Research Insights from 2023 – Part 1
Everyone ultimately wants to be happy, even if they are unsure how to go about it. The disconnect is usually what we believe will make us happy versus what will make us happy. The researchers at the Greater Good Science Center located at the University of California at Berkeley hope to take some guesswork out of the pursuit of happiness. According to its website, the center studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society.
Kiran Newman and the rest of the UC Berkley team looked through the research from 2023 that was nominated from their network of over 400 researchers. Some studies tackled some of society’s big questions, while other insights reinforced the idea that compassion is especially important during trying times. The hope is that the following insights might help us understand where we’ve been on our happiness journey and help us better prepare for where we are going in 2024.
1. World happiness rankings need to account for culture. We’ve heard it before: Scandinavians are the happiest people on the planet. Year after year, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland (technically not in Scandinavia) rank highest for “Happiest County in the World,” while the US drops lower and lower. How can this be? While I do believe we live in a great country, we honestly still have some work to do. OK, back to our friends above the Arctic Circle. Yes, they’ve got some good things going on over there. Prosperity, good healthcare, clean cities, great public transportation, and generally happy people, or so they say in the annual surveys. But is that the whole picture when it comes to happiness? The thing is, people around the world define happiness differently. When researchers started asking about happiness beyond the self and included family members and what the ideal person in their society was like, the answers were enlightening. For example, some countries place a high value on relationships and interdependence. The traditional happiness surveys, however, ask questions that are largely focused on personal happiness and satisfaction. So, have the rankings been biased all along? Researchers believe more work needs to be done to understand cultural differences concerning happiness so that we may better understand how different cultures define it.
2. Happiness research is improving. Researchers are changing their methods a bit, and that is helping to produce more reliable data. A couple of significant things are happening to improve methodology. First, researchers are more often using pre-registration, which asks researchers to declare their statistical analysis plans ahead of time. This helps keep the researchers from changing their methods to produce more statistically significant results, thus upping their odds of publication. Second, researchers are using bigger participant pools. For example, a small study with 25 participants is less statistically valid than a study with 1,000 people.
3. People have the ability to be more intellectually humble. Intellectual humility is an interesting term. Certainly, humility is something we could use a little bit more of. It is also something that research has shown can be cultivated. Intellectual humility is basically our ability to admit we’re wrong. Yes, this can be tough at times, but we humans are not as rigid as we once thought. Science backs up the idea that we can change and be more flexible in our thinking and personal growth.
4. Kind acts can ease anxiety and depression. Have you ever heard of the idea that you should help someone else when you are feeling blue? Well, according to well-being researchers, it works. A study in the Journal of Positive Psychology looked at three groups of people with moderate anxiety and depression. One group performed three acts of random kindness two days a week. The second group planned a social activity two days a week. The third group kept a “Thoughts Record” where they recorded distressing thoughts and ways to deal with them. All three groups showed similar results in reducing their depressive symptoms, except the random kindness group showed a significantly greater social connectedness. Social connectedness just happens to be one of the pillars of well-being and overall happiness. It pays to be kind.
In the second installment of this article, we will explore the remaining insights, including thoughts on compassion, gratitude, and caring for your co-workers.
