The Science of Happiness and What Actually Works w/ Dr. Lara Aknin

Liz gets into the science behind what really makes us happy, with one of the authors of the world happiness report, Dr. Lara Aknin.

We learn about the common misconception most of us have about  what makes us happy, and quickly understand  like most things in life, our state of well being takes time and practice.

Much to no ones surprise science reveals that a higher salary makes us less happy than the bonds and connections we create with others. 

And yes there is a genetic,  proponent to our happiness  we  arrive into the world  with much of our predetermined happiness based on genetics and DNA, , but there several practices  of our own  volition  that can help move the needle.  

The World Happiness Report is available for all to peruse, you might find this years findings, fascinating and informative, with a special focus in chapter two of the report on the impact of social media on our well being.   

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Original music for the podcast written and performed by Liz Pryor and Augie Cal
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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Is it the receiver or is it the giver? At the end of the day, we know that the gift of giving in any form of us, of our wisdom, of our heart, of our love, it it is the unsolicited act of kindness. There's nothing more powerful. Hi there. I'm Liz Pryor, and this is Just Say in the Podcast. What we try and do here is help people navigate the difficulties and challenges we face in our everyday lives. It just so often seems that our biggest stressors, some of the hardest times we face, are typically with the people that we care about the most. So that is usually our focus here. Uh-huh. But maybe today our focus is going to be a little bit more, I don't know, on ourselves a tiny bit. With me, I have Laura Sullivan. Welcome, Laura.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

How are you? I am well. How are you? I am very well. Uh-huh. I am uh curious about this whole what you're talking about today and excited.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

This is kind of interesting. So maybe you and I should just have right at it. Um the topic of happiness. You know, when I think of the term happiness, it's funny because in the work that I do, typically I don't use that word much. I'm I'm slightly afraid of it. It's very lofty and meaningful. I don't know. When when I talk about the area of happiness, I'm usually talking about ease or contentment, maybe. Happiness feels like such a such a big term. What do you think when you think of that word?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

I think besides French fries, I think, I mean, I sorry, I do.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

I think French fries and potato chips and happiness.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Um no, I think about peace. I think about joy.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Joy. Honestly, I a little bit happiness sounds kind of f fleeting. Like you you know what I mean? It doesn't feel like a um a regular possible state of being at all times. Right. Right. However, we do describe people as happy sometimes, like in general, like so-and-so's a a happy person and a positive person.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

But aren't we all looking for happiness, reaching towards happiness? I don't know, Laura. Are we? Oh God, here we go. I don't know, but it feels to me that it's a universal sort of you know, goal. That's yeah, that's it. It's a goal.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Yeah, and if if I were to ask you um on a scale of one to ten, okay, um, in general, what would be your happiness rating for yourself?

SPEAKER_00 2:58

You mean like with your life and and yourself? Okay. I'm gonna give myself an eight. An eight?

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Look at you, girl. And uh let me ask you something else. Yeah, if you close your eyes and imagine something in life that could get you to a ten, is there sort of um a goal, a thing, a feeling? Is there something that could bring you to a 10? Is the question of the day.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

That's a good question. I know. Look at her. You guys, her face is very perplexed.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

I told her no script today, Laura. We're just winging it.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Tough cookie, this one. She's a tough cookie. You know, I feel like if I knew I would here's the thing. I am a positive person. So I tend, and I really I tend to, when I'm not fully happy, I tend to go, come on, you know, snap out of it. What what's the deal?

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Okay. But do you notice, folks, that she's evading the question? She is evading the two-point question. See, this is just interesting. I just read so much on this topic that I thought it would be interesting. It's just it's a human habit or something that we would ask somebody what is their happiness rating of themselves. And then what, Laura? Is there nothing that could get you to attend?

SPEAKER_00 4:31

I mean, there's physical things that could get me to attend. There's, you know, there are things like probably I'm not as you know, with the computers and the and and and all of that, I feel like I I should be more educated, um, make my life easier. Because I'm sort of living in the dark ages.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Well, I kind of actually, you know, do you know why I personally love that one? Because it is completely easily fixable. Just go to an Apple store and take a frickin' class.

unknown 4:59

I know. I know.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

You could, but look at her. She's like, yeah, but I don't want to. I want to spend the rest of my life saying, I can't, I can't do the computer.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

You're talking to someone who just got a driver's license three years ago. I had to take the driver's test in my 60s.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

So what kind of happiness did that bring you?

SPEAKER_00 5:17

That gave me so much happiness, so much fulfillment. I really that was a huge thing for me. Huge.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

I love that. I love that for you, honey. Congratulations on your driver's license. I mean it.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Thank you. Living in New York City can yeah, yeah, didn't need it.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

Now, um the subject of happiness, which is what we're gonna deep dive into today. Because I did so much research on this, I am going to say that it is a scientific fact that a higher salary makes you less happy than a full bonded connection with people. Did you know that?

