The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt

Post date: Dec 6, 2012 9:30:08 AM

Positive psychology theory

Review

Haidt's interest in philosophy brings a very interesting dimension to his take on positive psychology; he also utilises neuroscience and our understanding of the human brain, and the impact f its gradual evolution on our behaviour now. He has developed a metaphor of the elephant and its rider, which reflects the instinctive/emotional versus the intellectual/rational aspects of the human brain; this provides a useful way of understanding why we sometimes act before we think. He argues that pop-psychology, when it succeeds, does so because it has helped us to retrain our 'elephant' and this can bring about 'lasting change' (p.26). He emphasises the importance to retrain our 'elephant' to notice the positive, in order to counteract our natural tendency to focus on the negative: because 'over and over again, psychologists find that the human mind reacts to bad things more quickly, strongly, and persistently than to equivalent good things.' (p.29)

Haidt's logical, grounded approach is wide ranging, taking in the philosophy of the ancient Greeks; religious teachings; our developing understanding of the workings of the brain; psychology and the treatment of depression; and the recent findings from the field of positive psychology. This brings the reader to a perspective on some of the more surprising findings, such as the evolution of cooperative behaviours like altruism, and the elements that contribute to human health and happiness that positive psychology has uncovered in the last decade.

Academic interest: this is a serious book for the serious reader. It follows a very logical and well referenced path through philosophy, psychology and neuroscience to the findings of positive psychology. It is very well written and researched, and logically constructed, making it a real page-turner for those who want to gain insight into our developing understanding of human happiness, and to examine the scientific evidence for current theories in positive psychology.

Practitioners: whilst there is practical information in this book, it is perhaps too deeply submerged for practitioners to find particularly useful – other sources might be more suited to direct application. It does, however, include insights to workplace wellbeing and to aspects of upbringing that could enhance future wellbeing.

Self-helpers: it would take quite thorough reading to extract practical activities and approaches to self-help from this book, as it is primarily an academic text. It does contain one straightforward piece of advice for those who tend towards pessimism, which is to work to change their cognitive style: 'If you are a pessimist, consider meditation, cognitive therapy, or even Prozac.' (p.148). Haidt also suggests coping with adversity through a process of 'sense-making' (p147) as described by James Pennemaker in Opening Up (1997).

Best Bits

Haidt's perspective in this book leads to some insightful statements. He uses metaphor because, he argues:

'Our life is the creation of our minds, and we do much of that creating with metaphor. We see new things in terms of things we already understand. Life is a journey, an argument is a war, the mind is a rider on an elephant. With the wrong metaphor we are deluded, with no metaphor we are blind.' (p181)

Haidt's metaphor of the elephant and rider features throughout the book. He explains that the 'rider' is a less evolved part of the brain than the elephant:

'...language, reasoning, and conscious planning arrived in the most recent eye-blink of evolution. They are like new software, Rider version 1.0. The language parts work well, but there are still a lot of bugs in the reasoning and planning programs... Automatic processes, on the other hand, have been through thousands of product cycles and are nearly perfect' (p15).

He also explains why we moralise, justifying our actions to ourselves and others (particularly after the event):

'..only the rider can string sentences together and create arguments to give to other people. In moral arguments, the rider goes beyond being just an adviser to the elephant; he becomes a lawyer, fighting in the court of public opinion to persuade others of the elephant's point of view.' (p22)

The idea of 'flow' posited by Csikszentmihalyi is explained through Haidt's metaphor:

'In the flow experience, elephant and rider are in perfect harmony. The elephant (automatic processes) is doing most of the work, running smoothly through the forest, while the rider (conscious thought) is completely absorbed in looking out for problems and opportunities, helping wherever he can....'When we enter a state of flow hard work becomes effortless.' (p95-97)

Positive psychology has shown that overcoming adversity is necessary for growth, and overcoming adversity in childhood and youth is vital to developing resilience in adulthood. Again he uses metaphor in his summary:

'Adversity may be necessary for growth because it forces you to stop speeding along the road of life, allowing you to notice the paths that were branching off all along, and to think about where you really want to end up' (p144).

Toward the end of the book, Haidt summarises his view of happiness:

'Love and work are crucial for human happiness because, when done well, they draw us out of ourselves and into connection with people and projects beyond ourselves. Happiness comes from getting these connections right... Happiness comes from between.' (p223)

About the author

Jonathan Haidt teaches a positive psychology class at the University of Virginia. His favourite idea , he says in this book (p169) is that people should 'work on your strengths, not your weaknesses' because 'often you can use a strength to get around a weakness.' The main project of his university class is for his students to 'make yourself a better person.' (p170) by using CBT on themselves, or by employing a strength, or both, with a good success rate.