I’ve been told from various sources almost all of my life that people are merely searching for happiness. That is why, when I read a quote from a 72 year old study on happiness in The Atlantic this month, I was taken aback:
Last October, I watched (Valliant) give a lecture to Seligman’s graduate students on the power of positive emotions—awe, love, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, joy, hope, and trust (or faith). “The happiness books say, ‘Try happiness. You’ll like it a lot more than misery’—which is perfectly true,” he told them. But why, he asked, do people tell psychologists they’d cross the street to avoid someone who had given them a compliment the previous day?
In fact, Vaillant went on, positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. One reason is that they’re future-oriented. Fear and sadness have immediate payoffs—protecting us from attack or attracting resources at times of distress. Gratitude and joy, over time, will yield better health and deeper connections—but in the short term actually put us at risk. That’s because, while negative emotions tend to be insulating, positive emotions expose us to the common elements of rejection and heartbreak.
Even though conventional wisdom* says the opposite, I felt his research findings to be poignantly true to my own experience. How difficult is it for any of us to take a compliment? Accept love from someone else? Feel like an act of kindness or generosity is warranted? Trust a positive experience to continue on being positive? Accepting any of the above would mean taking a huge risk. A huge risk of disappointment and the loss of innocence.
Someone I know recently partook in a personal study where he bought a bunch of flowers and handed them out to strangers. The findings of his ‘study’ were that most people would reject the gift outright. I wasn’t surprised and explained to him that I would have probably rejected a flower from a stranger myself. There are a few reasons for this reaction. Number one, in North American culture we have experienced that there is no such thing as a pure gift (except from those we know, but even then, there is an iota of reciprocity attached to it). The gift is given with an expectation that we give something in return: our attention, our money or the like. Number two, there is the phenomenon that Valliant describes above: we don’t feel as if we deserve a random kind act from a stranger. It is embarrassing to be given a gift. We don’t understand how to receive it.
These thoughts are tangled up to result in a personal protectiveness, which may seem negative, but are mainly about lowering our expectations. And lowered expectations, as discussed in the article, are conducive to higher overall happiness (Danes, who have the lowest expectations, top the ‘happiness’ surveys).
So what does this mean for those of us trying to make the world a better place to live in? Well, maybe we shouldn’t be shooting for increasing the baseline on happiness, but instead, shooting to increase the baseline on trust. It turns out that the happiest of those studied had strong relationships with people they trust around them. Turns out we really do require more of those high ‘soup metric‘ relationships.
Personally, the more I study, the more that I return to community and a focus on social capital to find my answers. But human beings are not rational creatures. And because the desire to be self-protective outweighs the desire to achieve an optimal living experience, we deeply embed protectionism and distance into our day to day interactions as well as our societal structure. Alas, there is much work to do. But if there is anything I’ve learnt to embrace…is my own vulnerability.
It would be interesting to see if different generations handle this differently. For example, I’m Gen X and I think I’d have a similar reaction as you. But I wonder if the Boomers or the Millenials would be more open to receiving gifts. I also wonder what impact personality type has on receiving gifts.
Great post – that baseline of trust is something I’ve been discovering myself over recent days. In “the industry” there are so many people out for their own self-interest (which is neither a negative or a positive – it just IS) that their trajectory tends to diverge markedly from your own. This often leads to those situations where we call each other’s motives into question and conflict results.
The only way I’ve found to mitigate those issues is to surround yourself with people you trust. Your happiness, then, is not derived from others whose compliments you’re unwilling to take on completely due to fears over the possible transitory nature of the small happiness that would result. Instead, you gain happiness from the acceptance of those close to you, whom you trust. Erm… which is kinda obvious lol xD. <— end
I’m one of those strange people who always has something odd (a roll of biscuits, a box of cookies, a bag of liquorice) to offer people. One of the most puzzling things I saw is that even if someone wanted one, they’d refuse my offer. This includes friends and family.