SPEAKER_00 5:58

That no, I did not, and that's fascinating because one of the things I was gonna say would make me happy is you know, more, you know, I mean, a higher salary for our lives.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

So I'm just reminding you that maybe some of that money So maybe I'm a six. Maybe I'm an actual four, Liz. So I was unaware of the World Happiness Report. I mean, maybe I'd heard some mention of that at some point in my life, but apparently for the last 12 years, every year, the World Happiness Report comes out. That's right. And this report, by the way, is accessible to anybody who wants to read it. There's just some fascinating information in there. So what I did was, of course, I did because who do I think I am? I reached out to one of the authors of the World Happiness Report, and um she said she would talk to us. So that is what we're gonna where we're gonna go today. I just wanted to make sure that we weigh in with they call it the happiness ladder. So she's a seven with with she's an eight with No, I'm bringing it down.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

I'm she's bringing it down now.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

You know, you can't do that. Who am I kidding? You guys, guys, did you be you can't change it? But but what we learned is that she sort of automatically said no, kind of. I mean, I can't really get it to a ten. I'm just I'm just curious about the human behavior of all of us. Like none of us is gonna say, I'm a ten.

unknown 7:24

No.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Are there people that would say ten?

SPEAKER_02 7:26

That would rate their happiness with themselves and their lives at a ten. I'm honestly gonna tell you that human nature would say that nobody would say that because then there's no room for improvement. Right. All right, right. All right, Laura. Makes sense. Makes sense. Now I'm gonna send you off and I'm gonna go into this the happiness scientist lab.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

I'll be listening.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

You'll be listening.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

All right, I'll talk to you later.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Bye-bye. So, my guest today is Dr. Laura Acknen. She is a professor of social psychology at Simon Fraser University and one of the authors of the World Happiness Report. Her work in the science of happiness has played a huge part in research that is helping how we all understand well-being.

SPEAKER_03 8:15

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

I'm feeling like we should maybe start with the World Happiness Report, mostly because I think there's a lot of people who don't know what it is. So I'm gonna come at you as a lay person and say, is it what it sounds like? Is it a gathering of data to see sort of how happy people are and how do you measure that?

SPEAKER_03 8:39

Yes. So you're you're certainly on the right track. I think you've already got the gist of it. So hopefully it's a helpful title that we've offered. Um yes, but the World Happiness Report is a report that has been coming out. This is its 12th year. It is released every year on International Day of Happiness, which is the 20th of March. And it is an academic report that is designed to be available and accessible to a broad readership to help kind of share some of the latest and greatest insights from the science of happiness or the science of well-being. And um, every year, one of the focal chapters of the report that I think really draws people in and usually garners the most media attention is usually the second chapter in the report where the editorial team, and usually it's led by uh Professor John Helliwell, who's an economist at the University of British Columbia. He takes data from the Gallup World or the Gallup World poll, which provides uh an incredible database of how people around the world are doing. Um, all respondents are asked to respond to a question that evaluates their life as a whole. So they're asked to complete this measure called the Cantral Ladder, where people are asked to imagine a ladder that goes from zero at the bottom to 10 at the top, and to place themselves on this ladder where 10 is the best possible life they can imagine and zero is the worst. And so, and we have data from usually over 130 countries. And so for the last last few years, last nine years, Finland has been up at the top with a number of other Scandinavian countries. Um, and sadly Afghanistan has been down at the the bottom, um reporting very low levels of life satisfaction.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Goodness.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

And where do we as Americans that well, so the United States, I think I d forgive me, I don't know the exact number off the top of my head, but you were roughly in the 20s this year.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

Yeah, and Canada was uh a few places higher in the 20s, but Canada fell out of the top 20 this year. Um and so there's been some moving and shaking. So we use three-year averages to get more robust uh better approximations. But what we did notice last year, and is pretty significant for both Canada, the United States, and a couple other uh English-speaking Western countries, is that the young in particular, so these are young adults under 30, have been reporting much lower levels of happiness uh and life satisfaction than we have seen before. And that's actually what's bringing down the national average, and that is dropping their global rankings.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Goodness. Do I take a guess at technology?

SPEAKER_03 11:06

Technology might have something to do with it. So this year's report was actually focused on social media and well-being, and so there's a deep dive. Uh, we have a chapter written by John Heidt and Zach Rausch. They provide a compelling case, uh, accumulating a bunch of evidence suggesting that use of social media might be partially responsible for some of these large declines in youth well-being. Um, but there's also competed data taking a much uh more holistic approach or global approach, and that raises some really important questions. But I actually think it also has to do with uh the level of social connection young adults feel these days, their satisfaction with the government, their precarious uh prospects for work, uh, and a number of other important predictors. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Um interesting. You have my brain just you have my brain just zipping. What would you say that that was what maybe surprised you the most this year?

