../book-review-happiness-hypothesis

Book summary: The Happiness Hypothesis

Published:

Happiness Psychology

Overview

I decided to read The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt eight months ago in order to figure out how positive psychology can be applied to make oneself happier. Having recently finished reading the book, I want to document my takeaways.

Takeaways from the book

Relationship between Rider & Elephant

The mind had two modes: one that made snap decisions and judgements, and the other that did slow, deliberate thinking. The book labels the first mode as the Elephant and the second mode the Rider. The significance of this is that most of our immediate feelings and behavior is dictated by the Elephant. The Elephant is also what is used by the Rider for heuristics and taking short-cuts, so the Elephant has a big influence on the Rider. Likewise, the Rider can also slowly and deliberately change the behavior of the Elephant. The main focus of the book is on the bi-directional relationship between the Rider and the Elephant.

Compare with Rationality

Eliezer Yudkowsky and the rationalist community focus a lot on having an accurate model of the real world. In order to have an accurate model, you need to have correct beliefs about the world, and be okay with changing your beliefs when you realize you are wrong.

Does changing your belief affect your Rider or your Elephant? I recently read a book about an ongoing conflict. Before reading the book, my Elephant had strong opinions about the topic, without any real knowledge into the conflict (aka unconscious bias). My Rider couldn't really break out of the bias until my wife called me out on it by asking some questions which I didn't have great answers to. Reading a book patiently while actively engaging my Rider caused it to realize the truth, which changed my beliefs and ended up affecting the Elephant. In order to change your beliefs, you will usually utilize the Rider. If your Rider is successful in changing your belief, then the Elephant is also affected.

I think beliefs reside closer to the Elephant than the Rider. The Rider can try to take steps to change beliefs, but "belief in belief" isn't real. Your Elephant is the ultimate say in whether or not your beliefs have changed, as the Elephant likely affects most of your day-to-day actions and behavior.

Elephant's insights are valuable and also control the Rider. It's not a one-way desire where we want to always update Elephant based on rational reasoning from Rider. We usually don't have time to rationally think about every action from first principles. Rider will thus use the Elephant to short-circuit; it'll make use of heuristics, feelings, gut instinct, etc. This can lead to biases so the Rider must watch out for them, but the goal isn't to fully control the Elephant. It's to be more aware of what the Elephant is doing, and why, and change our beleifs so it takes more desirable actions on its own.

Formula for Happiness

The author presents a formula for happiness:

Happiness = Setpoint + External Conditions + Voluntary Activities

We don't set weights on any of the variables, as how much each variable contributes to your happiness will likely change constantly.

However, the first variable, Setpoint, has the largest impact to your happiness. Each perrson is pre-disposed to a feel a certain amount of happiness most of the time. If something good happens to you, you become a lot happier for, say, a few minutes or a few hours, and then get back to your "normal" (aka Setpoint) level of happiness. Vice-versa, if something negative happiness. Setpoint is very hard to change, tho the author believes meditation, Prozac, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can help. Some people are more pessimistic or optimistic compared to others. Those who are more pessimistic have a "negative affective style", meaning they see a lot of threats around them and take a lot longer to bounce back up after a negative life incident. Those who are more optimistic tend to see more opportunities around them and tend to bounce back quicker after a negative life incident. Those afflicted by a "negative affective style" tend to have a lower Setpoint.

External conditions also affect happiness. For example, noise, commute time, appearance, love, relationships have a huge impact too. I can tell that I am markedly happier after I met my wife than I was before.

Finally, voluntary activities also have a huge impact on our happiness. Meditation and mindfulness--for example, writing a introspective diary frequently--have been known to make people more grateful. Purusing hobbies and making progress towards a goal too--even if you never actually achieve it--are valuable in keeping us happy.

Behavioral changes

Some behavioral changes are listed below!