The following article was published in French in A Special Edition on Happiness in the journal, REVUE QUEBECOISE DE PSYCHOLOGIE (vol 18, no 2), 1997. This is a translation for English readers.
EDUCATING FOR HAPPINESS
Michael W. Fordyce Edison Community College
Abstract. Can education play a role in increasing human happiness? Studies indicate that the answer is yes, and the strategies used in the research are described.
Can happiness be taught?
The present article suggests that it can, and presents
an overview of some of the possibile avenues toward this end
indicated in past research.
If happiness in life is, to any degree, determined by
certain qualities of personality, choice, or attitude which
might be amenable to alteration through learning, then there
is a fair possibility that happiness can be taught.
For researchers concerned with the possibility of such
an happiness education the questions have been threefold.
First, could we isolate any particular traits of identifyably happy
people which might be taught to others?
Second, could these others actually learn how to develop
these traits? And third, if they did -- would they become
happier as a result?
My own investigations into the possibility of
increasing happiness began several decades ago. In an initial
publication of three studies (Fordyce, 1977), a series of
happiness increasing strategies were employed under varying
conditions, all of which appeared to boost the happiness
level of the experimental subjects involved. Soon after,
Lichter, Haye, and Kamman (1980), demonstrated positive
happiness increases using similar proceedures. In a later
article (1983), I reported on four more, successful
experiments we had conducted here (including a 1 year
follow-up study). Subsequently, Kowal (1986) (studying
outpatient cancer patients), Wade (1993) (investigating
college teachers), and I, in some five, more recent studies
(comparing college classes given and not given a happiness
education) (Fordyce, 1994), have found largely significant
results for those who were educated about happiness.
A Happiness Curriculum
If, indeed, there are certain traits which happy people
have that the rest of us might learn, what are they, and how
can we teach others to emmulate them?
A cursory look at the collected happiness data suggests
such a possiblitiy looks poor. Much of the evidence gathered
to date appears to associate happiness with success, social
class, good health, familial harmony, occupational status,
economic and political conditions, income, educational
attainment, and, perhaps most devastingly, possible genetic
determinants -- most of which are hardly within an
individual's ability to drastically change.
Still, over the years, there are certain characteristics
which have been indicated time and time again in the
research, which show a consistient association with achieved
happiness -- and these have always seemed to me a research
foundation for a possible happiness education.
I have identified some fourteen of these happiness
traits from my own studies and reviews of the literature.
Somewhere along the line these were dubbed "the fourteen
fundamentals," and the remaining bulk of this paper describes
how I have incorporated them in my own teaching.
Each of these "fundamentals" is based on numerous
studies, however, due to constraints of space, I have chosen
to exclude the referencing of their basis in this paper (for
in most cases, dozens of references would be required
- and in the field, most of what follows is accepted as
basic). For the interested reader, however, detailed
documentation is available on each of the points below
(Fordyce, 1996).
The Fourteen Fundamentals Course
The course is based on an inherently simple
proposition: if one can be like happy people are, one can be
happy too.
In our educational efforts, we take an approach to
training that is both cognitive and behavioral. On the
cognitive side, we outline to our students not only the
general trends found in the research regarding each of the
fundamental points, but on a more theoretical level, a
discussion as to why these particular characteristics
contribute to happiness. On the behavioral side, we borrow
a variety of techniques and strategies from cognitive and
behavioral therapies we believe may be helpful for our
students to encorporate each fundamental in their lives.
Introductory Lessons
The course begins with an overview of happiness
"basics." Lectures deal with the definition of happiness,
it's significance and importance in life, a brief review of
the history and methodology of happiness research, the
demographic and socio-economic findings associated with
happiness, and a discussion of some common myths and
misperceptions regarding happiness. In addition, students
are usually provided an opportunity to assess their own
happiness status, using the Psychap Inventory (Fordyce, 1986)
or similar instruments, to help personalize and motivate
their further study.