SPEAKER_03 11:56

Yeah. Well, this year's report kind of dives into some of this nuance because although uh young adults in many of these English-speaking Western countries, Canada, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia, have been showing, documenting these pretty staggering declines in youth well-being, they are not especially unique in their use of social media. And so that raises some interesting questions because if social media use is pretty high and consistently so around the world, why is it in these special grouping of countries that we're seeing these staggering well-being declines? And so it raises some interesting questions about um how much time people are spending on social media, which apps they're using and for what purpose. And I think some of these nuances haven't been fully explored, right? So the the social media, I like to think of it as a tool. It can be used to facilitate and strengthen some of these really important bonds that people have. It can be used to make plans, it can it can connect people who are isolated, but it can also be used to, you know, through algorithmic feeds and extreme content, pull people apart. And so this is I I think this is some of the nuance we we started walking into into the in this report and seeing that even um different platforms seem to have different associations with well-being, and that raises some really important questions. We also ran one analysis that I found really compelling in our chapter two of this year's report, finding that yes, social media has has an association with well-being. In some places in posit it's positive, in some places it's negative, but it is entirely shadowed by people's feelings of social connection and belonging. So it's not to say that social media doesn't matter, but when we step back and expand the aperture to think about what what are the predictors and and correlates of people's well-being, our our social relationships, our social connections uh drastically overshadow the singular use of social media. And so it's important to keep that in mind. Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

And and what do you say about, because I've read a little bit about this, but what do we, in terms of happiness and and well-being and sort of the state of our minds, what do we come in with? What are what are we working with? Is some of this genetic or in our DNA or predispositioned?

unknown 14:00

Right.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

That's a great question. So there are lots of different models on trying to understand happiness. So happiness is kind of this layperson's term we use to understand our positive experiences. And I think some of the leading models are really well uh articulated and thought about by Dr. Sonia Lubomirski at the University of California Riverside. Um, and she has articulated that we can be both happy in our life and with our life. And when she uses that description, what she's pulling apart and distinguishing are the three core components of what researchers call the technical term for happiness, which is subjective well-being. The first part is to what extent you feel positive emotions in the moment. So to what extent are you happy and how strong are your happy emotions as you experience life? There's also to what extent do you feel negative emotions and how frequent are they? Um, and then there, those are kind of how happy are you in your life right now. But the third component is a little bit more of a cognitive assessment. It's asking when you step back and think about your life as a whole, how satisfied are you with the bigger picture? You know, happiness in the moment by might be satisfied by eating a delicious ice cream or a delicious dinner, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're happy with your life. Right. Um, but you could also be happy with your life and dealing with very difficult moments.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

So, and would you say that from what you're learning, are there things that maybe people are doing, just regular person living out there? Are there things that we do unconsciously that contribute to being less happy?

SPEAKER_03 15:31

Yeah. Well, sorry, I I'm realizing as you asked this question, what are the contributors of happiness? I didn't ask in your last question. I just wondered if there was anything genetic or predisposed. Yeah. You know what? So that's a great question. Maybe I'll combine my answers for the two because uh Dr. Lubomirski, who I mentioned before, proposed a model that helps us understand what are the contributing factors to a person's sustained happiness levels. She and her colleagues have argued that about 50% of our happiness levels might be determined by our genetics.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

About 10% is determined by our life circumstances. So that might be our relationship status, where we live, um, economics. Exactly. I was gonna for exactly. Um and then the last remaining component was what she calls um volitional activities. These are the things we choose to engage in on a regular basis. And so she kind of argues it's important to note that she doesn't just identify these three pieces in this pie, but she points out that right now we don't have the technology to mess with our genes, so maybe don't invest your time and effort on trying to change that. It's not like you can't change your life circumstances, but those are usually pretty fixed and stable features of your life. It's not that you can't move, it's not that you can't get married or divorce, but these don't change overnight. And so where she suggests we should focus our time and energy is on these volitional activities. Um, and here's where we might be making some strategic choices that could benefit our well-being or might accidentally be undermining our well-being. So that's kind of answering your previous question and answering your more recent one is um there are things that we can do to improve our well-being and to to remove the stresses. So one thing we might do is I think a lot of people, and this is what this is an interest of mine, there are many others, but is uh one of the key predictors of our well-being is having spending time with other people and having strong and satisfactory social relationships. And although we know this, I think, in a general sense, in day-to-day life, we tend to make a lot of choices that might sacrifice our social time or might push us away from other people. So for instance, you know, I if I'm working on a project or if duty calls, whatever it might be, I might sacrifice a night with my partner to finish off a work project that has been looming, you know, on that has been weighing on my mind. And so that's just one singular instance of how we might trade our time with others for the things we need to do. Um, but one of the reasons I find this is so interesting is that our our close connections are those that I think we're more aware of for their importance in our well-being. But I think we often even overlook other targets that can be more uh important for our well-being than we give credit for. So over the last couple of years, there's been some really fascinating research showing that we gain a lot of short-term momentary enjoyment from talking to strangers. Um, but time and time again, people will go out of their way to avoid talking to strangers. And in doing so, they're they're they're missing an opportunity. Um, they they they might do it in the service of efficiency uh or safety, but most of the time we're missing an opportunity to connect with other people and we are hampering our well-being in the process.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

