The Happiness Advantage By Shawn Achor

In society there are still differences in classes such as higher class, middle class, and lower class. In sociology, we observed a film called The Pursuit Happyness, where we witnessed the struggles a father went through to succeed. Chris Gardner, who was played by Will Smith, is living in his apartment with his wife and his son. Due to their struggles, the mother walks out on and leaves Chris struggling alone with his son. In the film Chris Gardner applies for an unpaid internship for a competitive stockbroker company where out of twenty men, only one gets the job. While he is on his internship, we see the hardships of getting kicked out of his apartment to staying at a shelter home to then sleeping in a subway bathroom with his son. Viewing the movie through a sociological lens, The Pursuit of Happyness will be analyzed according to the major three sociological paradigms: structural functionalism, social conflict theory, and symbolic interactionalism.

Within The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, he mentions that there are two ancient truths concerning how the mind works. The first truth is the foundational idea of the book: the mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict with each other. The second truth is Shakespeare’s idea about how “thinking makes it so.” (or, as Buddha said, “Our life is the creation of our mind.”) Like a rider, on the back of an elephant, the conscious, reasoning part of the mind has only limited control of what the elephant does. Nowadays, we know the cause of these divisions, and a few ways to help the rider and the elephant work as a better team. We can improve this ancient idea today by explaining why most people’s minds have a bias toward seeing threats and engaging in useless worry. To change this bias, we can use three techniques to increase happiness, one ancient, and two very new.

The Happiness Project is all about ways on how to find happiness within yourself and your family. This book contains steps that can help you to achieve genuine happiness. Also, it tells the reader that no matter what you do, happiness must come with it. There will be struggles that you will need to face before achieving genuine happiness. It is just a matter of accepting what it is and letting go of the things that holds you back in order to feel the happiness in your life.

This book is unusually short because it simply provides activities you can do today, proven by scientific research to increase your happiness. Inspirational videos are included to give you added motivation. References are included if you want to verify the proven research. However, the best way to verify the research is to try the activities and see if they work for you. Not every activity will work for every person.

In chapter two of Happiness: The science behind your smile, Daniel Nettle describes and elaborates on the happiness system. The happiness system entails a philosophy that motivates and encourages an individual to acquire perishable objects and fervently seek circumstances that will ultimately lead to happiness. This system promises to “be constantly scanning the horizon on the lookout for a better environment, a better social network, a better mode of behaviour” (Nettle, 62). It is based on discovering new and better opportunities for an individual in order to increase his or her happiness by, for instance, becoming the CEO of a well-known company, obtaining a six-figure salary, or purchasing

I recently went out to eat with my mom and brother. We went to a Chinese place at the Park City mall. I always get a bunch of fortune cookies. One of the fortunes that received from a cookie had on it; develop an appreciation for the present moment. I ended up keeping the fortune because it stuck out to me because it reminded me of the FYS, and one of the chapters in The How of Happiness book is about living in the present. “There’s a clever cartoon from the New Yorker that has three panels. In the first, a man is sitting at his desk and daydreaming about playing golf. In the second panel, the same man is playing golf while fantasizing about sex. In the third, he is in bed with a woman while thinking about work. Like the man in the Cartoon,

The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want by Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky is simultaneously an academic book and comprehensive guide about positive psychology and it’s applications in daily life. Dr. Lyubomirsky provides not only facts and figures to back up her science but also includes quizzes and exercises for the reader to learn more about himself or herself in context with the book. The book is broken down into 3 different sections: How to Attain Real and Lasting Happiness, Happiness Activities, and Secrets to Abiding Happiness.

In the article Does Money Buy Happiness? author Robert Easterlin discusses happiness, and what contributes and detracts from it. He also addresses the socio-economic paradigms that are of great influence to happiness, and of course, the correlation between happiness and the income of individuals and the correlation between happiness and the income of an entire country. Easterlin takes data from various sources to support the claims in his article.

After reading the article “Happiness Is an Inside Job” Robert Puff, I came to multiple conclusions regarding cognitive psychology and conflict management. Ultimately, the overall lesson portrayed in the article was the notion that only each individual has control over their emotions. Although emotions may be elevated by certain individuals or specific stressful situations, in the end, the conscious choice between joy, anger, and sadness lies completely at our own mercy. The article refers to the emotion of happiness as being an inside job. Again, this simply means that we control our own happiness. In order for human beings to fulfill their right to happiness, there are certain methods one can practice. For example, as mentioned in the article,

Cognitive psychology is based on the interaction between thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Every mind has to process events and decide how to react; conflict management helps to evaluate situations and move forward in the best way. In order to manage conflicts, one must step back and assess what makes him feel this certain way. In the article Happiness is an Inside Job, Robert Puff elaborates on how to present and happy to rid of the suffering.

What is required to be happy? Is it a 6.5-liter, V12, 8400 rpm, 740 hp, 4.5 million dollars Lamborghini Veneno? Perhaps something that isn’t as expensive, just a new pair of shoes? How about success? What it is that determines success? The reality is, it rests on your individual definition of what success is. Success is interpreted in a multitude of fashions. Success can be interpreted as living with monetary steadiness, perhaps it is

Success and happiness have a certain correlation with one another, both being extremely subjective. Happiness can be a measure of success. While some people might feel their happiest with expensive items and excess money, happiness, parallel to success, goes beyond the physical items and ties in with emotion. For example, simply feeling loved equates with being happy. When considering success, let the level of happiness be taken into account. Although the epitome of mainstream success is of fiscal irresponsibility and popularity, appears to invite happiness, everything is not always as it

The study randomly assigned participants to either express an optimism and gratitude letter. Whereby the control group generate a list of activities from the previous week over the course of an 8 week period. Well-being was measured instantly before and after, for a 6 months intervention period. According to the article, the results of the study indicates that performance of an “optimistic thinking” activity predicted a much greater maintained change in subject well-being compare to a control condition. In contrast to Seligman et al. (2005), happiness-enhancing activities can maintain a person’s well-being improvements for up to 6 months. The activities that was best believed to maintain a person’s well-being were: positive emotion pleasure, engaged in a positive matter in life and lastly, having a meaningful life were the better route to increase happiness. The researchers examined whether the three interventions will increase lastingly happiness and decreased depressive symptoms. In the study, participants were fully aware of the conditions to embellish

According to “ Happiness Is The Key” (October,2015), 60% of women in The United States of America said that happiness is something that people can not control and 40% of men, also in The United States of America, said that people are the ones who choose to be happy. But what is happiness? Happiness is a balanced state of mind where a person is satisfied, joyful, grateful, and has a great spirit. This paper argues

A powerful quote said by pre-socratic philosopher named Democritus says “Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul”. In other words, happiness does not come from materialism but instead from the things money can’t buy. In the article The Secret of Happiness the author David Myers writes directly to Americans about how he believes we need to obtain a new “American Dream” that emphasizes personal happiness instead of materialistic happiness. Myers also believes happiness resides in the soul and he says people that think money is the key to happiness are actually less content with themselves and he uses various ways to prove this point. With that being said materialistic happiness vs personal happiness is an important issue, and Myers made a strong use of Logos by showing surveys and studies, Ethos by showing credibility in his argument but he could have used more Pathos by using more emotion and enthusiasm in his argument.