Feeling a little down lately? This new research on happiness may cheer you up.
Happiness isn't about how well everything in your life is going at the moment. Rather, the study titled "A computational and neural model of momentary subjective well-being" finds that happiness is about how things are going compared to your expectations.
"Our computational model suggests momentary happiness is a state that reflects not how well things are going but instead whether things are going better than expected. This includes positive and negative expectations, even in the absence of outcomes," concluded the study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in late July.
To get their results, the researchers conducted laboratory- and smartphone-based experiments. For one, the researchers asked 26 subjects to make monetary decisions and then rate their own happiness after receiving their rewards. They also used an MRI to measure the neural response to the rewards. Next, the researchers used a smartphone app called "The Great Brain Experiment" to look at more than 200,000 happiness ratings of 18,420 anonymous, unpaid participants. This experiment had similar results to the one performed in the laboratory. Just because earnings increased didn't mean happiness did. Again, what the user was expecting played into how happy they felt.
And here's the equation the researchers came up with, for all those interested:
The researchers found that this equation applied to the small sample in the laboratory experiment, where money was at stake, and the large sample in the smartphone experiment, where users only played for points.
It's important to remember that these findings relate to short-term happiness.
"We expected to see that recent rewards would affect moment-to-moment happiness but were surprised to find just how important expectations are in determining happiness. In real-world situations, the rewards associated with life decisions such as starting a new job or getting married are often not realised for a long time, and our results suggest expectations related to these decisions, good and bad, have a big effect on happiness," said the study's lead author Robb Rutledge.
And don't think having low expectations is the key to happiness either.
"You'll be happier if you have low expectations when you're at the outcome, but before you get to the outcome, you'll be happier if you have higher expectations," Rutledge told The Atlantic.
Ah yes. The road to true happiness is a difficult dance, but it's well worth the journey.