You think that's a very interesting, Laura, because the example you give of yourself, obviously a very, very hard worker. I was telling her pre-recording how proud I am of her. I have no business being proud of Laura, but and um you know, living in the culture that we live in, and whether you're passionate about your work or you're trying to get a raise or whatever it is, I imagine it it feels natural to battle against um, I want to spend time with my partner, but I should stay here at work and continue, even if half of the should is a desire. Yeah, I think it it could be a good little megaphone moment to say that when we're battling like that within ourselves as people on a daily basis, maybe talking to you, we could all have it in the back of our heads that it is really important to keep up, you know, the bonds that fill your heart and and bring you that sort of unadulterated joy, if you will. Right? Because it's it's tasking us with an enormous amount to live in the world today. So it's it's hard enough to just manage ourselves and decide to choose what is best for us, what is best for our long term. And and when you're when you when it's as small as should I have dinner with my partner or should I really just finish this project so I can wake up tomorrow and have an easier day. Maybe, maybe that answer, maybe that quick answer to just a little bit of working toward your happiness could be go have dinner with your partner. Right?

SPEAKER_03 20:08

I'm saying, yeah. Yeah. I mean, and and there there will certainly be exceptions to this rule where, you know, time is tight or, you know, yeah, uh there are deadlines, but in general, yeah. I think in general, sometimes we might give ourselves uh a harder time over these decisions and and short circuit an awareness of of how much this really does matter for our own relationships and in turn our our our own well-being.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

All right. And I'm curious, because you're so steeped in the world of studying happiness, do you find that maybe there are people who are less happy than other people who who have a resistance in some form or another? This is just my many decades on the planet observation. It it feels, is it possible that someone, anybody would say they want to be happy, right? But the reality is if someone is less happy, do you see uh regular people feeling sounding like they're more resistant to making changes to make themselves happy? Two part question. Because sometimes I think what we're familiar with is what feels the most comfortable. But uh perhaps pulling yourself out of that comfort zone and trying to become a more positive and maybe more contented person could be something that certain people resist. Do you see that or have you looked at that?

SPEAKER_03 21:40

I mean, I think that's really interesting. I mean, there certainly is so there's a number of thoughts swirling through my mind. So I think in in general, um, certainly in in um in wealth in non clinical samples, which is the the group that I normally study, the average report seems to be that most people are doing a little better than the Point which suggests that most people are doing generally well. That being said, there are some people who are really struggling with how they're doing and there are fluctuations over time where even a very happy person can be dealing with difficult days and weeks. In general, most people are, I think, curious about the idea of how to become happier. But I think where I see a lot of people, and and I teach a class called The Science of Happiness, where, you know, through a 14-week semester, we're talking about what does the science show us? I think a lot of people's intuitions is that happiness is maybe one big change will get them there. I think people have some faulty intuitions about what it is that makes them happy. And in particular, some resistance to the idea that finding happiness can sometimes be some work. And by that I mean it's not just one instrumental change that you can make in your life. It's not just that moving to New York or California or whatever it might be or getting married, buying that car, or whatever it might be. People seem to have one magical thing in mind that they think will unlock this uh experience or or deep experience of happiness. But in reality, happiness often comes from regular practice of engagement of things, engagement with activities and people that bring this happiness. Part of that is uh a lot of it boils down to the social experiences that we have. And and a one-off experience isn't going to be a perfect potion. It's about regular, sustained engagement with people and activities that bring meaning and comfort. And um I I think meaning and connection in our lives is probably there. And so is w when you start to think about it that way, one experience might not fulfill those needs forever. It's about a regular ongoing practice. Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Kind of like anything else that you have to um, you know, and that commitment can be frustrating for people, right?

