I’m Bob Doughty. And I’m Faith Lapidus with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. For thousands
of years, people have been debating the meaning of happiness and how to find
it.
From the ancient Greeks and Romans to current day writers and
professors, the debate about happiness continues. What makes someone happy? In
what parts of the world are people the happiest? Why even study happiness?
Today, we explore these questions and learn about several new books on
happiness studies.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle said that a person’s highest
happiness comes from the use of his or her intelligence. Religious books such
as the Koran and Bible discuss faith as a form of happiness. The British
scientist Charles Darwin believed that all species were formed in a way so as
to enjoy happiness. And, the United States Declaration of Independence
guarantees “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as a basic human
right. People throughout history may have had different ideas about
happiness. But today, many people are still searching for its meaning.
But how do you study something like happiness? You could start
with the World Database of Happiness at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The
Netherlands. This set of information includes how to define and measure
happiness. It also includes happiness averages in countries around the world
and compares that information through time.
Some findings are not surprising. For example, the database
suggests that married people are happier than single people. People who like to
be with other people are happier than unsocial people. And people who have sex
a lot are happier than people who do not. But other findings are less
expected: People with children are equally happy as couples without children.
And wealthier people are only a little happier than poorer people. The
database suggests that people who live in strongly democratic and wealthy
countries are happier than those who do not.
This database also shows that studying happiness no longer
involves just theories and ideas. Economists, psychiatrists, doctors and social
scientists are finding ways of understanding happiness by examining real sets
of information.
Positive psychology is the new term for a method of scientific
study that tries to examine the things that make life worth living instead of
life’s problems. Traditional psychology generally studies negative situations
like mental suffering and sickness. But positive psychology aims to study the
strengths that allow people and communities to do well. Martin Seligman is the
director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania in
Philadelphia. He says positive psychology has three main concerns: positive
emotions, positive individual qualities and positive organizations and
communities.
There is also an increasing amount of medical research on the
physical qualities of happiness. Doctors can now look at happiness at work in a
person’s brain using a method called magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI. For
example, an MRI can show how one area of a person’s brain activates when he or
she is shown happy pictures. A different area of the brain becomes active when
the person sees pictures of terrible subjects.
Doctors are studying brain activity to better understand the
physical activity behind human emotions. This research may lead to better
understanding of depression and other mental problems.
Happiness is an extremely popular subject for books. If you
search for "happiness" on the Web site of the online bookseller,
Amazon.com, you will find more than two hundred thousand results. Experts from
several areas of study recently published books on the subject.
The historian Darrin McMahon examines the development of happiness
in “Happiness: A History.” Mr. McMahon looks at two thousand years of politics
and culture in western countries. He says it is only in recent history that
people think of happiness as a natural human right.
Darrin McMahon explains how the ancient Greeks thought happiness
was linked to luck. He says it was not until the Enlightenment period in eighteenth
century Europe that people began to think they had the power to find happiness
themselves. He notes that in demanding happiness, people may think something is
wrong with them or others if they are not happy. Mr. McMahon sees the pressure
to be happy as actually creating unhappiness.
Darrin McMahon says his book will not make readers happier. But he
says that by comparing your situation with people throughout history, you can
have a better understanding of the idea of happiness.
The journalist Eric Weiner recently wrote a book called “The
Geography of Bliss." Mr. Weiner traveled to countries such as
Switzerland, Bhutan, Qatar and Thailand to investigate happiness in different
parts of the world. He met with experts and talked with local people to try to
understand what makes people in different societies happy.
For example, Eric Weiner learned that in Bhutan, the government
measures “Gross Domestic Happiness” as a way to tell whether its citizens are
happy. Mr. Weiner also traveled to Moldova, a country he says is one of the
least happy countries in the world. And he traveled to Iceland because studies
show that it is one of the happiest nations in the world.
Mr. Weiner at first could not understand why a country with so
little sunlight in the winter and so many alcohol drinkers could be so happy.
But, he decided that happiness in Iceland is linked to its close community,
striking natural beauty and high levels of creativity. Denmark, another cold
country, also has been listed as one of the happiest countries. Mr.
Weiner says the United States is the twenty-third happiest country in the
world.
Dan Gilbert teaches psychology at Harvard University in
Massachusetts. He recently published “Stumbling on Happiness.” Mr.
Gilbert looks at the way the human mind is different from other animals because
we can think about the future and use our imaginations. He also explains
how our minds can trick us in a way that creates difficulties in making happy
choices for the future.
For example, a person might think that buying a new car would make
him or her happy even though the last car the person bought did not. So, events
that we believe will bring us happiness bring us less than we think. And,
events we fear will make us unhappy make us less unhappy than we believe. The
book provides valuable information on the surprising ways in which our minds
work. Here is a recording of Mr. Gilbert talking about this “impact bias.” It
was taken from the Big Think Web site.
DAN GILBERT:
"Most of the time when people are wrong about how they’ll
feel about the future, they’re wrong in the direction of thinking that things
will matter to them more than they really do. We are remarkable at our ability
to adjust and adapt to almost any situation; but we seem not to know this about
ourselves. And so we mistakenly predict that good things will make us happy . .
. really happy for a really long time . Bad things, why they’ll just slay us.
It turns out neither of these things is by and large true."
Why is studying happiness important? There are many answers to
this question. One has to do with understanding happiness in order to create
better public policies. Richard Layard is a British economist and lawmaker who
studies this subject. His research is influenced by the eighteenth century thinker
Jeremy Bentham. Mr. Bentham believed that the goal of public policy was to
create the “greatest happiness for the greatest number.”
Richard Layard has looked at the relation between happiness and a
country’s wealth. He questions why people in western countries are no happier
than they were fifty years ago although they now earn more money.
Mr. Layard believes that part of the problem is that economics and
public policy tend to measure a country’s success by the amount of money it
makes. He notes that happiness depends on more than the purchasing power of a
person or a nation.
Mr. Layard says that public policy should also help people improve
the things that lead to happiness such as job security and health. To
help improve public health policies in Britain, Mr. Layard has pressed the
British government to spend more money on mental health treatment centers. He
argues that by helping people recover from mental illness, the government can
make a big step in the effort to increase happiness.
Many people have also written songs about happiness. We leave you
with this song by the Pointer Sisters about the happiness of being in love.
This program was written and produced by Dana Demange. I’m Bob
Doughty.
And I’m Faith Lapidus. You can read and listen to our programs on
our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.
TENSES
Mr.
Layard believes that part of the problem is that economics and public policy
tend to measure a country’s success by the amount of money it makes. (simple
present)
And
so we mistakenly predict that good things will make us happy . . . really happy
for a really long time . Bad things, why they’ll just slay us. It turns out
neither of these things is by and large true. (simple future)
Richard
Layard has looked at the relation between happiness and a country’s
wealth. (simple past)
We
leave you with this song by the Pointer Sisters about the happiness of being in
love. (simple present)
Richard
Layard is a British economist and lawmaker who studies this subject. (simple
present)
Mr.
Gilbert looks at the way the human mind is different from other animals because
we can think about the future and use our imaginations. (simple present)
Darrin McMahon says
his book will not make readers happier. (simple future)
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