After this, all fourteen happiness traits are quickly
previewed. Then, the course settles down to a detailed
examination of each of the fundamentals in turn.
Fundamental One: Be More Active and Keep Busy
Fundamental one, "be more active and keep busy," is
based on numerous studies which indicate that happy people
are actively involved with living. According to the research
we present to our students, happy persons fill their life
with activity, and more importantly, they spend more time
doing things they find fun and enjoyable than do most others.
Conceptually, this fundamental emphasizes the basic
idea that the active life seems to produce more happiness
than the passive life. It continues, then, to contrast the
active, full, enjoyable life of happy with the pressured,
harried life of some unhappy people or the boring, inactive
life of others. The happy life-style is explained,
as it has often been in the literature, with terms such as
"involvement, "investment," and "energy."
Discussion then moves to the more specific kinds of
activities the research has found to be more happiness-
producing Five general types of happiness-producing
activities are taken from the research and as presented in
the form of basic principles: 1) enjoyable activities produce
more happiness than non-enjoyable ones; 2) exciting,
physically active activities appear to generate more
enjoyment than more sedate, tranquil pleasures; 3) new or
novel experiences tend to be more happiness-producing than
familiar ones; 4) social activities are more happiness-producing
than solitary ones; 5) meaningful pursuits produce more
satisfaction than trivial entertainments.
Students are instructed to develop a listing of such
activities fitting these categories, and encouraged to include
more of them in their weekly routine. Analysis of such lists
also proves insightful, as students discover that the
majority of "activities that really make them happy" are
both free (or very low cost) economically, as well as
available to them virtually any time they might wish.
Generally, this "fundamental" is framed in the basic
principle that one's happiness in life, to a fair degree,
appears to be directly contingent on the amount of time one
spends in enjoyable, fun activity.
Fundamental Two: Spend More Time Socializing
One of the stronger threads woven through the
accumulated research in happiness and life-satisfaction is
the importance social connectivity plays in personal
happiness. Indeed, the majority of studies have found a
rewarding social life to be the most important
single factor contributing to happiness.
Much of the impact of an individual's social life on
happiness involves his or her closest, most intimate
relationships (a theme we deal with in a later "fundamentals"),
but this portion of our lessons deals with the happiness-impact
everyday socializing contributes.
Studies in this area show that happy people display a
high degree of social participation and activity -- both on a
formal level (in organizations, clubs, associations, etc.) and
on an informal level (with friends, neighbors, coworkers,
relatives, etc.) -- and that such social interaction
contributes strong feelings of satisfaction, support, and
belongingness that adds to their overall sense of happiness.
Instruction here is straightforward. Students review
the importance socializing plays in their own happiness and
are given suggestions as to how such might be increased
(joining clubs, involvement in community activity, arranging
get-togethers, accepting invitations, etc.). It is also
mentioned that special socializing difficulties -- like
shyness or love-relationship problems -- will be treated in
subsequent "fundamentals."
Fundamental Three: Be Productive at Meaningful Work
Happiness and life-satisfaction has a long research
history of association with meaningful work and productive
activity.
Instruction here begins with a review of the enormous
amount of social science research which shows how satisfying
employment is knotted to life-satisfaction, and, more
specifically, how much interest and satisfaction the happiest
people seem to derive from their work.
Educationally, the point here is simple: since most
working people in industialized countries spend about 80% of
their waking hours working throughout their lives, the choice
of a career -- in terms of life-long happiness -- is
critical. We emphasize to younger students, especially, that
their career selection is one of the most significant
happiness choices they'll ever make.
Beyond this, we discuss two allied points seen in the
literature: productivity and meaning.
Productivity is presented as a double-edged sword:
happiness is generally associated with periods of
productivity, while, conversely, even brief periods of
non-productivity and laxing on responsibilities can lead to
depression. The importance here for happiness, we instruct
our students, is to consistently perservere toward their
commitments and goals.