SPEAKER_03 23:49

Some some people I think we want this quick fix or we want an easy solution, but to hear that it it takes repeated engagement in practice, I think that's where people can resist and say But but and it's not even like look at the you know the long ball.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

It really just becomes a way of being, you know, the idea of I in my work, which is just regular people, regular messy life stuff, I usually shy away from the actual term happiness because it feels so lofty to me. But I I really know better than to imagine that happiness is something we can achieve at all times, every day, all day long. You know, we have our happiest moments, I suppose. But really the words, the word I use is contented or at ease. You know, it's it's so much better to be at ease than it is to be in conflict, right? So it's it's it's interesting and hard not to ask you personally. When you went to decide to study science, because you're obviously a very bright person, did you ever imagine you would end up in the science of happiness?

SPEAKER_03 24:56

No, I did. I mean, I think, you know, when I started uh university, I originally thought I wanted to be a lawyer, and I learned quite quickly I did not, in part because I think I'm quite an agreeable person and the conflict is very uncomfortable for me. Um but I also so in in both running from the law, which sounds worse than it is, and from running from the prerequisites for law school, I stumbled across psychology and I took it in my first year, and I just loved it. And it it hooked me and intrigued me, and then I just kept taking one class after another. And then I think it was in my in my second or third year, I I just by requirement took a class on emotion where I had the good fortune of learning from uh Dr. Ericke. He he might now be retired, but he was an expert in memory and emotion, and every day was just story time, and I would just sit there fascinated and enthralled. And so I became very captivated in emotion broadly, not just happiness, but for better or for worse, the the positive, the negative, because to me it felt like without emotion, we're just moving through the acts of life. And and emotion seems what to be what colors our experience. And so I started working or volunteering in his lab, and I I loved the process of research. I loved the creativity of it, I loved the camaraderie of it. Um, and I also just I I it was comforting to me to know that there was a method for exploring these questions. And then um that was just around the time that the science of happiness, positive psychology was emerging. And so I I realized that I could steer away from the negative emotions and f work on the positive, and that just serendipitously happened to be the time that my supervisor who studied happiness moved to the same department and and the rest was history.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

My goodness. Now it was luck. It was luck. Well, you you seem to be doing well inside of it. So um, you did mention to me, which would really reach my audience, is this idea of reaching out to old friends. You know, I wrote a book about how women end friendships, all about the emotional aftermath that that brings. It was just this lay person talking about look what women do, and we don't talk about it, and there's no ritual behind it. And I love it that it's do what you want. On the other hand, we need to be accountable for some of the ways that we're making each other feel. So I read some stuff and listened to you talk a little bit about reaching out to old friends, and and this is not the idea of an old friend that you've maybe had a horrible fallout with, it just means people we lose contact with. But what I read that fascinated me was the value of that for the person who's receiving that contact. So for those of us who would feel awkward to make the contact, to preload it with. But the person on the other end is not gonna feel awkward. Like, I don't know, it's probably less scientific and more spiritual that when you reach out to somebody or you do something, sort of an um unsolicited act of something, it's amazing the feeling. So talk to me about what you learned about reaching out to old friends.

SPEAKER_03 27:55

Yeah, well, I would it would be a pleasure. So um this work kind of follows some of the comments I've made earlier about the importance of social connection for our well-being. And I would say the overwhelming amount of research in the field focuses on our close friends or romantic partners, which are incredibly valuable connections in our lives. But if you think about it, people have a fuller assessment of relationships. You know, people have friendships, um, but life also gets busy, and some of those relationships fall apart, they lapse. Um, and we might still have friends that we care about that we just are not in contact with on a regular basis. And so, as you note, these are not necessarily uh relationships in which something has gone south or gone sideways, there was no big blowout, there was no ending of the relationship, just someone moved to another city. Life got busy, someone had a baby, whatever it might be. Right. Um, lives have changed and and there's no regular contact. And so we wanted to know whether people uh reach out to their old friends in these situations and and when and if not, what barriers might be uh in place that set that up and how we could maybe help people overcome these these barriers. And so my good friend Jill and I set out to test these questions. Um, and first we we published a paper with a series of studies, and we started off by just documenting the reality that many people endorse the idea that they have what we called old friends, these friends that they care about but with whom they've lost touch. And um, to our surprise, we asked them, you know, if you have this old friend, if you have an old friend, this is someone who you would like to reconnect with, who you think would like to hear from you, who you have contact information for. You you might we asked them, do you have someone in mind like this? How willing would you be to reach out to them now? And how willing would you be to reach out to them in the future at some point? And we observed that people were kind of lukewarm about the idea, neutral about the idea of reaching out to them at some point. But we when we asked them about right now, their answers indicated, absolutely not. I will not do this. Um like people were very negative about the idea of reaching out to an old friend. Um, and so we wanted to know why that might be. Uh, and so we asked them about a number of barriers, and it turns out that most people's hangups seem to have to do primarily with the fact that they, I mean, they're a little they're they're a little uncertain and worried about rejection, but most of the concern seems to be about intruding on this person's life now.

