successful or better life. 
3. Dr. Carlson brought up this interesting idea. There's a thing called an impact factor in psychology. It basically means the impact factor is higher the more your work is cited in other research. What if there was a way to have an impact factor on a human being? The more you are "cited" with other people, the better your life is. I think that would be one of the best ways, but obviously not possible. 

One last thing about this. This discussion question is based on an actual situation that one of my professor's friend did. The way he and his friend measured their life was by asking kids, who were the same age as they were when they made the bet, at the same school they attended, to read an essay on each one of their lives and then write down questions for them. They then met up at the school, answered questions, and had the students vote for who they thought had the better life. Apparently it was basically a tie...I'm not sure how that happened, and I'm not sure I believe it.

An interesting fact I learned this week. Apparently someone who won the lottery was asked a year after doing so, and someone who became a paraplegic a year after doing so, how happy they were and they found they were both as equally happy at that point in their lives. It just shows that we don't need money to be happy. Even if something awful happens to you, your happiness can come back, it's just a matter of how you look at the situation. However, for different situations, obviously, it takes longer to get back to that happiness set point. The hardest things that take the longest for people to rise back to their set point is widowhood and unemployment.

The last thing I want to talk about is the fact that happiness always comes back down to a set point or goes back up to a set point. You never stay extremely sad or extremely happy. So we somewhat discussed why this is. We use this thing called ordinization, which basically means that we try to make sense of events in order to speed up emotional recovery. We say things such as, "It just wasn't meant to be," "They are in a better place," or "God has a bigger and better plan." I'm not saying these things are wrong to say, by any means, but we do use them to make ourselves feel better so we don't stay in this negative emotional state forever.

It also wouldn't be good for us to stay in a constant state of emotional dysphoria or euphoria. In my notes it says it would be physiologically taxing, which I agree with. I also agree with the idea that we need to be on a more level happiness to deal with other environmental situations. However, I think the most important reason we shouldn't always be in these states is because then we no longer appreciate being really happy and we wouldn't realize when we were really bad off. Eventually, if you were constantly in a state of euphoria, that state would no longer be euphoria but your set point that you could never exceed. Or if you were constantly in a state of dysphoria, you would eventually not realize just how bad off you were and know when you need to ask for help. If that makes any sense.

Here's an interesting quote: "I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity, and I am more invulnerable than Achilles; Fortune hath not one place to hit me." - Sir Thomas Browne

The discussion question that will be discussed next week is:  Consider real life examples of "big" negative or positive life events. Think of one example that seems consistent with the "happiness set point" perspective. (i.e., the person acclimated and returned to the pre-event level of life satisfaction), and one example that seems inconsistent (i.e., the event seemed to exert a lasting effect on level of life satisfaction). What factors (e.g., individual differences among people, nature of event) seem likely to affect the applicability of happiness set point theory?

By the way, I would LOVE it if people responded to the discussion questions themselves with their own thoughts. If anyone has an example of their own, I'd love to hear it, and I could share it in class, if you didn't mind, of course. Until next week!

Joey: If you ask me, as long as you got this job, you’ve got nothing pushing you to get another one. You need the fear.
Rachel: The fear?
Chandler: He’s right, if you quit this job, you then have motivation to go after a job you really want.
Rachel: Well then how come you’re still at a job that you hate, I mean why don’t you quit and get ‘the fear’?
(Chandler and Joey both laugh)
Chandler: Because, I’m too afraid.