Meaning, on the other hand, has been considered by the
great minds throughout history as critical to happiness -
and happiness research has confirmed this. Typically, happy
people report viewing most of their activities as
significant, gratifying, and important. They see themselves
as making a social contribution, progressing toward important
goals, and developing themselves on a personal level. The
more fortunate among happy people find such meaning in their
career. Others, who may not find their employment (or lack of
it) rewarding, find meaning in charity or community service.
Students are offered several self-examination exercizes
designed to help them crystalize their own values and analyze
the role of meaning in their own lives.
Fundamental Four: Get Better Organized
As we present it to our students, the research on
happier individuals has often indicated that they are
well-organized, non-procrastinating, efficient, and planful.
Such organization displays itself not only in their daily
approach to life, but also in their long-terms plans and
sense of direction in life. Happy people seem to know where
they want to go in life and they appear to have the
organizational skills to help them get there.
Here, students are instructed as to how they might
develop or refine their long-term goals in life, as well as
provided a number of stratgies taken from time-management
studies as to how they can eliminate procrastination and more
efficiently organize their daily routine.
Fundamental Five: Stop Worrying
One of the major findings regarding happy individuals
is that they worry a lot less than most people do. Indeed, in
our lectures we refer to worry as the "arch-enemy of
happiness," since it is the most antithetical thing the
average person does to undermine his or her happiness.
Here students are reintroduced to the concept of time
as it applies to happiness. As in an earlier discussion (that
"one's happiness is proportional to the amount of time one
spends in enjoyable activity"), now the message is that one's
happiness is inversely proportional to the amount of time one
spends dwelling on negative thoughts.
As everyday worry is the most common sort of negative
thought that occupies most people's mind, students are
instructed to list their worries on a daily basis. After
several weeks, analysis of individual worry-patterns usually
proves to most students that: a) most worries never come
true, and b) most worries are far beyond a person's ability
to control in the first place. Such exercises tend to prove
to most students the futility of their worried thoughts.
Basic behaviorial techniques are then introduced, such
as "thought substitution" and "mental monitoring," as avenues
to control worried ideation. Students are also instructed to
distinguish between worry and planning and a balance is stuck
between adequate planning and minimal worrying that provides
both maximum success in living and a minimum of unpleasant
thought and mental duress.
Fundamental Six: Lower Expectations And Aspirations
This lesson deals with the role in which day-to-day
expectations, as well as long-term ambitions and successes,
play in happiness. It is founded on one of the most basic
principles of psychology (which has been confirmed in the
literature on happiness): how pleased we are with life
is not merely determined by what happens to us -- it is also
determined by what we expect to happen to us.
Following the research, we focus students' attention to
four specific, cognitive points which exemplify how
expectations, aspirations, and success effect happiness:
1. Don't set yourself up for dissapointments. Here,
we emphasize the most basic point of "expectation theory":
high expectations are rarely met and usually lead to
dissapointment -- low expectations typically lead to more
pleasant than anticipated outcomes. Cummulatively, such
dissapointments and pleasantries combine to effect one's
overall assessment of their happiness. Rather than
perfectionism, a modest expectation of everyday events seems
to be more aligned with happiness.
2. Industrialized cultures overrate the role success
plays in happiness. Although success appears to make a
contribution to overall happiness, the research indicates
that it's impact -- and long-lasting effect -- is relatively
minor (particularlly when compared to other, more potent
influences on happiness, such as the quality of one's family
and social life). Aspiration-based strategies for happiness,
therefore, may not have as strong a pay-off as most of us
have been led to believe.
3. Happiness, in most modern cultures, is mistakenly
viewed as the result of a successful life -- and because
"success" is something which is generally attained late in
life (and only after many years of self-denial and hard
work) -- most individuals unwittingly see happiness as
something one must postpone and wait for until success
finally comes. Happy people don't fall into this cultural
trap. They aren't waiting to be happy. They see that
"happiness is a way to travel, not a place to arrive." We
suggest here, as we do often in the "fundamentals," that the
secret of a happier life generally lies in the present, not
in an uncertain, postponed future.