SPEAKER_05 30:12

Right.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

They had they themselves see the, you know, they think they have the time, the opportunity, but they're worried that they're gonna be interjecting or this person, you know, might be too busy for me now. Intruder anxiety. Exactly. Is that a term? I've never heard that. Okay, intruder anxiety. I like it. Um, and in fact, you know, we also ran an experiment where we asked people to either imagine reaching out to an old friend or having an old friend reach out to them. And as I think you alluded to earlier, you know, when people are imagining being the person to make the to initiate contact, they're very anxious and unwilling. But when people imagine being on the receiving side, they are way more positive about it. They are way more interested. And so people seem to be caught up on uh like we were talking about earlier, although social relationships seem to be such a key and robust predictor of well-being, sometimes we make these pretty um miscalculated estimates of how it's gonna go and we avoid it instead of leaning in. Um, Jill and I conducted experiments really trying to encourage people to do this type of thing. We we we took in one study, we took a theoretical approach where we we tried to harness some of the best uh strategies out there for encouraging people to do things. We tried to encourage them to not think about it, just go with their gut, do it. And um in another condition, we try to we tried to convince them that this was the right thing to do. We told them that, you know, you might think that it's it could be awkward, but in reality, the person on the other end is going to really appreciate it. Turns out that both of these strategies backfired. People were less willing to do it than than if they than if we do than if we just let left them to their own devices. Then we tried another experiment where we threw in every possible rationale we we could think of, and that too backfired. And so we were kind of really surprised by this like extreme reluctance to reach out to old friends. And um, through a number of other studies, we started to realize that maybe old friends feel like strangers after an um after a lot of people.

SPEAKER_02 32:05

I was just gonna say, if if the point is, I don't in the last five years of my life, I accidentally took uh became turned on to a sport that I had never played and I'm now like hooked, right? So when I'm listening to you talking about reaching back to old friends, I think it probably is an easier notion to set a person up in front of a whole bunch of people they really don't know and they haven't known. I feel like there's this natural propensity to um there's no pressure on it. You can play the game and leave, and then you go back, and if you kind of like someone, it it's kind of like school as an old person. Interesting. It certainly is um, you know, I'm a fake social person. I'm I'm I'm read like an extrovert, but the truth is I like to stay home. I am I'm um a quiet closet introvert. But I do notice that the social bonds that I partake in now three to four times a week with all different sorts of people, um, sometimes the same people over and over again, other times, you know, new people come on. And I was just thinking maybe the reaching out to old friends, maybe there's a pressure that if you do it, that it might have to lead somewhere and you might have to go to lunch and then have dinner and then take on the responsibility of this person you used to be around all the time. Whereas these new people that are are filling the same need that we're talking about, which is social connection and bond, they come with zero pressure. Because even when I get asked to go to lunch, I'm not going.

SPEAKER_03 33:56

Yeah. So it's uh it's a lower obligation, right? There's no expectation there. That's really it. So uh I that's a really intriguing possibility. We've addressed that a little bit, I would say, in one of those studies, because in the um I I didn't I didn't name it as this, but in our in one of those studies where we tried to encourage people to reach out, the the everything in the kitchen sink idea we we approached. One of the one of the rationales we put in there, or one of the one of the claims we made was that this doesn't need to turn into anything more. Right. It doesn't need to be you, you know, you're not relaunching. Just to catch up. Exactly. You could just try. You could just say hi. I'm thinking, you know, just w just.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Lauren, that's dangerous. That's dangerous because they have a history. They have a history, and whereas the new people, you can go at your own pace. Uh-huh. You can, if they say coffee, maybe you could do it once, and if you like it, then you do it again. Truthfully, it is kind of a beeline to new friendships if you want them. And it's it's it's it feels I don't even want to say you have more control over it, because there's um there's a lot of people who would resist being in that situation, but it's very much like school. I used to tell my kids it's everybody's first day. Okay, so if you're nervous, so even if you partake in a new activity and you do a beginner class of whatever it is, you're in the same position as you were in fourth grade. So everybody bees is really friendly to one another. I really, and I'm telling you, this was completely accidental. And I wonder in life, if we think too hard about making our lives better and doing the right thing, maybe it doesn't work as well as when you accidentally sidestep into it. I mean, we know that if you're like not gonna be working anymore or your kids are gone, it's easy to say go take a pottery class, go do this, go do that. But I think my point is maybe just not have any expectation and do something. You know, there's something about even beyond bonding with people, there's something about having an activity. So, in other words, it's the same idea, but I think at this stage in the game, if you put it in someone's head, you know what you need to do? You need to start bowling because people bully no, no, no, we are gonna resist that. I I think, I think.

