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Key points
- Psychologists are interested in how people may become happier.
- Early research advanced strategies for improving happiness, such as meditation and expressing gratitude.
- These early results have been undermined by study design and analysis weaknesses.
- A new review of the best literature tries to separate effective from ineffective strategies for happiness.
The pursuit of happiness is a quintessential American quest, enshrined as it is in the Constitution. Since the 1990s, psychologists have been intensively studying this pursuit. In psychology, happiness, often referred to as "subjective well-being" (SWB), is usually defined as a combination of high life satisfaction, high positive affect, and low negative affect. Research has explored the determinants of happiness and whether and how it can be increased. Many of these research findings have been well publicized, becoming part of the cultural received wisdom about how to be happier: express gratitude, be more social, smile more, look on the bright side, meditate, help others, seek novel experiences, limit social media, etc.
Alas, until recently, these research efforts have been lacking, in large part due to small samples and the “p-hacking” problem, which occurs when scientists run statistical tests on a set of data until some statistically significant results arise, often by chance. As a result, many published and well-popularized findings about how one may increase one’s happiness may be based on poor science.
A recent (2023) review of the literature by Dunigan Folk and Elizabeth Dunn of the University of British Columbia sought to address this concern. First, the authors focused only on experimental studies, which are science's gold standard in terms of finding cause-and-effect relations. Second, they reviewed only those preregistered experiments—a way to prevent p-hacking by declaring in advance the study’s questions, hypotheses, methodology, and analyses to be performed. All in all, the authors analyzed 48 papers, encompassing 65 individual studies. Their main findings are, by turn, intuitive, surprising, and sobering.
Gratitude:
You must have heard by now that expressing gratitude will make you feel better. The authors found two preregistered experimental studies on the effects of gratitude on happiness. Their review concluded that the studies ”provide strong evidence for the immediate benefits of expressing gratitude in American samples.” However, these studies “do not provide evidence that the benefits last longer than a day after the gratitude practice ends.” In other words, gratitude will make you happier in the very short term. Its usefulness for long-term increases is unknown.
Being more social:
It is difficult to be happy if you are disliked and lonely. Behaving in more sociable ways may, therefore, increase one’s happiness. The authors reviewed three preregistered experiments on this issue. They conclude that “taken together, these three studies provide compelling initial support for the idea that behaving in a more sociable manner may boost positive feelings.”
Acting happy:
Early research suggested that the actions of happiness, specifically smiling, can bring about the emotion of happiness. These results have proven controversial. Yet the authors state that “two sets of large, cross-cultural studies provide evidence that exhibiting a natural smile reliably induces immediate mood benefits.”
Novelty:
A known obstacle to increasing happiness is the process of “hedonic adaptation,” by which people habituate over time to pleasurable experiences. Thus, it stands to reason that injecting novelty into one’s life will boost happiness. The authors reviewed four studies testing this hypothesis, finding that, indeed, “taking a novel approach to familiar experiences can increase happiness.”
Looking on the bright side:
One way to cope with unhappy experiences is to try to reframe them by finding the silver lining in the clouds (“Our house is destroyed, but at least no one got hurt”). Two reviewed studies found that “the advice to look on the bright side may help people feel better about a specific stressor but may not have lasting effects on overall mood.”
Practicing meditation “is one of the most frequently recommended strategies for becoming happier, according to a review of media stories about increasing happiness.” Yet, does it work? “Two small preregistered studies found no evidence for the mood benefits of meditation.” Again, the authors urge for “larger, preregistered experiments on this topic, given the—possibly premature—enthusiasm that meditation has garnered as a strategy for increasing happiness.”
Helping others:
Ours is a social species. Our survival depends heavily on our relationships. Helping behavior may, therefore, have evolved to be pleasurable and satisfying. Can helping others help your own happiness? The authors review a total of 19 preregistered experiments looking at whether helping others promotes happiness. The authors conclude that “the benefits of prosocial behavior are real but relatively small.” Moreover, existing evidence comes mainly from experiments that ask participants to give away money to benefit others. Interestingly, no clear evidence has yet been produced in this literature to support the popular notions that engaging in volunteer work or practicing acts of kindness can promote happiness.
Avoiding thinking about better futures:
Happiness may be increased by an additional process: introducing a new behavior or habit. But it may also be increased by subtraction—stopping certain noxious behaviors. In a fast-changing world, an obsession with the new stuff we could acquire may dampen our ability to enjoy what we already have. Three studies (and two additional replications by the authors) concluded that “remaining in the dark about exciting future technologies may help us enjoy the present versions more—though it remains to be seen whether this strategy can be harnessed in everyday life.”
Eliminating unpleasant daily tasks:
Another happiness-by-subtraction strategy may involve farming out unpleasant activities (e.g., paying someone to mow the lawn). The authors reviewed two experiments that found that “eliminating unpleasant daily tasks by buying time may be an effective route to increasing happiness for busy working adults in wealthy countries…but this insight may not generalize well to more financially constrained populations.”
Reducing social media:
Mental health professionals and researchers alike have been abuzz lately about the link between social media and cellphone use and mental health. Seven preregistered experiments have tested the potential happiness benefits of cutting back on the use of smartphones and social media. These studies conclude that while reducing smartphone use is “not inherently beneficial for SWB,” it may still “increase the enjoyment of rewarding social situations, such as dining out with friends.” They also conclude that long-term periods of abstinence from social media (e.g., one month) “may ultimately enhance life satisfaction.”
Providing cash support:
Can money buy happiness? This question has been long debated, and this line of research has stood out within the happiness literature for its high quality (precise preregistrations, potent interventions, long-term follow-ups, diverse samples, and large sample sizes). The review of nine experiments concludes that “taken together, the collection of studies above provides compelling evidence that increases in wealth cause increases in SWB. While small cash transfers—equivalent to one week or month of income—do not necessarily produce benefits, people who receive a large influx of cash exhibit lasting improvements in SWB. Moreover, cash seems to be as good or better than other interventions that carry similar costs, including psychotherapy and job training.”
The authors conclude: “Our review of preregistered experiments points to the value of expressing gratitude, being more sociable, acting happy, and spending money on others. In contrast, we found surprisingly little support for many commonly recommended strategies for promoting happiness, including practicing meditation, doing random acts of kindness, or engaging in volunteer work.” Moreover, “removing some of our daily habits could also improve happiness, specifically, individuals may benefit from giving up social media use for an extended period or buying themselves out of unpleasant daily tasks.” Finally, “a growing collection of rigorous studies underscores the potential for governments and organizations to enhance SWB by providing underprivileged people with financial support.”