4. Happy people get what they want, because they
want what they can get! Evidence indicates that happier
people tend to select life-goals that are within their
ability to attain, thus filling their lives with success
after success. Unhappy people desperately set their sights on
next to impossible ambitions, and experience their lives as a
series of failures. Happiness appears more aligned with
success at a series of more attainable goals than it is in
failure reaching for the stars.
Fundamental Seven: Develop Positive, Optimisting Thinking
Perhaps the most characteristic trait of happy
individuals reported in the research is optimism and positive
thinking. Because of this, our educating efforts devote a
good deal of time providing a thoeretical framework to help
students understand the relationship between optimistic,
positive perceptual sets and happiness.
We begin, once again, with a reprise of our previous
discussions regarding mental time and happiness which sees
one's happiness as greatly detertemined by what thoughts
preoccupy one's mind throughout the day -- the more pleasant
such thoughts the happier one's emotion will be.
Optimism contributes to this process in several
important ways...
1. Optimism is a positive intrepetation of events.
Here the lesson is that virtually any situation in life is
amenable to a positive view. To paraphrase from many
researchers in the field, "it's not what you have -- it's how
you view what you have that counts for happiness." Students
are introduced to a series of "real-life" scenerios and
invited to intrepret each in their "most positive" and "most
negative" light to help them appreciate the emotional
consequences of each.
2. Optimism is a perceptual set which focuses one's
environmental attention. As basic pychology suggests,
"one sees what one is looking for." It is posited that there
is enough both good and bad happening in the world to
connstantly preoccupy one's mind with either. If one is looking
for negative things in life, one can find plenty to
concentrate on. The same is true of happy things. What one
looks for, then, has a lot to do with how one perceives their
world, and consequently how happy one feels about it.
3. Optimism is a "self-fullfilling prophecy." If
one expects things to work out happily, the bahavior one
emits actually heighthenes the probability that such will
be so.
4. Ultimately, optiimism is a belief that "I will be
happy no matter what happens." This philosophical idea arms
students with the potential that intrepretation can be
stronger than reality. No matter what the circumstance,
one's emotions need not be dictated by the situation. One
is always (potentially) free to choose how happily he or she
will feel.
A distinction is also drawn between optimism and
expectations in terms of their specificity. Expectations are
quite specific, e.g., "I've got to get that promotion, or
I'll never be happy," whereas optimism is very general,
"Whatever happens is for the best."
Education here ends by outlining a variety of behavioral
techniques (some previously discussed) such as "thought
substution," "mental monitoring," and "positive imaging."
Various exercises, such as creating a list of one's positive
blessings in life, practicing positive intrepretations of
everyday events, among others, are also recommended.
Fundamental Eight: Be Present-Oriented
Long recognized as a major characteristic of
self-actualization, research has found that happy individuals
are quite "present-oriented," i.e., they more fully function
in the present and seem to squeeze a maximum of enjoyment
from that which each day affords.
As we teach our students, happiness is far more
available in the "here and now" than it is in the "there or
then." Happy people seem to enjoy their days more than the
unhappy, primarily because their mental attention is
not colored with either regrets and rumination about the past
or frets and worries about the future.
Through a variety of stratagies, we emphasize the value
of "savoring the moment" and enjoying each day fully.
Meditational and focusing techniques are presented as ways to
keenly appreciate the simple pleasures each moment of life
affords.
Fundamental Nine: Work On a Healthy Personality
Despite the occasional social critic who maintains that
any person who is happy in today's society must be "insane,"
the findings in this field (using virtually every standard
clinical test and instrument available) have found that happy
individuals are extremely mentally healthy and significantly
freer of psychological complaints and symptomplogy than the
general populace.
