Happiness: The Science behind Your Smile
by Daniel Nettle
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Book Summary Information
Author: Daniel NettleEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-09-07
ISBN: 0192805592
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of Happiness: The Science behind Your Smile
Book Review: Accepting Happiness
Summary: 3 Stars
One of the points of departure is Paul Ekman's "identification of a set of basic emotions--fear, sadness, disgust, anger, surprise, and joy--which are universally recognized" (12). Nettle adds a view of happiness from the perspective of evolutionary psychology, which sees evolution as a major agent in the way we feel. He then bases this discussion on two main types or levels of happiness, which can be simplified to, respectively, pleasure and well-being. He explicitly notes that he will not discuss a third level, that of Aristotle's eudaimonia (the fulfillment of one's life). He also distances himself from considering happiness within a moral context.
We can summarize the book's thesis in this quote: "the purpose of the happiness programme in the human mind is not to increase human happiness; it is to keep us striving" (43).
From that point on, Nettle's reports many research findings that, for the most part, seem obvious: people will never be completely happy, intellectuals are basically neurotics, richer people are happier than poorer people (if they have control over their lives), happiness is strongly related to personal health; also, if you are married, have no disabilities, and live with no high levels of noise, you will be happier than others; people will default back to a baseline of happiness after a significant increase in their happiness (as in winning the lottery, for instance). Other findings are just curiosities not fully explained; for instance, there seems to be "some evidence" that women who have "cosmetic breast surgery" experience an "improvement in well-being [that] is real and lasting" (84); another factoid is that France is less happy than Spain, while the US is number five in ranking of happiness (51). A recapitulation of the different research findings can be found on pages 166, 169-70.
The author's interests are, however, not cultural or economical, as he makes an effort to point out the fact that maybe "happiness stems mainly not from the world itself, but from the way people address the world" (113). This seems to be the case when one studies happiness in the context of introverted and extroverted temperaments. The research seems to tell us that our personalities won't change and, consequently, this realization can have very distressing consequences for some people. However, accepting that happiness may be very much "immutable" does not necessarily put you in a deadlock; to escape it, you need not to think too much about your levels of happiness and "lift your eyes [. . .] to the broader horizon" (115).
The author states: "People's behaviour is driven by desire, and by an implicit theory about what will make them happy. This implicit theory may be at odds with what is really the case. Recall that people over-estimate how much happier achieving the things they want will make them, and under-estimate their ability to cope with things they don't want" (153). For the author, the solution for those very unhappy people is to change the subject itself, by means as varied as drug therapy, meditation, socialization (volunteering), detaching oneself from the desire, etc.
The book ends with some hopeful notes. We need to have flow in our lives, which is "a state where challenges are high, but skills are sufficient to match them. It is not necessarily a happy state, but it is a fulfilling and gripping one" (171). We also need to realize that in order for happiness to be meaningful, we need to have the possibility of unhappiness (172). Most importantly, happiness is not attainable as imagined by most people, but it will help us "broaden our holding in the other stocks that make up good human life, such as purpose, community, solidarity, truth, justice, and beauty" (175).
The book can be interesting precisely in those topics that the author mentions but does not explore; namely, the question of how happiness relates to the social and is affected by questions of moral awareness. As the loose balloon on the cover of the book seems to suggest, happiness is hard to grasp. Perhaps "the pursuit of happiness" is also an elusive goal, for it is so dependent on individual definitions.
Summary of Happiness: The Science behind Your Smile
Bringing together the latest insights from psychiatry, psychology, and philosophy, Daniel Nettle sheds light on happiness, the most basic of human desires. Nettle examines whether people are basically happy or unhappy, whether success can make us happy, what sort of remedies to unhappiness work, why some people are happier than others, and much more.The book is packed with fascinating observations. We discover the evolutionary reason why negative thoughts are more powerful than positive ones. We read that happiness varies from country to country, for example, the Swiss are much more happy than Bulgarians. And we learn that, in a poll among people aged 42 years old--peak mid-life crisis time--more than half rated their happiness an 8, 9, or 10 out of 10, and 90% rated it above 5. Nettle, a psychologist, is particularly insightful in discussing the brain systems underlying emotions and moods, ranging from serotonin, to mood enhancing drugs such as D-fenfluramine, which reduces negative thinking in less than an hour; to the part of the brain that, when electrically stimulated, provides feelings of benevolent calm and even euphoria. In the end, Nettle suggests that we would all probably be happier by trading income or material goods for time with people or hobbies, though most people do not do so.
Happiness offers a remarkable portrait of the feeling that poets, politicians, and philosophers all agree truly makes the world go round.
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