Can You Make Yourself Happier? — Happiness 9 (C1)

HAPPINESS · LESSON 9

Can You Make Yourself Happier?

C1 (B2–C2) · 90 minutes

Your bet

Task Think about why some people are happier than others. Share 100 points among three causes and write down your three numbers: genes; circumstances (income, health, where people live, marriage, age); and what people choose to do and think. Then find the grade you gave claim 3 in Lesson 1: "About 40% of your happiness is under your control."

genes

circumstances

(income, health, where people live, marriage, age)

+

what people choose to do and think

+

=

100

LESSON 1 · CLAIM 3

“About 40% of your happiness is under your control.”

READING

Born with a set point?

In 1996 the psychologists David Lykken and Auke Tellegen published a short paper in Psychological Science titled "Happiness is a stochastic phenomenon". Studying several thousand middle-aged twins, they compared identical twins, who share all their genes, with non-identical twins, who share about half. Identical twins' well-being scores were far more alike. The authors estimated that 44% to 52% of the differences in well-being between people went

with genetic differences. Retesting smaller groups of twins years later, they put the heritability of the stable, long-run part of well-being near 80%. Income, education, marital status and religious commitment each accounted for no more than about 3%.

The paper made the idea of a happiness set point famous: a personal baseline that events push us away from, but which we return to.

READING · CONTINUED

Born with a set point?

Its most quoted line suggested that trying to be happier may be "as futile as trying to be taller". Lykken himself later called that inference mistaken.

Later work lowered the numbers. In 2015 the Dutch behaviour geneticist Meike Bartels pooled ten independent twin and family studies covering 55,974 people. Single estimates ranged from 0% to 64%; the weighted averages were 36% for well-being and 32% for life satisfaction.

Heritability describes how much of the variation between people in one population goes with genetic differences. It is not the share of one person's happiness that comes from their genes, and it can change when the environment changes. A highly heritable trait can still rise across a whole population: average height did, in many countries, over the twentieth century.

The happiness pie

Task In pairs, answer the questions below. Then agree one thing the chart shows and one thing it hides, and write them down.

In 2005 the psychologists Sonja Lyubomirsky, Kennon Sheldon and David Schkade published the most famous chart in positive psychology. Their own caption: "Three primary factors influencing the chronic happiness level". Their own gloss: "This leaves as much as 40% of the variance for intentional activity."

Three primary factors influencing the chronic happiness level

1. Compare the chart with your bet from "Your bet". Where are you furthest apart?

2. "Variance" means differences between people. Does the chart say how happy one person can become?

3. Which slice do you think was measured directly, and which was worked out from the others?

4. Where on this chart would luck, illness or a badly worded questionnaire go?

5. Would the slices be the same size in a poorer country, or in wartime?

6. Why might this chart be so popular in books, courses and apps?

Lyubomirsky, Sheldon and Schkade, 2005

50%

40%

Genetics 50%

Intentional activity 40%

Circumstances 10%

Share of the variance (differences between people) in happiness

READING

Re-slicing the pie

The pie was built by subtraction. Its 50% for genes came from twin studies of the late 1980s and 1990s, including Lykken and Tellegen's. Its 10% came from reviews suggesting that all life circumstances together, such as income, health and marital status, explain 8% to 15% of the differences in happiness. The remaining 40% went to intentional activity: what people choose to do and think. No study measured that slice directly.

In 2019 Nicholas Brown and Julia Rohrer took the model apart in the Journal of Happiness Studies, under the title "Easy as (happiness) pie?". First, the remainder is not all activity: it also holds measurement error, luck and everything nobody measured. Second, the slices assume that genes, circumstances and choices add up separately, when in fact they interact: genes and circumstances shape which activities people keep up.

READING · CONTINUED

Re-slicing the pie

Third, the figures describe differences across a population, not how far any one person can change. Fourth, circumstance studies done inside one rich country capture a narrow range of lives, so the 10% is probably too small. They concluded that there is little evidence for the split, and that even a correct split would not show whether people can substantially change their long-term happiness.

Sheldon and Lyubomirsky replied in the Journal of Positive Psychology (2021). They accepted many of the criticisms; the numbers, Lyubomirsky told Greater Good magazine, were estimates in a thought experiment, and the chart was "a gross oversimplification". But they held that happiness can be pursued successfully, if not easily.

