Reeve (2009) repeatedly talks about happiness. Two such places were in chapter 3 and chapter 13. Chapter 3 discussed that when a pleasant event is unexpected the brain releases more dopamine and we feel happier than if the event was expected. Chapter 13 discussed the relationship between extraversion and happiness. A presentation that I recently watched brougt up another aspect of happiness that I did not run into in Reeve (2009). The video stated that there is also an element of making ourselves happy that plays a role in our emotions.
In 2004 Dan Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, gave a presentation entitled "Why are we happy?" His main topic in the lecture was what he referred to as "synthetic happiness.Synthetic happiness is the ability to make ourselves happier in certain situations. In his presentation Gilbert gave examples of research that showed synthetic happiness. In one example people were asked to rank art work from best to worst. They were then told that the researchers would give them either number 3 or number 4 of the art work as a thank you. A week later those same participants came back and ranked the pictures again. In the second ranking the picture that the participants chose ranked higher than it had previously. This same experiment was then run on amnesic participants that could not remember which art work they owned when they ranked the art work a second time. Even though they could not remember which art work they owned, that piece still ranked higher the second time. This seems to suggest that we have the ability to make ourselves happy and not even know that we changed our mind.
In another experiment, students were told that they would have to send one of two pictures that they created for a class overseas. The picture that they sent they would never get back. One group of students were told that they had four days to change their mind before the picture was sent. The other group was told that the decision that they made today could not be changed. After five days the students were asked to rate their happiness with the picture that they kept. Those in the reversible group were unhappy, while those in the irreversible group were very happy. This suggested that when we are stuck with what we chose we will make ourselves happy with that decision.
Gilbert made a point of that we can be happy if we get what we want, but we can also be happy if we didn't - mostly because we can convince ourselves that we are happy. Apparently our 'psychological immune' system works rather well.
If you would like to watch the talk given by Dan Gilbert it can be found at: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html
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