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The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom | 
 enlarge | Author: Jonathan Haidt
Publisher: Basic Books
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  72 reviews
Sales Rank: 543097
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Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 1
Dewey Decimal Number: 170
ASIN: B000WCTRW8
Publication Date: December 24, 2005
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Product Description
Jonathan Haidt skillfully combines two genres-philosophical wisdom and scientific research-delighting the reader with surprising insights. He explains, for example, why we have such difficulty controlling ourselves and sticking to our plans; why no achievement brings lasting happiness, yet a few changes in your life can have profound effects, and why even confirmed atheists experience spiritual elevation. In a stunning final chapter, Haidt addresses the grand question "How can I live a meaningful life?," offering an original answer that draws on the rich inspiration of both philosophy and science.
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 This might become a classic---so much wisdom in so little space November 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The blurb on the front cover of this book is "For the reader who seeks to understand happiness, my advice is: begin with Haidt." I believe this assertion is exactly right. I have never read a single volume that summarized and wove into a coherent whole the variety of insights concerning human happiness that have been discovered by philosophers and religious gurus of the past and modern social psychologists. Moreover, this book is beautifully written, the exposition of various theories always taking a fresh viewpoint, however venerable the source. Finally, I think this book is a vigorous endorsement of modern social psychology, which beautifully complements and supplements the insights of the grand masters. I am generally critical of social psychology because it does not use the rational actor model and hence consists of a grab-bag of nano-insights with no structural core. But, this body of empirical findings contributes richly to our understanding of human happiness (the reference section of this book is truly a masterpiece, by the way).
Haidt claims there are ten great principles for understanding happiness, and he devotes a chapter to each. The first is the "divided self," we may be summarized as "Our minds are loose confederations of parts, but we identify with and pay too much attention to one part: conscious verbal thinking." (p. 22) Haidt analogizes our mind as a conscious rider on an unconscious elephant. The elephant mostly goes where it wants to go, although our conscious mind never gives up the illusion that it should not only be in the driver's seat, but have a powerful steering wheel. The references here are many, but typical are Freud's Ego vs. Superego/Id, emotional brain vs. rational brain, left vs. right brain and split-brain studies, and the like. This fact about mind is key to understanding happiness because an excessive preoccupation with conscious, volitional action tends to lead people to slight the actions they can take that have little immediate effect, but in the long run lead the elephant to move in ways more conducive to our emotional well-being. The rest of the book explains how this might be done.
Like many chapters of this book, Chapter 2, "Changing your Mind," is deeply paradoxical, or perhaps dialectical. The basic message is well stated in the quotes at the head of the chapter: "life itself is but what you deem it," (Marcus Aurelius) and "our life is the creation of our mind." (Buddha). Whereas it is very natural to think of our perceptions of our lives as real and external as the coffee cup on my table, in fact our perception and interpretation of our personal psychic and interpersonal lives is, in a deep way, personally constructed by our minds. This fact implies that different minds might very well perceive the same situation in very different ways, and this disjunction in perceptions can lead to conflicts that reduce the happiness of all parties and defy resolution because of the disputing parties' lack of insight into the subjective nature of their perceptions.
The dialectical nature of the principle of the "personal construction of reality" is that this construction is normally not conscious, but rather a deep mechanism controlled by the "elephant" over which the rider has virtually no control. It a deeply unsatisfying fact that we are basically incapable of seeing the world in any way other than the way we do, although we may achieve some liberation by recognizing this fact, and "going with the flow" (e.g., by accepting that family members and friends do not see the world as you do, they are not guilty of misperception, and you will not get them to perceive otherwise with sufficient effort on your part).
