Hic Habitat Felicitas

The Experience Machine, Inverted, Revisited and Updated...

I've talked about the experience machine and the status quo bias in a previous post, but if you're interested, you can check out the original article about the 'inverted experience machine' here.

UPDATE: Joshua Knobe recently produced a video explaining experimental philosophy using the experience machine as an example. Here it is!

 

 

 

Happiness and Well-Being: It's About Time?

Philip Zimbardo, the man behind the Stanford Prison Experiments, has been dabbling in positive psychology. He argues that we can use framing effects, which can distort our recollection of our emotional states and by extension our ability to predict what will make us happy, to our advantage. The method, Time Perspective Therapy (TPT), involves determining our attitudes towards the past, present and future (using the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory) and, in some cases, adjusting these attitudes (you can check out the inventory and identify your 'time profile' here). So far, TPT has helped improve the lives of those with post traumatic stress disorder, but as Zimbardo points out in this quick TED talk, this research might be used to help us all get along better in one way or another. Naturally, part of this project involves identifying the ideal attitudes. I imagine which attitudes are 'ideal' depends, at least in part, on what we want and our environment. In any case, take a look at this compelling video in which he discusses his research as well as the fascinating work of social psychologist Robert Levine on time perception and it's relationship to culture, age and gender. 

 

 

The Social, Unhappy Network?

According to this study in PLOS One, Facebook use predicts negative shifts in subjective well-being in the short term and the long run (thanks to Josh Shepherd for the pointer). According to the researchers, "On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection. Rather than enhancing well-being, however, these findings suggest that Facebook may undermine it." This isn't totally surprising, given earlier research on the topic, but it's interesting nonetheless. It should be noted that another study suggests it might be a good idea to post more often if you're feeling lonely...

Evolution, Happy Meals and the Coca-Cola Happiness Factory!

Hello y'all,

M'lady and I went to Atlanta a couple of weeks ago to visit the amazing aquarium. Afterward, we had a couple of hours to kill, so we decided to visit The World of Coca-Cola® where we saw the following video:

Needless to say, we both thought this quasi-provocative video was slightly disturbing (the computer animated talking helicopter has nipple rings). I even entertained the possibility we were brainwashed or subjected to subliminal advertisements (unbeknownst to us, of course). In any case, the video made me think about the dark side of the well-being research this blog is about: it's undeniable that unhealthy behavior can reliably make us happy (in some cases)!

Thus, I found it funny that after we got back, I was perusing the Journal of Happiness Studies and I came across an article which seems to show that Taiwanese kids who eat fast food are fatter and happier than Taiwanese children who don't eat it. This is slightly surprising, given the fact that it's been shown food has a fleeting effect on your subjective well-being. 

As always, confounding variables should be accounted for, but, for the sake of argument, let's suppose that there is a causal connection. If this is so, we might be forced to make a choice between 'objective' and 'subjective' aspects of well-being. The authors point out that we must be aware that an unintended consequence of fighting childhood obesity might be lower overall levels of happiness.

Even though I think we can teach children to choose healthy food, I doubt that we can ever ignore the allure of food which is so sweet, fat and fast. Thank you, evolution! In the age of sugar substitutes and oral contraceptives, do we really need to exercise discipline? When what feels good isn't good for us, we can use technology to bridge the gap between happiness and health. We need not exercise restraint. We can, in short, have our cake and eat it too.

 Excelsior!

 C.L.Sosis

P.S. Beverly is magnificent!

Constrict-and-Destroy: Who Needs Claritin?

Hello y'all,

According to a new study in Psychoneuroendocrinology psychological problems, such as stress and anxiety, aggravate allergic reactions! As you know, this is one of many examples of the intimate connection between the well-being of the brain and the rest of the body I discuss here.

Often, this connection can lead to a vicious cycle, in which a broken body undermines the integrity of the mind, which exacerbates health problems. Mental illnesses can take a serious toll on your physical well-being which will compromise, in some cases, your sanity.

The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions suggests that positive emotions broaden your awareness and probilify a variety of novel and exploratory thoughts and actions. Recent research seems to show that stress encourages perseveration, and causes significant, negative, changes in the neural architecture of the brain.

Perhaps this research will eventually yield the 'constrict-and-destroy theory of negative emotions'...

 Excelsior!

 C.L.Sosis

Headaches are Contaigious!

Hello y'all,

James Fowler, Nicholas Christakis and Steven Colbert claim that happiness is contagious.

Justin Wolfers claims that they confuse correlation and causation.