SPEAKER_03 36:19

Yeah, yeah. No, that's really interesting. There might be just some reactance to being told what to do. I think there is some pushback in that people um whatever the reason is, when we ask people to do it, they are less likely to do it. It seems like changing their mind is not the way to go about it.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

So I wonder if interest has something to do with it. You know, when I was a small kid, I was an athlete. And then as I grew up, I was always, you know, whatever, active, right? This thing that I have found has reminded me of my, I think way back in my childhood. So it m there might be something to not I've always wanted to learn to play the piano, but something to what is something that you have enjoyed before that you could do a version of now?

SPEAKER_03 37:10

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 37:11

As opposed to you should do that. And I know that as my mother got older, we were all so worried about how much time she spent alone. And this is a big, big issue with people who have aging parents. Lots of my friends, you know, finding homes for their parents now. So I'm I'm wondering if ahead of the game we could start to figure out a way to entice people to be able to engage, bond, and connect in ways that don't feel like you should be doing this. You should join a men's group. You know, and men are even more difficult than women because they're just by nature less social. Interesting stuff.

SPEAKER_03 37:52

Yeah. Well, we've been trying to understand a number of the predictors that lead people to reach out to old friends because, as you say, it seems like convincing people to do it is not the right approach. We did have a little bit of luck in terms of just changing people's behavior, not trying to change their minds. So in the final study of the paper, we had we ran one experiment where everybody indicated that they had an old friend that met all of our key criteria. Then one group did our standard approach where they just um they were allowed to kind of just scroll on their phones like they normally would. We just, it was a time filler. And then we said, okay, now we wanted to give you a few minutes to write a message to an old friend and you can decide whether you send it or not. And we saw that roughly around 30% of people did it, which is but then when we um we had another group where instead of trying to change their minds, we just said, send messages to current friends, spend the next two or three minutes messaging the people you often are in touch with. Thank you for doing that. Time's up. Now we'd like to give you an opportunity to send a message to an old friend. Um, and all of a sudden our response rates for reaching out to an old friend went from 30 to 50 percent. And so it's like people were in the motion. Uh-huh. And so it reminds me of what you were just saying, like thinking back to something you enjoyed. It's kind of pulling upon people's behavioral habits to maybe change, to maybe implement some change.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

That is that is just wildly interesting. Um the other thing, I can't not ask you this with the rate of rising depression and anxiety, particularly amongst the young. When you're studying happiness, how much of this mental health crisis we're having in this country with people who are reporting more and more and more their depression and anxiety with their place in this world? Like, for instance, when you're measuring happiness as a whole, whether it's in the country or in the world, does this ever does this play a role? Like people who are medicated for um mental health, or uh d are you privy to the rising?

SPEAKER_03 40:02

Yeah. Well, so a lot of researchers think about mental health as a spectrum. So on the uh there's depression, anxiety, and uh certainly at clinical levels, those are what we might think of as as people experiencing severe challenges to their mental health or ill mental health. Um, and then as you move along the spectrum, there are some people who are um not necessarily thriving, but who are not necessarily facing exactly not facing extreme or threatening cases. And then there are people who are doing quite well on the positive thriving side. The work that I do often in positive psychology stems from the idea that we shouldn't be interested in people's mental health and and functioning simply just to alleviate negative conditions, but to also understand what are the conditions that help people thrive. And so there are certainly through the pandemic, especially through early stages in the pandemic, there were increasing rates of depression and loneliness. Um some people the the average in the population rebounded and did quite well after some time, but there were some people who were hit quite hard early on. These were usually, at least in in aggregate form, they were often women, they were often younger individuals, and they were people with kids at home. Um they were the most hard hit early on in the pandemic, and by and large had a harder time returning to their baseline levels. Um, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that the the field of mental health and the field of positive psychology tries to track the continuum of this spec audit. Both people who are facing challenge and people who are doing well, and trying to understand both what helps alleviate the pain and concern for people who are really struggling, but also to try to understand the conditions of the lives of people who are thriving and doing well to help facilitate and bring more of those conditions to a broader audience.

SPEAKER_02 41:44

Yeah, and and so for someone who has who has learned so much and has so much in their head about maybe the idea of leaning into the positive and knowing the little things that we can do to stay happy, let's just say that someone is having a bed a bad stretch, like not so happy. What what would are there two or three or one actionable things you could give us for someone who's having a bad day?