Haidt brings in a major finding from social psychology here: "happiness is one of the most highly heritable aspects of personality." (p. 33) This does not mean that our happiness cannot be affected by our actions, but the battle to do so is extremely difficult and likely to be only partially successful. This is perhaps why the book is about understanding happiness, not achieving happiness. Nowhere in the book does Haidt claim to offer you the key that will unlock the door to happiness. Rather, Haidt suggests three methods of actually improving our happiness: meditation, cognitive therapy, and Prozac. "All three are effective," he claims "because they work on the elephant." I concur with Haidt in this regard, and especially recommend psychopharmacology for those who remain unhappy after all the objective reasons for being unhappy have been addressed (e.g., a bad marriage, commuting two hour to work in traffic, or having your hand caught in a car door), as long as the side effects are not themselves debilitating.
Haidt's third principle is reciprocity, which he interprets as acting according to Kant's categorical imperative. He takes issue here mainly with those who believe that human intelligence developed in a Machiavellian manner to give big-brained individuals a personal advantage over others. Rather, he suggests, humans evolved to be predisposed to reciprocal behavior, both rewarding those who are nice and being vengeful towards those who are nasty. I am totally in agreement with Haidt that this is among the top insights needed to understand not just happiness, but human behavior in general.
Many thinkers trained in biology and economics believe that we are reciprocal not by nature, but from fear of retaliation for letting others down. Indeed, Haidt appears to believe that people will renege on their obligations unless social pressure can be brought against them, in the form of gossip (p. 55). "Gossip paired with reciprocity," he states, "allow karma to work here on earth."
Haidt's position here is a deep and unfortunate error. Gossip cannot explain reciprocity because unless gossipers have a moral preference for truth-telling, there is no reason for gossip to be accurate. Gossip is important because humans have a predisposition to reciprocal behavior, but does not explain reciprocal behavior. Strangely, for a book published in 2006, Haidt makes no reference to the results in behavioral game theory exhibiting altruistic cooperation and punishment even when there is no chance for being repaid in the future (I have called this "strong reciprocity," a phenomenon exhibited in the experiments of Ernst Fehr, Simon Gaechter, and others). Moreover, Haidt's treatment here is in contradiction to the main insight of Chapter 8, The Felicity of Virtue, which I discuss below.
The fourth principle is that we are more likely to see fault in others than in ourselves. This is of course a corollary to the principle that we construct our own reality, adding merely that we tend to do so in a way favorable to ourselves. This tendency terribly destructive of personal relations because it councils against compromising and lead to excessive levels of conflict and disputation, in which the other side is the personification of Evil, with which compromise is morally prohibited.
The fifth principle is that happiness does not lie in achieving outward goals, but rather inner psychic peace. According to Haidt's "progress principle," we only get pleasure by moving towards our external goals through having a succession of little successes, but attaining the goal is not a source of pleasure, as we quickly become used to our new state and bored with it. Haidt provides some excellent evidence for this principle, including the fact that lottery winners seem not to become happy with their new-found wealth, but rather within a short time revert to their pre-winning level of happiness. In addition, the average level of happiness in a country tends to stay the same even when the average income in the country triples over a period of time.
I have read all this evidence and plenty more, but I am not convinced. I know from personal experience that I never cease to get pleasure from attainments that I achieved long in the past, such as the ability to read a foreign language, the appreciation for the house that my wife and I built ourselves and live in every day, the level of skill I have achieved in various sports (all quite moderate, but plenty good enough for me), and so on. Moreover, I perceive that most of my friends and neighbors are the same. There is a sense of well-being of having attained a position that need never go away, and indeed, can become heighted continually over time.
I think Haidt here has relied too much on the social psychologists, when the truth was long ago asserted by the young Karl Marx, according to which humans have "slumbering capacities" (Gattungswesen), including physical, psychomotor, cognitive, affective, aesthetic, and spiritual power. Flourishing as a human being consists in developing these slumbering powers. The enemy here is material goods, which seem like the source of happiness, but are merely instruments we use in exercising our slumbering powers. This was the theme of my Ph.D. dissertation many years ago. Indeed, one of my head quotes was from the jazz musician Mose Allison, who said "Things are getting better and better; it's people I'm worried about."
