FAQ > About Subjective Well-Being (Happiness and Life Satisfaction), by Dr. Diener > Q: OK, so people think happiness is important. But is it really desirable? If we are happy, might we achieve less, be less good citizens, or be just plain dumb?
A: It turns out that, at least in western culture where the studies have been conducted, that SWB (high levels of positive affect, in particular) produces good outcomes in many areas. For example:
1. Happy people on average have stronger immune systems, and there is some evidence that they live longer
2. Happy people are more creative, at least in the laboratory
3. Happy people are better citizens at work - they tend to help others more, skip work less, etc.
4. Happy people are more successful - they earn more income, have better marriages, get job interviews more, etc.
5. Happy people do better in social relationships. They are more sociable to begin with, and other people like them more. They seem to be more successful in leadership work positions.
6. Happy people are better able to cope with difficult situations.
7. Happy people like themselves and other people more, and others like them in return. They are also more helpful and altruistic, on average.
8. Judgment and decision making. It is in this realm that laboratory psychologists have given happy people a black eye. Those in a positive mood have been found in lab studies to use stereotypes more, to be less logical, and to be more biased in their judgments. The well-known "Depressive Realism" hypothesis suggests that depressed people are accurate, and happy people inaccurate, in their judgments.
The above conclusions seem true of simple lab tasks where there is little motivation to perform well. Happy people use quick and easy answers ("heuristics," short-cuts) they have learned in the past, especially when there are no apparent cues that more effort is needed. Such answers are often right in real life (that is why they were learned), but often provide the wrong answer in the lab studies. When happy people are given greater motivation, however, they often catch up to depressed people. In contrast to happy people, unhappy individuals seem to use effortful and vigilant processing most all of the time - examining every situation for anything that might go wrong. This vigilance pays off in tasks where motivation is low because unhappy people may tackle each task as though failure could matter.
The effortful and vigilant processing of unhappy people in the long-run has substantial costs. These individuals may spend too much time on trivial problems, and therefore not act efficiently. They may not "optimize" in their decision making because they need to spend enormous effort even on small issues. Thus, in the long-run in real life the efficient heuristics of the happy person often provide an advantage - they can act efficiently, and spend more effort only when it is truly required (on important problems, and ones where old solutions are not working). Happy people can perform well if they are cued that motivation is required and that the task might not be an easy one. Further, happy people can dual task and complete complex tasks better because they will use heuristics for parts of the task, or for one of the tasks, thus allowing more computational power for other parts of the task. Much of this description is just emerging from new research, and so it is very tentative. However, the advantage of unhappy people in decision tasks in the early work in the field seems to be now under serious challenge. In more ecological and complex settings, the person in a positive mood might perform quite well.
Last updated on November 13, 2010 by Dr. Walt