An adaquate education in healthy adjustment skills often
amounts to a semester-length course at most colleges. For
happiness training, however, we attempt to reduce this
bulk to a few, basic mental health principles which we hope
would get our students started in the right direction: like
yourself, accept yourself, know yourself, and help yourself.
"Like yourself" deals with one of the most important
elements of happy personality, a positive self-concept.
Students analyze their own self-views and sense how this
effects their happiness in terms of mental mood. Several
strategies designed to enhance self-image are presented.
"Accept yourself" focuses on how one deals with personal
shortcommings and inadaquacies -- a major block for most in
"liking themselves." Students are instructed that acceptance
of shorticommings is more typical of the happy than is the
self-criticism and self-blaming of the unhappy. "You don't
have to be perfect to like yourself" is the lesson.
"Know yourself" directs the student to the value of
good self-insight and self-understanding. It is explained
that good decisions contribute to a happier life, yet to make
good decisions one needs to know themselves well. A number of
activities and self-analyses are suggested as avenues toward
greater self-knowledge.
"Help yourself" refers again to the self-sufficient
skills and abilities happy people have that enable them to
autonomously suceed in life. Here, themes often cited in the
research, such as "competence," "mastery," "fate control,"
and "inner directedness," are explained, and basic strategies
for developing such healthy characteristics are outlined.
Fundamental Ten: Develop an Outgoing Social Personality
Other than optimism, the most highly reported
personality trait of happy people is extroversion. Thus,
largely because happiness appears greater for those who enjoy
an active social life, our educational program focuses
students on the value of becoming a more outgoing, social
person, both cognitively (in explaining the value of
extroversion as the major avenue toward a happily expanded
social life) and behaviorally (in terms of techniques such as
smiling more, acklowledging others, initiating conversation,
and other options which might widen their social
contacts).
Fundamental Eleven: Be Yourself
Personality research on happy individuals indicates
that they tend to be themselves. Terms like "natural,"
"spontaneous," "authentic," "sincere," "comfortable,"
"honest," "expressive," "candid," "open," "real," and so
on, often appear in the literature.
For our students, the advantage of being oneself is
framed two ways. First, emotionally. One basic advantage in
being oneself is the sheer comfort and ease it brings to
every day living. Secondly, there is the tactical advantage.
When one expresses themself honestly, events tend to
work-out, more often than not, in one's favor. This is
especially true in finding love and friendship. To find those
who may like you "just the way your are," you have to portray
yourself "just the way you are" to begin with.
Fundamental Twelve: Eliminate Negative Feelings and Problems
This "fundamental" is introduced as a caveat to the
entire happiness course. Most of the educational material
presented in the course is aimed at a "normal" audience --
free of significant psychological difficulties. However, we
recongize that many persons exposed to these happiness skills
suffer from a variety of diagnosiable mental disorders which
may limit, if not sabatoge, their efforts with the program.
Data suggests that as many as a quarter or more of the
U.S. population has a major problem with mood, anxiety,
substance abuse, or other common disorders. Thus this
"fundamental" presents an abbreviated discussion of the basic
symptoms and causes of mental distress, some basic ways of
dealing with emotional upheaval and everyday pressures, and --
especially for those who recognize pervasive problems in
their lives -- the importance of seeking professional help.
It is not that unhappy people cannot profit from an
education in happiness (for in several of our studies we have
found that such individuals are often more likely than others
to show positive growth). Nor is the education provided in
the "fundamentals" all that different from the kinds of
advice most therapists might provide their clients (since
most of the techniques taught are derivatives of standard
clinical homework assignments). It is, rather, that a number
of indiviuals in any educational setting are too deeply
symptomatic to begin working with their happiness when their
unhappiness is so encumbering. For these, in-depth, personal
help is needed. Therefore, we try, both through our lecture
content and a sensivity to overtly troubled participants in
our classes, to guide them to it.
