That article actually supported my claim. It said there was a genetic setpoint and that people could swing around that setpoint due to life events.
If the transitory variations of well-being are largely due to fortune’s favors, whereas the midpoint of these variations is determined by the great genetic lottery that occurs at conception, then we are led to conclude that individual differences in human happiness - how one feels at the moment and also how one feels on average over time - are primarily a matter of chance.
If the long-term (e.g., ten year) stability of WB is, say, .60 for middle-aged persons, then the data of Tellegen et al. would also indicate that the heritability of the stable component of wellbeing is about .48/.60 = .80. Error of measurement plus unshared environmental effects would account for the remaining 20% of the variance in the stable component of happiness…The reported well-being of one’s identical twin, either now or 10 years earlier, is a far better predictor of one’s self-rated happiness than is one’s own educational achievement, income, or status.
Why didn’t the genetic setpoint keep going higher and higher? The same can be said of weight. Some people have a setpoint around 9% bodyfat, some at around 50%. People can move around that setpoint but the setpoint itself has alot of say as to how they end up. Seeing how those whose genes put them at a higher happiness setpoint will have an evolutionary advantage the set point should’ve gone up for most people over time.
You ask why isn’t happiness selected for more strongly. You might also ask why evolution wouldn’t give us strong immune systems, superior problem solving, etc. regardless of our mood. I’m guessing that it may make sense to hunker down and act with extreme caution under certain circumstances within the ancestral environment. The actual mood can be thought of as a side-effect.[sup]1[/sup]
Clearly (ha!) happiness/misery are both selected for; the fittest being capable of either depending upon the situation.
Ok, but why would certain individuals appear to have a much stronger predisposition to happiness than others?
Possible hypotheses:
a. Beats me, it’s a puzzle for further research.
b. This effect is an artifact. There are underlying factors that make some happier than others and it’s these underlying factors that are being picked up by the happiness measure. For example, sociability may be the hereditary factor while happiness is (again) a mere side effect.
Just to throw another wrench in the works, it’s not clear to me whether self-reporting on happiness is especially accurate (or even meaningful: see my previous post). I would think it might also reflect a critical or skeptical disposition.
Nice thread btw. Accurate or not (again, beats me), the set point analogy was an interesting one. Incidentally The Moral Animal Why We Are The Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology by Robert Wright (1994) has some entries in its index on happiness. Maybe I’ll flip through it later.
[sup]1[/sup]The immune system requires another explanation.
Perhaps we contain certain triggers that, when activated within the ancestral environment, caused us to hunker down and become more submissive, perhaps intimidated. Within that state we would have remained exposed to 30?-60? fellow tribe members: we would have viewed them morning and evening.
I’ve wondered whether being in a state of intimidation while simultaneously exposed to only a few familiar faces (who are supportive in a resource sense, though not necessarily an emotional sense) would indicate catastrophe within the ancestral environment. Separated and perhaps alienated from your clan/tribe, survival prospects might have been unacceptably grim. Those who acted needy -or desperate-- in such circumstances would have better odds of receiving vital aid.
Within a modern context, the tribe and clan have morphed into a rather smaller nuclear family or even single occupant housing unit. I wonder whether some suffer from alarms that made perfect sense 10,000 years ago, but are overkill today.
Thank you! Sometimes, following these discussions on evolution is like following discussions on pseudo-science — the Marxist and the Capitalist arguing over the meaning of a newspaper article.
Marxist: “Well well, so XYZ Corp filed for bankruptcy. This is yet more evidence that capitalism cannot sustain an economy.”
Capitalist: “Nonsense. This is proof that the market works. Consumers have decided that ABC Corp’s product is superior, and XYZ was unable to compete.”
The sheer range of serendipity that is conjured up in support of evolution is sometimes astounding; e.g., we have hair on our heads to protect us from ultra violet radiation. (Nevermind our shoulders.)
I read a theory in an article on happiness published in last year’s Sunday Times Magazine (which I’ve tried and failed to find a link to, sorry) that stated that our brains had evolved to be pessimistic, because they developed in a time of extreme strife. In effect, you damn well did see the worst in eveything, because the likelyhood was that was exactly what would happen, and you needed to be prepared. It went on to say that perhaps our brains simply hadn’t “caught up” with our less stressful lives.
The article said “IF”. “IF” is not the same as “it is a fact that…”.
And genetic setpoints aside, the main conclusion is that happiness is stochastic, which is exactly contrary to your claim. If one’s relative happiness is determined largely at random (whether it is ultimately completely or partially genetic or not), then natural selection will not, and indeed, cannot, occur. If two of the Happiest People Ever[sup]TM[/sup] were to mate, they could still very well crank out the most depressed Goth ever, and the odds are pretty much even either way.
The genetic setpoint did not get higher and higher for precisely the reason the author’s of the article I linked to concluded: it’s all a crapshoot. Just because you are happy and mate with a happy person doesn’t mean your children will inherit your happiness.
Nor is there any evidence of happiness being an evolutionary advantage in the first place. In fact, the evidence is that it is largely irrelevant.
