In the 1990s, the two big findings of happiness research (strong relation to genes, weak relation to environment) hit the psychological community hard, because they applied not just to happiness but to most aspects of personality.Source: The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt
Psychologists since Freud had shared a nearly religious devotion to the idea that personality is shaped primarily by childhood environment. This axiom was taken on faith: The evidence for it consisted almost entirely of correlations—usually small ones—between what parents did and how their children turned out, and anyone who suggested that these correlations were caused by genes was dismissed as a reductionist.
But as twin studies revealed the awesome reach of genes and the relative unimportance of the family environment that siblings share, the ancient happiness hypothesis grew ever more plausible. Maybe there really is a set point fixed into every brain, like a thermostat set forever to 58 degrees Fahrenheit (for depressives) or 75 degrees (for happy people)?…
As psychologists wrestled with these ideas, however, and as biologists worked out the first sketch of the human genome, a more sophisticated understanding of nature and nurture began to emerge.
Yes, genes explain far more about us than anyone had realized, but the genes themselves often turn out to be sensitive to environmental conditions.
And yes, each person has a characteristic level of happiness, but it now looks as though it’s not so much a set point as a potential range or probability distribution.
Moving…
All content on this blog from Tim McGhee has moved to the Tim McGhee Substack, and soon, Lord willing, will be found only on that Substack.
Thursday, January 23, 2020
Unsettling findings about happiness
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Blog Archive
-
▼
2020
(436)
-
▼
January
(33)
- Emoji ≠ language
- Companionship > Passion
- An inversion of ancestor-worship
- Waking to happy sights and sounds
- What no man can suffer
- Sunday Talk Show Recap: Senate Trial
- Congress Updates
- Love > power
- Unsettling findings about happiness
- The danger of democracy
- The arguments against Citizens United are weak
- The glory of the Greeks
- Where few dared to be rich
- 3 Religious Liberty Actions by the Trump Administr...
- Sunday Talk Recap: Senate Court of Impeachment
- Congress Updates
- Turning AI's opaqueness transparent
- Unexpected sources of life satisfaction
- The last medieval monarchy
- Who am I, and what am I to be?
- Thoroughly and uncompromisingly foreign
- Sunday Recap: Iran, Impeachment, China
- Congress Updates
- A linguistic trust fall
- Marriage and happiness
- The romance of business
- Youth, the painted shell
- Gibraltar, a lonely and enormous mass of rock
- Sec. Pompeo does the full Ginsburg on Iran
- Congress Updates
- Sartalics
- Natural group size
- A great love of measurement
-
▼
January
(33)
No comments:
Post a Comment