This is a very dissatisfying chapter, to my mind, and completely wrong-headed. It should say that gratifications follow from the capacities we have developed to act in the world, and that material goods are valuable almost exclusively when they contribute to our exercise of personal powers. The lottery winner does not become happy because he has not developed any new personal capacities to which his new-found wealth might contribute. People who have developed their capacities do not "get used to" and hence devalue their material possessions.
The sixth chapter is an absolutely brilliant interweaving of ancient philosophy and modern social psychology on the importance of love in our lives. The seventh is a sensitive but rather inconclusive chapter arguing that we should see adversity as a challenge rather than an unmitigated evil. I am not convinced. The major adversities in my life have been unmitigated evils from which I gained nothing but grief. I suspect I am not alone.
The eighth chapter (and eighth principle), the Felicity of Virtue, is very important and well done. I would have placed it before the actual Chapter 4 because of its importance. Social scientists tend to think of sacrificing on behalf of others and on behalf of society as a personal cost that people undertake either because they are irrational or because they have moral values that lead them to devalue their own happiness in favor of other-regarding goals. By contrast, the ancient philosophers and theologians have generally taken it for granted that "virtue is its own reward;" that is, altruistic acts and virtuous behavior in general benefit not only those helped thereby, but the virtuous subject himself. According to this view, it is difficult to be virtuous because we are tempted by all sorts of short-term pleasures to forego such natural virtues as loyalty, honesty, courage, humility, and considerateness.
The felicity of virtue is particularly important because it gives us a much deeper understanding of the basic prosociality of human nature than the standard theories of philosophical ethics---the "duty" theories such as Kant's and the "utilitarian" theories such as Bentham's and Mill's. These theories try to determine what sorts of actions are ethically desirable, but give no reason why individuals should be moral at all. Virtue theories, by contrast, tend to argue that we know in hearts what is right and what is wrong, and we are happiest when we are capable of having our "elephant" carry out the right and the good as opposed to the wrong and the evil.
The ninth chapter (and principle) is a very nice exposition of the idea that we do not need to be believers in God to lead a meaningful and ethically fulfilled life. This seems more obvious to me than many other points in the book, but it may be useful for young non-believers who worry if the loss of belief implies the loss of meaning. The final chapter is a synthesis of the preceding that Haidt feels has been most useful in guiding his personal life.
The existential philosophy of life was once well expressed by Andre Gide: "Jette mon livre; dis-toi bien que ce n'est là qu'une des mille postures possibles en face de la vie. Cherche la tienne. Ce qu'un autre aurait aussi bien fait que toi, ne le fais pas. Ce qu'un autre aurait aussi bien dit que toi, ne le dis pas, -- aussi bien écrit que toi, ne l'écris pas. Ne t'attache en toi qu'à ce que tu sens qui n'est nulle part ailleurs qu'en toi-même, et crée de toi, impatiemment ou patiemment, ah! le plus irremplaçable des êtres." Thank God we have moved from the existential nonsense of my youth to the heartening wisdom displayed in this book. (The French means "Throw away my book. Understand that it is only one of a thousand ways to deal with life. Find your own. Whatever another could do as well as you, do not do. Whatever another could have said as well as you, do not say--have written as well as you, do not write. Only care about that within you that is nowhere other than within you, and create in you, patiently or impatiently, ah! the most irreplaceable of beings.")
AMAZING BOOK November 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
It's an amazing book for whoever is looking to understand how our mind works, how it's nature is structured, how the simple stuff the people already have identified about our nature has been proven by science and so can easily be described (as opposed to just believing somebody older because he says so)
Outstanding field of psychology October 24, 2008
This book provides a great overvieuw of the latest developments in positive psychology.
