Why you shouldn’t want to always be happy
In life, happiness can seem fleeting and elusive, something just out of reach. Steve Corey/flickr, CC BY-ND
Why you shouldn’t want to always be happy
Cornelia H. Dudley Professor of Psychology, Knox College
Read this article in French
In the 1990s, a psychologist named Martin Seligman led the positive psychology movement, which placed the study of human happiness squarely at the center of psychology research and theory. It continued a trend that began in the 1960s with humanistic and existential psychology, which emphasized the importance of reaching one’s innate potential and creating meaning in one’s life, respectively.
Since then, thousands of studies and hundreds of books have been published with the goal of increasing well-being and helping people lead more satisfying lives.
So why aren’t we happier? Why have self-reported measures of happiness stayed stagnant for over 40 years?
Perversely, such efforts to improve happiness could be a futile attempt to swim against the tide, as we may actually be programmed to be dissatisfied most of the time. Read more.