   Excelsior!

   C.L.Sosis

Now I'm a Believer!

Hello y'all,

I used to think that consummate love couldn't last long because adaptation effects would inevitably extinguish passion and therefore, the most a long term couple could hope for was companionate love (it should be pointed out that these are specialized terms). It turns out, thankfully, I was dead wrong!

Bianca Acevedo and Arthur Aron (of Stony Brook University) discovered that, "romantic love, without the obsession component typical of early stage romantic love, can and does exist in long-term marriages, and is associated with marital satisfaction, well-being, and high self-esteem."

    Excelsior!

C.L.Sosis

Well-Being: Hodge Podge of Kludges?

Hello y'all,

Recently, Stephen Stitch argued that it may be difficult to come up with a good account of moral judgment--an account of moral judgment that captures the ordinary concept--because there is no coherent concept of morality (indeed, we have no reason to believe that there is, and one might argue, given the persistence of disagreement, reason to believe there isn't). Recent research seems to show that there isn't a single psychological system which generates our moral judgments: there are a hodgepodge of different systems, designed by evolution to address different problems, pushing us in different directions. Josh Greene for instance, has suggested that the psychological systems which generate our deontic moral judgments are distinct from the psychological systems that generate utilitarian moral judgments. Often, these two distinct cognitive processes, designed for different purposes, issue inconsistent moral judgments. 

I think this work provides a realistic framework in which to understand our welfare judgments. In an earlier post, I suggested that the social intuitionist model of moral judgment might also apply to our welfare judgments, but it wouldn't be entirely surprising if we discovered that there isn't a single psychological process that generates our welfare judgments. Instead, it seems we have reason to believe that welfare judgments are the by-product of a cornucopia of kludges. Some of these kludges might be designed to protect our progeny (which would explain why we think that what happens to our children after we die can affect our well-being even though we are dead) and other kludges might be activated in situations in which deception is afoot (as is the case in the experience machine thought experiment). This approach to understanding the intricacies of our moral judgments might also help us understand our strange and contradictory welfare judgments. Once we understand how we think about well-being from a psychological/evolutionary perspective our traditional beliefs about well-being might be altered profoundly (as our traditional beliefs about morality might be)...

  Excelsior!

  C.L.Sosis

THIS (UTAH) IS THE PLACE!

 

Hello y'all,

According to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, Utah is the happiest state in the nation (I'm looking at you, Mormons) and West Virginia is the least happy (I blame the ham). The index also measured six subcategories: life evaluation, emotional health, physical health, healthy behavior, work environment and basic access (whatever that means). What does wealth have to do with it? Take a look at this scatter plot showing the relationship between a state’s median household income and its well-being:

 

Seems...scattered, doesn't it? As usual, there is a correlation...

Excelsior!

C.L.Sosis

Welfart!

Hello y'all,

Lately, I've been wondering how similar our welfare judgments are to moral judgments according to the social intuitionist model of morality advocated by Jonathan Haidt. According to the social intuitionist model, our moral judgments are driven by our intuitions and emotions and our ethical principles are merely post hoc rationalizations of these intuitions and emotions.

The social intuitionist model has interesting experimental consequences. If the social intuitionist model is correct, bizarre factors, such as whether you think somebody just farted, might play a role in the formation of your moral judgments. This is exactly what the research seems to show: it seems disgusted people tend to form harsher moral judgments than their non-disgusted counterparts.

The tail, it seems, wags the dog.

I wonder to what extent welfare principles are merely post hoc rationalizations of our intuitions and emotions. It's often taken for granted that our judgments about well-being reveal the nature of welfare principles, but these judgments might just reveal how we feel about certain lifestyles.  

If our welfare intuitions are the result of the affective factors that moral judgments seem to be, there are ways to show it. For instance, if the odor of the desk which you are using in order to answer a questionnaire about how well off Wally is influences your welfare judgments of Wally, we might take this as some evidence that your feelings of disgust are informing  your welfare judgments. This is just one potential experiment. We need a body of coverging evidence to show that the social intuitionist model is right. The important point is that it's possible to figure out whether your welfare judgments depend on how you feel empirically.

Still, I imagine you might take it that disgust is a relevant consideration in which case your welfare judgments ought to be mediated by what you think is disgusting. This could present a serious problem: if there isn't a fact of the matter about what's disgusting, as most of us seem to believe, there isn't a fact of the matter about who's well off. Then again, that might just be the way well-being (and morality) rolls!

  Excelsior!

  C.L.Sosis