Silly question on my part i’m sure… but happier than what? … The fact that we can discuss being happy at all, puts us infront of every Animal I can think of…
Pretty sure i’m much happier than the average critter
Most people believe this but I don’t believe it is true. The pictures you see in National Geographic don’t tell you all about a society. When I studied various hunter-gatherer tribes in Anthro class they seemed to have more problems then modern humans, not less. I read a study in Scientific American recently that said that humans gloss over the bad events in our past and tend view it as rosy even though it wasn’t. I imagine this holds true even on a societal level.
I really wish I could find this cite, but my google skills are failing me. A while back I read a study an anthropologist did where he asked a bunch of individuals from a Hunter-Gatherer tribe to rate their happiness on different scales and then compared it to modern individuals. He found that the rates of depression were about the same. The only thing that was vastly different was that the Hunter-Gatherers complained more about physical problems like back pain than the modern individuals did. The conclusion of the study was that humans are on the whole, happier now then we were before.
But problems (assuming that by problems, you mean poverty and struggle) do not necessarily make people unhappy. There is a certain dignity in hard work and a contentment with struggle that is difficult to explain to people who are spoiled by microwave meals and heated toilet seats. The evidence is anecdotal, to be sure, but you will hear many stories from people who grew up in poverty and had no idea how bad off they were until they were exposed to modernity and convenience. Joy in childhood can come from nothing more than the love of family and community. Making the trek to the outhouse on a cold winter’s morning to do my business or hiking down the hill to fetch springwater on a hot summer’s day are among my fondest memories. Only nowadays am I disgruntled when the toilet clogs or the ice maker is empty.
Well, I’m guessing you look on those outhouse treks more fondly now that you did then, but Liberal makes an excellent point; there is a strong measure of relativism with regard to both hardships and luxuries. Things that we might accomodate in the past–say, waiting for a coast-to-coast call to go through–would be intolerable in the modern day of electronic communications and cellular telephones. If what you have is what you are accustomed to, you don’t tend toward disatisfaction until you see something better, or at least newer and more shiny, a fact that automakers tend to capitalize on by changing body styles and insignificant options every three or four years.
“Happier than what?” By rights, we (occupants of the industrialized nations) should be the happiest people in the history of humanity. Fortunately for the stockholders of Eli Lily, GlaxoSmithKline, and other cheer-in-a-pill pharmeceutical manufactuers, happiness doesn’t come prepackaged in $19.99 increments from Target.
From Wright (1994) The Moral Animal, cited above. All emphasis in original
Page 298 presents views expressed earlier:
Page 271 discusses the benefits of depression:
As a self-esteem deflator, depression tones down ambition – or rather matches it to reduced social prospects. For many, it’s best not to challenge the alphas.
As negative reinforcement depression discourages us from repeating unskillful behaviors.
As a course changer glumness can encourage us to try something different.
Pleasure is a drug, p. 369: not only is it addictive, it is ephemeral.
Wright continues with what the world’s major religions have to say about this peculiar state of affairs.
“Based on the retest of smaller samples of twins after intervals of 4.5 and 10 years, we estimate that the heritability of the stable component of subjective wellbeing approaches 80%.”
Furthermore, “…the variance in adult happiness is determined about equally by genetic factors and by the effects of experiences unique to each individual.”
The random part seems to be, “What genes you got” and “What fate delivers to you.” And in the latter case, the effects are transient, according to Myers and Diener (1995), quoted in the article.
To the extent that happiness is a matter of genes, two happy people seem more likely to crank out a chipper sort of person.
Not that I’m a big fan of these sorts of study. It seems to me that self-reports of happiness could be picking up low introspection as much as low misery.
Is it possible to be sad to death? I think, yes. I can only imagine a sadness that would kill a person. I thank God for not loosing a child. There was a study done that prooved a human baby dies without the human touch. What I am trying to say here is that our emotions are as much a part of our being a successful species as our intelligence is. If you touch fire you get burned so you learn not to touch fire. When you have sex you feel really good and your emotional state is “happy” so you keep banging.
Okay, it’s getting late and I feel delirious. Seriously though, I believe in what I said above. It makes some sort of sence, right?
And in the former case, the results are still not predictable, as that is pretty much what “stochastic” implies. One might be “lucky” in the sense of being smarter, faster or stronger than most everyone else, but such results are not necessarily random. They are heavily influenced by parentage, with some variation thrown in. Happiness was not concluded to be similar; it is stochastic, meaning you can make no reliable predictions based on parentage.
Besides which, a heritability factor of .8 does not mean that 80% of one’s happiness is from one’s genes; it means that 80% of the variation in that trait in the population is genetic. But, again, that does not mean the phenotypic trait of “happiness” is directly inheritable from generation to generation.
And further, none of this indicates that happiness is selected for, or even selectable for.
Another example (even though this is off track a bit from the thread): People say (mostly the health obsessed) McDonald’s and other fast foods are so bad for you. I agree to a point. However, when you eat some of the foods you really like because of the taste, texture, etc. you feel good emotionally. In moderation I believe these foods you love so much are good for you.