SPEAKER_03 42:12

Yeah. So I I think two of my favorites that are supported by strong uh research are to change your volitional actions. So um, those would be maybe spending time with other people and engaging in kind and generous actions. So we didn't even get to touch on this too much, but a lot of and mo most of my research focuses on how kind and generous acts can lead to short-term boosts in happiness for the kind actor. So usually we think of how kind and generous actions might be beneficial to the recipient. But I but I have found time and time again, uh collaborating with people around the world, that when we do these small acts of generosity and kindness for other people, it makes us feel good. And so sometimes when people are struggling or having a difficult day or a difficult time, um, I think encouraging people if if someone has the capability to do it, to think about an act of generosity that can extend to another person, it need not be large or expensive. It doesn't need to be a huge act of self-sacrifice. It can be as small as, you know, surprising a loved one with a cup of coffee. Um, but we find quite consistently that these small acts of generosity make people feel good. And we think it has to do with the fact that um engaging in these kind of generous acts is a way for us to build and sustain these relationships that are so vital for our well-being. And so it's kind of a double dose. It usually can involve time spent with other people and it can give you a sense of control and volition over what you're doing and and strengthen these social bonds.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

Wow. So, in in a sense, um, for someone who's having a bad stretch, it can also read as um doing contrary action. Because sometimes when you don't feel well or you're feeling down, you don't really feel like going and doing something lovely. So it does call upon a muscle. It isn't You know, it isn't like you can just get out of bed and open the window. You know, it it requires you to require of yourself sort of some muscle use that might not feel like that's the thing you want to do in that moment. So that's when I say to people that I know and encourage them. It's almost sometimes to do the opposite. Uh I was going through one of the worst and most difficult times in my life. Gotten divorced, had three small children, and computers were just becoming. And it asked me for a password. And I couldn't have been more sad, more angry, more anything. And I remember picking the password. Happy, happy Liz. It was totally opposite of how I felt. And I kind of it almost cracked me up to myself in the moment because I wanted to say every swear word I could possibly think of. And I just did the opposite. Moving forward when when you're alone and it's not going so great, maybe it is contrary action, right? I mean, the generosity thing, Lara, is something that I have been such a huge, I have an awareness of the research that you're doing. I remember as a kid, I just, you know, is it the receiver or is it the giver? At the end of the day, we know that the gift of giving in any form, not just money, but of us, of our wisdom, of our heart, of our love. It it is it is one of those the unsolicited act of kindness. There's nothing more powerful. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:42

Yeah. I I think part of the reason also is that it it shifts our thinking away from just us, right? When we start thinking about how to help another person, it it's not to say that focusing on self-self-improvement or or or recovery isn't important. I mean, exactly. There are some very meaningful and important strategies for lifting yourself out or trying to find ways to address difficult times, but I think thinking about how we can help others kind of offers an additional pathway that's really important. And one other that I'll say, which kind of is a beautiful blend of these two things, is um expressing gratitude. A lot of research has suggested that this is a really impactful way to improve what have done for us. Right. Not only does it motivate acts of our own generosity, but it leads us to reminders of those people who care for us and the ways in which they've shown it. And so it kind of conjures up these memories, these experiences of kind acts and the important relationships that they reflect.

SPEAKER_02 46:36

I love that. You know, when my kids were small, they went to this amazing school. And I I remember thinking, what are they talking about? They had these awards for little kids in grade school. And they were explained to us this way: the only way to get the award, the kid would have no idea, no idea that this was going on. Teachers would observe kids on the playground and in the classroom. And when they would see a kid unsolicited perform an act of kindness, um, you know, so we got a call and my daughter, they explained, and I was like, Well, what? Well, for instance, when the kids were running out to lunch and a little girl dropped her lunchbox and everybody trampled on, and you know, the kid h stops and says, Oh, let me help you put your lunch back together. But random unsolicited acts of kindness. Isn't that beautiful?

SPEAKER_03 47:34

That's really lovely. Yeah, to recognize and celebrate that at event.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

Right, and not be something that they can work toward, because God knows there's enough of that. Yeah. The top of the continental math league on the wordmasters. But this got my heart. Yes, that's really lovely. Being kind in ways where people wouldn't know you were being kind or you weren't trying. This has been insanely wonderful. You're so impressive, Laura.

SPEAKER_03 47:59

Thank you. Yes. It's been a delight. I've really enjoyed the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 48:05

Me too, me too. So um, yeah, we'll be in touch, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate your your hard work and your good work. Thank you. Okay. Our psych science class in happiness. I think that's it. Remember, you guys, if you're struggling with anything, any of the messiness of life, just make sure to email the show at just saying with Liz at gmail.com. You can message me on Facebook, DM me on Instagram. This is just saying saying goodbye for now.