This is the first really new thing I learned in the field of psychology since i obtained my master (2004)
It is written very well and is a must for every person who seeks to understand the psychology of happiness (no real a-priori knowledge needed)
minor remarks: I'm not sure whether his interpretation of the Harlow experiments are accurate. And he doesn't accredit Nuttin for the letter-effect
 A Happy Accident, but an Accident Nevertheless October 20, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Haidt attempts a synthesis of the proto-psychological observations of the sages from the western, middle eastern, Chinese and Indian cultural traditions with modern psychological research into the cognitive and emotional functioning of healthy minds. There is much that is interesting in the book, from both the psychological and historical perspective, but the author's concern for accessibility (for which he thanks, or perhaps blames, an employee of his publisher) has come at the expense of achieving any sort of depth - scientific, philosophical or literary. The book doesn't know whether it is work of popular science or pop-philosophy, a self help guide, or an autobiography. They only good thing about the writing (and about that of most books that have suffered the attentions of a specialist in "creative" or "accessible" writing) is that it serves to throw the quality of the writing or rhetoric of the sages or their historians into luminous relief. The book also panders to either its presumed audience, or the author's American guilt about his atheism, but devoting disproportionate attention to the mechanisms and psychological implications of religious thought; all of which is interesting in moderation, but which in superfluity reduces the books effectiveness in discussing all other forms of healthy human mental functioning.
For all that, I found the book well worth reading, and am now motivated to find a text on positive psychology, and dig into the Haidt's extensive and well considered biography to get learn about the research progress in some technical depth.The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom
You can really discuss this book with your coffee partner October 1, 2008
Haidt says there are three ways to change your state of happiness: drugs, meditation and psychotherapy. This book is a effectively a good dose of psychotherapy and has some really excellent stand alone chapters particularly on love and romance and highlights in the study of what makes people happy, particularly based on scientific research from the 20th century. This book is an exploration of happiness that is anchored in ancient wisdoms we may be familiar with - Roman stoics, a bit of Greek philosophy, Buddhist and Hindu ideas, Lao Tzu and teachings from the Bible.
Not all may agree with Haidt, especially on the utility of antidepressants. I also go along with the criticism that he may have generalised too much. As G. Johnson points out above, Buddhism is more complex than Haidt's analysis. The notion that Buddhism teaches inaction, passivity and simple detachment does not take into account that Buddhism does describe at least 11 kinds of happiness from sensual pleasures to extraordinary happiness in the third Jhana (at least in theory). Buddhism could be dichotomised into lay practice vs monastic practice and a Mahayana vs a Theravada approach. The Mahayana and Lay Buddhist practices emphasize a proactive endeavor to assist those who may need it. But, as the Theravadin's point out, it's probably better to deal with your own problems first. Haidt's Dhammapada quotations from Mascaro as translator should be regarded as a pretty poor rendition of an ancient text.
There is also this peculiarly American division between liberals and conservatives, one that is unique to the US and can only be seen in an American context by those of us English speakers not from the USA.
Haidt sometimes uses ancient Wisdom in caricature so that he can state a different more advanced philosophy for the technologically sophisticated times we enjoy. At this level, I think he has it pitched about right to suit cultured, middle class and educated societies trying to encapsulate for themselves, the nature of happiness and how to get it in a generally secular context.
I especially enjoyed his graphs in the relationship chapter showing a distinction between visceral short term affection vs long term companionship based affection. He has also introduced with great simplicity some profound ideas of modern psychological studies from Freud to ? ... We certainly have little time to study the copious alternative treatises and this is definitely a good place to hunk down and research. So real happiness consists of Flow States of mind where you get absorbed in an activity rather than the short term thrill of winning something ... meditation is simply extending the flow state of mind to a deeper level.
I would recommend this modern appraisal of the nature of happiness as explored by the new science of psychology and certain ancient thinkers. Haidt's is an impressive short compendium rich in references. I think it is refreshing that he is so open to teachings alien to himself including Buddhism and this is a book that could get many of us started on our own explorations.
I find it disagreeable that our baseline happiness may be set by our genes and would endeavor to strive to increase it - this to me is an aspect of being human even though it may be very difficult to overcome the genetic conditioning. Even genes like some God cannot be all powerful and deserve to be brought down to size.
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