Making Happy People: The nature of happiness and its origins in childhood. Paul Martin

      One of the many reasons why happy children tend to do better in school is because happiness boosts mental performance. Children (and adults) are faster at learning and faster at performing mental tasks when they are in a happy mood than when they are feeling low. Experiments have demonstrated, for example, that children are up to 50 per cent faster at solving mental arithmetic problems when they are in a good mood.

      Happiness and success continue to be intertwined in adult life. Happy people are typically more energetic, more sociable, more creative and more decisive than unhappy people. They feel more in control of their lives and are more optimistic. These characteristics help them to achieve and succeed in whatever they are doing. Unhappy people, on the other hand, are more inclined to be passive, introspective and indecisive – characteristics that can get in the way of achievement, both in the workplace and elsewhere.

      One crucial ingredient of both happiness and success is the ability to form and maintain personal relationships. Few jobs can be done really well by someone who cannot get on with other people. Another key ingredient is emotional literacy, which means being able to understand and respond appropriately to your own emotions and other people’s emotions. Again, it is hard to excel in most jobs if you are incapable of reading or dealing effectively with common emotions like anger, jealousy or anxiety.

      A basic level of social and emotional competence is essential for success in school or the workplace, as well as for happiness. Indeed, research suggests that social skills and emotional literacy have a bigger influence on work performance and career success than specific academic skills or intelligence (in the narrow, IQ, sense of the word). Knowing someone’s score on a conventional IQ test would enable you to make a relatively weak prediction about their future career success (provided their IQ was within the normal range). Other attributes such as social skills, emotional literacy, motivation, communication skills and resilience are usually far more significant in the long term.

      Creativity is another area where happiness is a powerful ally. Living, as we do, in a knowledge economy means that the ability to think creatively has become increasingly important in the world of work. More and more jobs depend on being able to generate original ideas and solve problems in ways that cannot be reduced to simple procedures. (Of course, even in the Stone Age, humans needed to innovate in order to survive and thrive, so there is nothing really new about this.) Numerous scientific studies have shown that happiness helps to stimulate creativity and problem-solving. For instance, in one experiment volunteers were given a candle, a box of matches and a box of drawing pins, and were challenged to attach the candle to the wall so that the wax would not drip on the floor. The creative solution was to empty the matchbox, pin it to the wall and use it as a candle-holder. The experimenters found that people were much more likely to solve the problem if they had first been put in a good mood by watching a funny film. Happiness (or, at least, a jolly mood) helped them to think creatively.

      Being happy systematically changes the way we view the world. When we are feeling low we tend to take a narrower and more defensive view: we concentrate on what is going wrong and search for solutions. When we are feeling happy, however, our thinking tends to become more expansive, more open-ended and more constructive. Instead of dwelling on specific problems, we look for new ways of doing things.

      Psychologists have discovered that people think more in terms of the big picture when they are in a happy mood, whereas they are inclined to focus on detail when feeling sad. In one study, volunteers were shown a drawing and were later asked to reproduce it from memory. Those who were feeling happy were better at reproducing the general effect of the drawing, whereas those who felt less happy tended to concentrate on specific details of the drawing and were worse at capturing its overall effect. The drawings produced by happy people were more recognisable and more like the original. (Incidentally, the connection between happiness and big-picture thinking implies that you might be better off tackling some tasks when you are not feeling especially joyful. Tasks that require a focus on detail and a defensive approach to problem-solving, such as filling in tax forms, buying a car or taking an exam, are probably better done when you are feeling a little restrained.)

      Converging evidence that we see the world in a more open-minded way when we are happy has led the American psychologist Barbara Fredrickson to develop her ‘broaden-and-build’ theory of positive emotions. Fredrickson argues that positive emotions like feeling happy have evolved over the course of human evolutionary history because they help individuals to survive and reproduce. And they do this by broadening our repertoire of thoughts and actions. Feeling joyful or happy makes us more playful, more curious, more creative, more sociable and more reflective. This widening of perspective enables us to build up our physical, mental, emotional and social resources when the going is good. We can later draw upon these resources if faced with an opportunity or a threat. For instance, a happy person will tend to be more sociable and outgoing, which in turn will strengthen their personal relationships. When the going gets rough, these relationships might be crucial to their well-being. By broadening our range of thoughts and actions, Fredrickson argues, positive emotions make us more resilient and better able to cope with adversity.

      An obvious parallel can be drawn here between happiness and play. Children and young animals of many other species spend a lot of their time engaged in seemingly pointless activity known as play. A hallmark of play, as opposed to ‘serious’ behaviour, is that it appears to have no immediate benefits. In fact, play does have important benefits, but these are mostly long-term. By playing, the individual acquires valuable skills and experiences, and develops their physical, social and mental skills. Play is about building foundations for the future. We shall return to play later.

      As well as being good for parents and good for children, happiness is good for organisations and for society as a whole. On average, happy employees perform better at their jobs, have lower levels of absenteeism, and are less likely to quit than unhappy employees. Studies have found that happy workers are typically more satisfied with their jobs, more productive and more persistent. They aim for higher goals and earn more money. In fact, the general level of personal happiness among employees is a better predictor of good performance and low staff turnover than how satisfied they specifically feel about their jobs. In the long term, happiness is a stronger motivator than money.

      The clear implication of all this is that any enlightened organisation should regard improving the happiness of its employees as a legitimate and important business objective. Organisations could seek to do this in various ways – for example, by enabling individuals to maintain a better work-life balance, developing their skills, making them feel valued, and helping them to maintain good physical and mental health. The dreary reality is that few organisations think in this way. Happiness receives no mention in most companies’ strategic plans or annual objectives.

      Outside school or the workplace, happiness continues to work its spell in myriad ways. If, like most people, you believe that being popular and having lots of friends is an indicator of success, then happiness is what you should be chasing, both for yourself and your children. One of the most consistent characteristics of happy people is that they get on well with others. Research confirms that happy people are generally more sociable, more empathetic, more cooperative, more generous, more energetic and more competent in their dealings with others. Happiness and sociability go hand in hand. One of the recurring themes in this book is that personal relationships are of central importance to happiness.

      Research has also shown that we have a higher quantity and quality of social interactions when we are happy. For instance, experiments have demonstrated that people become measurably more sociable and outgoing when they are put in a good mood (by showing them an amusing film, for example). Happy people find social encounters more satisfying, they adopt a less cautious social style, and they are more inclined to be cooperative and generous. What is more, this link between sociability and happiness works both ways: sociable people become happier and happy people become more sociable, creating a virtuous circle. On the flip side, unhappiness can erode social relationships. Individuals suffering from low mood or mild depression are apt to behave in ways that elicit negative responses, which in turn adds to their unhappiness.

      The mutually reinforcing connection between unhappiness and social isolation is illustrated by Moaning Myrtle, the doleful ghost in J. K. Rowling’s