Psychologists have crystallized another fraction of that elusive thing known as happiness. This emotion is so often held up a pedestal — framed as a state of being to grasp that gives life meaning. Despite this, it can seem like the more adamantly you pursue happiness, the further away it slips. This isn’t just a passing sentiment. Using three experiments involving 1,815 people, researchers from the American Psychological Association gave evidence to this idea as they investigated why chasing after happiness might result in greater dissatisfaction.
Through participant surveys and diary entries taken between 2009 and 2020, the team found that constantly checking up on your own bliss could make you your own worst enemy, according to the paper published on Thursday in the journal Emotion. Like the observer effect in quantum physics, psychologists are learning the act of observing happiness can make it seem to disappear.
The study’s theory breaks the pursuit of happiness into two facets: First comes aspiring to happiness, in which attaining this state becomes a crucial goal. This way, seeking happiness is a function of valuing it immensely. Second, concern about happiness causes constant judgment of whether you’re happy or how happy you are. You’re always looking over your shoulder or checking to see if your proverbial pot of water has started to boil — and we know what they say about watched pots.
Concern about happiness is where trouble tends to start.
In the first study the researchers demonstrated aspiring to happiness and concern about happiness are two discrete functions that affect the psyche differently. In the second study they found that concern about happiness — without the aspiration— was associated with lower wellbeing over time across many different people. In the third, the authors found that meta-emotions — the feelings we have about our feelings — are at least partially responsible for this lesser sense of wellness.
In other words, concern about happiness is where trouble tends to start. Comparing your current state of happiness to a goal state foments negative meta-emotions. As you shift focus from how you’re actually feeling to your feelings about your feelings, you may become disheartened that you’re not feeling as happy as you believe you ought to.
Better, the researchers conclude, to accept whatever you’re feeling at face value without comparing it to an imagined state of happiness. Your attitude toward and pursuit of happiness bear as much on your wellbeing as how happy you actually are.
