Single Positive Events Don’t Make Us Happy, Numerous Little Ones Do!
This article is from the Journal Of Economic Psychology and provides us with some simple insights to managing our happiness. If small numerous positive events make us more happy than large single events, the trick to being a happy value investor is counting the embedded small victories present in our few investment decisions. (Click here to read the full article on positive events and happiness)
Article Introduction & Excerpts(Via BPS Research Digest)
“This capacity to adapt to life circumstances and return to baseline levels of happiness has been dubbed the “hedonic treadmill”, and while it is reassuring in the face of bad events, the implication for policy makers is that there is little they can do to improve the population’s happiness.”
“Mochon’s team have tested the idea that whereas rare, massive events have no lasting effect on happiness, the cumulative effect of lots of little boosts may well have the power to influence happiness over the longer-term.”
“Rather it seems like the key for long lasting changes to well-being is to engage in activities that provide small and frequent boosts, which in the long run will lead to improved well-being, one small step at a time.”
“So what are the policy implications for this new research. The researchers said single-shot events such as a tax cut will probably have little impact on people’s happiness. By contrast, “policies that lead to small but repeated gains are likely to succeed.”
Click here to read the full article on positive events and happiness