Fundamental Thirteen: Close Relationships Are Number 1
International polls have traditionally shown the
marriage and family ties provide the greatest happiness of
all studied factors, irrespective of income or social
level -- and decades of studies on happiness confirm the
same. Put simply for our students: "close relationships are
the number one source of happiness."
Education here is mostly cognitively oriented.
Materials stress the critical importance of close friendship,
family, and romantic ties to overall happiness. Lectures
particularly focus on marital and romantic relationships (as
these have consistently demonstrated the strongest impact on
happiness in the literature) by presenting the characteristics
of healthy love-relationships as delineated by formost
authorities in couple-counseling and marital-relations -- and
contrasting them to the characteristics of neurotic,
unhealthy relationships.
Fundamental Fourteen: Value Happiness
The final "fundamental" deals with where one places
"happiness" in their overall priorities. Students are
instructed that the happiest people appear to place a stonger
value on happiness, subjective well-being, and similiar
concepts than do others. Indeed, many happy people place
happiness as their most important concern in life, while
unhappier people tend to discount happiness. Additionally,
happy people appear to have thought a great deal about their
happiness, as witnessed by their ability to provide more
adaquate definitions of happiness, having a keener intuition
regarding the basic sources of happiness, and a greater
sensitiivity to, and appreciation of, happy emotion in their
lives. The indication here is that the achievement of
happiness may well be connected to how much wishes to be
happy and how important one views it to be.
As our education about happiness reaches conclusion,
the attainment of happiness is pictured as an achievable
goal -- not unlike any goal one might set for oneself. And
like any goal in life, the person having the best chance
achieving it is the one who thinks about and analyzes their
goal in detail, the one who works toward it the hardest, and
especially, the one who has the most current information
as to how to go about it. We believe our education provides
the information. The analysis and effort is left to the
student.
Discussion
We return to our central question: can happiness be
taught?
If we were to focus only on the recent bulk of data in
the field, the possibility would seem rather dim. Unlike
earlier studies on happiness, which focused to a greater
extent on the personality characteristics of happier
individuals, research in the last decade appears focused on
more global, socioeconomic correlates of well-being. And
these efforts appear to find little in the data upon which
an education in happiness could be based. The dissapointment
researchers have found in these objective assessments of
happiness have led some to embrace a view growing among
several biological scientists that much, if not all, of an
individual's happiness in life is genetically predisposed.
On the other hand, if the particular studies cited
here hold anly validity, then there appears to be great
promise for an education in happiness. According to the
research we report, a significant proportion of individuals
who learn about happiness appear to find to greater
happiness, despite these potential genetic and socioeconomic
barriers.
We have found that research-based course on happiness
may make a difference in happiness. Furthermore, it appears
that gains in happiness are not merely an artifact of
suggestion effects or a sensitization to the topic of
"happiness" itself (as these factors have been controlled for
in most studies). In addition, the gains appear to be founded
on the actual content of the "fundamentals" themselves, since
partial presentations of the course (i.e., introductory
lessons only, presentation of only some of "fundamentals,"
etc.) have not demonstrated the same increases found in those
exposed to the full course.
Only future research will confirm whether or not it is
truly possible to enhance personal happiness through
education. Yet as we currently stand in the research, I
believe we have a fair begining. This article has focused on
the approach I take in my own "happiness instruction," and
for those interested in examining the course for possible
classroom or research use, it is extensively presented in
book form (Fordyce, 1996), a video telecourse (Fordyce,
1989), and an abbreviated booklet (Fordyce, 1981) -- all
available from the author.
The "fundamentals" presented here are by no means the
only fomulation such a course might take. As research
continues, certain elements may need omitting, new items
may be added, and complete reformulations may evolve.
Whatever eventually emerges, however, I am optimistic about
one, basic proposition: the data will continue to reveal
educable differences between happy and unhappy people. The
key is to find them -- and then find ways to teach them to
others.
References
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College, Ft. Myers, FL 33907, USA; email mfordyce@edison.edu
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