If I was at a social function, I could put my snacks with some other snacks, and people will come around to eat them all, but I could never give them all away by hand.
I think people’s first reaction to having something unexpected in their face is to push it away, which can lead to an awkward moment if you stick out your hand for a handshake before proper greetings have been made.
At my current workplace, when I begain bringing a treat to share, it was at first treated with some suspiscion. Now I just sneak it into what has become a “snack area” with little fanfare and the foragers come.
Where I previously worked, we all collectively brought treats when it struck us as the thing to do – as if we were making a deposit into a snack bank of goodwill and cheer. I miss that spirit. FYI, former workplace: 99% female. Current: 99% male.
It’s like free hugs. It took a little ice-breaking to get people to want the hugs.
I was lucky enough to take a class with Seligman as an undergrad – abnormal psych, which was like a trip to Madame Tussaud’s dungeon-basement or something – filled with grotesqueries and horrors in which we always strained unsuccessfully not to recognize ourselves. But the thing is, Seligman got his start not with happiness but with helplessness – literally teaching mice to lose all hope and discovering that the consequences they suffered were what was happening to so many of us every day. I think most of us are not “conditioned” to accept happiness; we think first it must be earned, and that it must be happiness that derives from some imaginary set of “appropriate” sources (the giver, as well as what is given), and of course, that it must be reciprocated. “If it was worth anything, who would give it away for free? If it is worth something, who am I to deserve it?”
I try to decondition myself and my little slice of the world from these patterns incrementally, and I think I’m still pretty much on my first increment: if I see someone reading a map and looking confused (as is often the case in the picturesque and popular bit of town I inhabit), I try to make the time to ask if they’re looking for anything in particular. Sometimes they aren’t but they appreciate the concern. Sometimes I sort of make somebody’s day. Which is to say, my own. I still can’t take a compliment but I am finally learning to give them and get the hell out of the way. It’s a start, anyway.
Very cool beans here. Got pointed your way by Liza S, who sat beside me on the bus; a conversation about buckets of raw chicken soon enough turned to richer and more savory fare and now here I am. Hope to make it a regular practice. Sorry to be catching you at the tail end of your “local (to me)” phase…
In the words of my favorite S.F. musician, Michael Franti of Spearhead….it’s all about “Staying Human.”
BTW, I am currently reading your book. Love it! You definitely have a bright future as a very successful author. I hope to have the opportunity to meet you in person someday.
All the best to you in creating a world that works for all!
Brenda T. Horton
Hware
This (rejection of kindness)–has bothered me my entire life.
I’m the kind of person that will do kind things “just because”. My friend argues the “Payoff” is actually boosting my own self esteem, maybe it is. However, when I do these acts, I expect nothing in return.
Perfect example—YEARS ago, I found myself in need of a roommate situation. I used a popular roommate matching service. This person was the first person I had ever moved in with who was a “stranger” to me.
Because of this, I treated her home as if I were a “paying guest”–as fate would have it, 3-weeks after I moved in was her 40th birthday.
Me thinking “BIG 4-OH”—is a milestone, I went all out to please my new roommate.
I bought balloons the night before and placed them in the house, I sent her flowers at work and got her a cookie cake.
Needless to say, I scared her to death! (she thinking I had romantic over tones to it (I’m male)—-me—just wanting to be the best roommate she ever had—-fyi–as a backgrounder–she told me before this she once had a roommate steal her credit card bills from the mail box, and run up credit card charges—so I wanted to show her how great a roommate I would be.
She and I are still friends (I moved out shortly thereafter).
I talked to a friend of mine (who is a Psychologist by trade)—her advice was bascially it’s not “normal” for people to be that nice…..
Actually, I find it a sad state of affairs of the world we live in…..
I agree with your post. When people pay compliments there is an expectation associated with it whereas like you said, negativity may be negative, but immediately pays off.
This is such a good article on happiness. It is so unfortunate that we can not accept a gift without feeling the pull of reciprocity.