READING

The 2.9013 affair

In 2005 the psychologist Barbara Fredrickson and Marcial Losada, who had studied business teams, claimed in American Psychologist to have found a positivity ratio: people whose positive emotions outnumber their negative ones by at least 2.9013 to 1 flourish, while those below it languish. The exact figure came from a mathematical model built on the Lorenz equations of fluid dynamics. Rounded to "three to one", the ratio spread through popular books, coaching and management training.

In 2013 Nicholas Brown, then a graduate student in applied positive psychology, wrote with the physicist Alan Sokal and the psychologist Harris Friedman in the same journal that the equations had no justification as a model of emotion and had been misapplied. The critical ratio, they concluded, was "entirely unfounded". The journal then formally withdrew the modelling part of the 2005 paper as invalid, along with the 2.9 figure. Fredrickson maintained that a higher ratio of positive to negative emotion still goes with flourishing, within bounds.

READING

Do the exercises work?

Positive psychology interventions are short, deliberate activities meant to raise well-being rather than to treat illness. In 2005 Martin Seligman and colleagues tested five of them online against a placebo exercise, writing about early memories. They recruited 577 adults through the website of Seligman's book Authentic Happiness; 411 completed every follow-up. Two exercises, three good things (nightly notes on three

things that went well, and why) and using a personal strength in a new way, raised happiness and lowered depressive symptoms for six months. The gratitude visit, writing and delivering a letter of thanks, gave the biggest boost, gone by three months. A 2012 replication with better controls found that the exercises raised happiness, but so did a "positive placebo", and they did no better than the control on depression.

READING · CONTINUED

Do the exercises work?

Meta-analyses pool many studies. Sin and Lyubomirsky (2009), across 51 interventions and 4,266 people, reported a moderate effect on well-being (r = .29). Bolier and colleagues (2013), using only randomised trials (39 studies, 6,139 people), found small effects: d = 0.34 on subjective well-being, 0.20 on psychological well-being and 0.23 on depression. In 2019 White, Uttl and Holder re-analysed both,

correcting for the tendency of small studies to report larger effects. The effect on well-being shrank to about r = .10, small but still significant; the effect on depression was no longer reliably different from zero. A 2018 meta-analysis of acts of kindness (27 studies, 4,045 people) found a small-to-medium boost for the giver (d = 0.28), with the weaker studies reporting the larger effects.

Grade the findings

Task In pairs, write a letter for each finding, using "Born with a set point?", "The 2.9013 affair" and "Do the exercises work?". Then pick the grade you disagreed about and say what evidence would settle it.

S Strong

M Mixed

W Weak

F Failed

1. Differences in happiness between people are partly heritable.

4. On average, positive psychology exercises raise well-being a little.

2. People flourish once their positive emotions outnumber negative ones by at least 2.9013 to 1.

5. Positive psychology exercises are an effective treatment for depression.

3. Writing down three good things each night for a week keeps people happier for six months.

6. Doing acts of kindness makes the person who does them happier.

Which answer moves?

Bolier and colleagues (2013) separated two kinds of outcome. Subjective well-being measures ask how people feel and how satisfied they are with their lives. Psychological well-being measures ask about purpose, growth and good relationships.

Pleasure

Desire

Flourishing

How does your life feel?

Are you getting what you want?

Is your life going well?

1. A gratitude letter, three good things, an act of kindness: which answer does each mainly target?

2. Psychological well-being moved least in Bolier's results. Which answer is hardest to shift?

3. If an exercise lifts Pleasure for a month but leaves Flourishing untouched, is it worth doing?

4. Could people's ratings rise simply because they expect the exercise to work?

hedonism

desire theories

objective-list theories

Positive psychology exercises: which answer moves?

What the evidence says

Claim 3: "About 40% of your happiness is under your control."

S Strong

M Mixed

W Weak

F Failed

F: failed to hold up. The 40% was never measured: it is what was left after subtracting two older estimates, and it includes measurement error and luck (Brown and Rohrer, 2019). It describes differences between people in a population, so it cannot be "your" share of anything, and the chart's own authors now call it a gross oversimplification (Sheldon and Lyubomirsky, 2021).

What survives is a much smaller claim, graded M: deliberate activities raise average well-being a little, about r = .10 once small-study bias is corrected (White, Uttl and Holder, 2019).

M Mixed

Rewrite the advert

Task In pairs, rewrite this (fictional) advert so that every claim matches the evidence in today's readings. It must still try to sell the app. Use no more than 80 words, and cut or fix anything that could harm someone who is depressed.

GLOW40: Take control of your 40%

Science has proved it: half your happiness is in your genes, but a full 40% is in your hands. GLOW40's five-minute daily gratitude journal is clinically proven to make you happier for good. Reach the 3-to-1 positivity ratio that separates people who flourish from people who languish. Feeling low? Skip the therapist. Unhappiness is just a habit, and GLOW40 breaks it in 21 days.

The happiness industry

Task Groups of 3 or 4. Read the paragraph, then discuss at least three of the questions. Agree one rule you would set for anyone who sells happiness techniques.

The happiness industry sells techniques for raising well-being: apps, courses, coaching and workplace programmes. Critics such as the political economist William Davies (The Happiness Industry, 2015) and the writer Barbara Ehrenreich (Bright-Sided, 2009) argue that it turns social problems into private ones, and can leave people who stay unhappy feeling that they have failed. Supporters reply that cheap, low-risk exercises with small average benefits are still worth having. One point is not in dispute: these exercises are not a treatment for depression, a common medical condition that is not a personal failing and is treated by health professionals.

1. Is a small average benefit worth selling, if the product is cheap and low-risk?

2. Should employers offer happiness training, or improve working conditions first?

3. Does telling people their happiness is "in their hands" help them, or blame them?

4. Where you live, who sells happiness, and who buys it?

5. Should happiness apps have to meet the same standards as health products?

Private reflection

Task Choose one prompt and write privately. Nobody will read what you write. Sharing afterwards is optional.

Prompt 1

Think of someone you know (no names needed) who changed a habit to feel better. What changed for them, and how much was the habit, and how much was everything else in their life?

Prompt 2 (lighter)

You are asked to design a one-week happiness exercise for a fictional office team. What is it, and how would you find out whether it really worked?

Before Lesson 10

This week, find one happiness claim in the wild and grade it S, M, W or F.

Pleasure

It can be a headline, an advert, a social media post or a line in a self-help book. Note which of the three answers it is really about, and what evidence it gives, if any.

Desire

Next lesson: Happiness on Trial. All six claims from Lesson 1 come back for a final verdict.

Flourishing

TEACHER'S REFERENCE · SKIP OR DELETE BEFORE CLASS

Answer key (1)

THE HAPPINESS PIE suggested; questions 1, 5 and 6 are for argument

QUESTION 2. No. Variance describes how people in a population differ from one another. The 2005 paper itself notes that heritability coefficients describe covariation, not mean levels.

QUESTION 3. None was measured in one study. The 50% and 10% were taken from earlier twin studies and circumstance reviews; the 40% is what was left over. See "Re-slicing the pie".

QUESTION 4. In the 40% "intentional activity" slice, because that slice is simply the remainder. This is Brown and Rohrer's first point.

GRADE THE FINDINGS

1 S. Twin and family studies consistently find moderate heritability. Bartels' 2015 meta-analysis pooled 36% for well-being (single estimates 0% to 64%). Strong evidence that genes matter; not evidence that happiness is fixed.

2 F. The model behind 2.9013 was shown to be invalid (Brown, Sokal and Friedman, 2013), and the journal withdrew it. The looser idea that more positive emotion goes with flourishing is a separate claim.

3 W. One 2005 online study of self-selected volunteers who wanted to be happier. The 2012 replication found a "positive placebo" did about as well, and no advantage on depression.

4 M (accept S if a pair argues that "a little" is exactly what the evidence shows). The effect is consistent but small, about r = .10 after correction, and its size depends heavily on study quality.

TEACHER'S REFERENCE · SKIP OR DELETE BEFORE CLASS

Answer key (2)

5 W. Bolier and colleagues found a small effect (d = 0.23), but after correcting for small-study bias White, Uttl and Holder found no reliable effect, and the 2012 replication found none either. This concerns brief self-help exercises, not psychological therapy in general.

6 M. Curry and colleagues (2018) found a small-to-medium effect (d = 0.28), but weaker studies reported larger effects, so the true effect may be smaller.

WHICH ANSWER MOVES? suggested

1 Three good things: mainly Pleasure. Gratitude letter: Pleasure, with a link to Flourishing through relationships. Acts of kindness: Pleasure, and arguably Flourishing (relationships, purpose). None is designed to change whether people get what they want, although life-satisfaction scales, closer to Desire, were among the outcomes measured.

2 Flourishing, on these measures.

REWRITE THE ADVERT one possible version

GLOW40: a few minutes of reflection a day. Studies suggest that simple exercises like gratitude journaling can lift mood a little for many people, though results vary and effects often fade. Genes and circumstances matter too, and nobody can promise a fixed share of happiness is "in your hands". GLOW40 is not a treatment for depression: if you have felt low for a long time, please talk to a doctor or another health professional.