Happiness seems to make people more selfish

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According to findings from a new study, happiness seems to make people more selfish.

Here's the news article:
NewScientist - Happiness ain't all it's cracked up to be

...so I've probably been very selfish lately and probably still am...

Interesting . . . that would explain why rich people (or people in any high position in a society) just want more. Could be said that happiness can induce introversion and paranoia (those that have a lot fear losing it all). Personally, ive come to view happiness as being related to one's state of "misery" theyre comfortable with . . . but this study shows something Ive not considered. Granted, i guess it would explain why those of intelligence are never happy . . . if we werent, we'd not likely think outside the box that much .

Maybe I'm just being arrogant but I don't think that applies to me.

If I'm feeling happy, I like to help someone else feel happy too, however I might do that.

If I'm in a s**t mood, I don't feel like being other-focused at all.

Indeed, it's the proverbial "taking things for granted." Contentment is an escape from reality.

Happiness literally makes people more autistic, socially.

That is some interesting material.
On the other hand
Although

I think it is better not to be happy because:

Happy:
Openness to new experiences and gregariousness, but they also generate a lack of attention to detailed information and recklessness, happy people are less able to develop a persuasive argument, more gullible and worse at remembering objects in a shop window than their unhappy fellows, happy people are also more likely to be influenced by stereotypes.
Unhappy:
Low levels of happiness generate introspection and the careful processing of information, where choices must be carefully made, a negative mood produces a thinking style that is more detailed and attentive, and pays more attention to the demands of the external environment.

I am attentive to detail even when happy.

I suspect I'm actually MORE detail oriented when happy, because 'happy' is usually mixed with 'hyperactive' for me, thus more thinking and more searching for detail.

When I'm unhappy I'm less able to concentrate, and more likely to just throw a fit or go off and 'recover' by listening to music or eating some unhealthy s**t than do any rational thinking.

I don't believe in the media.
Before 9/11, the news and stuff like Oprah had stupid (immoral) stories
like...
"It's OK to lie"
"greed is good"
and I just forgot the other one I remembered.
I suppose that was the starting gun for the race to bailouts,
begged for in corporate jets by CEOs getting multimillion dollar bonuses.

Two years ago, a product with negative star rating on Amazon,
because it had a serious computer virus, was reported as #1 desirable gift
for Christmas 2008 on the NY Times' top ten list.
Have you noticed the "commercial news spots"?

Before that, Boston media and officials fueled a terror panic
sparked by "lite brite" ads for a cartoon then known as ATHF,
Everyone laughed while the boom squads blew up the signs just for the overtime.

When I'm content I spend less and have more for gifts.

One of my favorite short movies almost agrees with your OP,
but since most happy stories have sad endings I ignore the endings.
If its still on Youtube its called
Mark Osborne MORE

(Link not yet posted)

In a mediocre world where "happy" is a mass consumable product,
a worker is sad, remembering the true simple happiness of youth.
It fills his body with a burning desire for more
and he invents a greater product called "BLISS". - my summary.

I am inspired in part by all but the end, which doesn't apply to myself.

I don't quite see what that has to do with selfish.


A questionnaire? Who in their right mind would use that to judge happiness? It's been known for a while now that being happy and thinking your happy are two completely separate things.



A movie is meant to be enjoyable whether gloomy or funny. So this whole part of the experiment is void.


If not giving tickets to people who already have the same number of tickets as you is selfish, then there is some serious problems with my definition of selfish. I usually think of selfish as unfair. But apparently I'm wrong if this guy is right, because we can't both be right here.

The study is poorly made, and the results are explained be other variables, making this whole thing a complete waste of time. Forgas should be fired for spouting nonsense and backing it up with nonsense and than having other people believe nonsense because they think Forgas knows something.

This article proves nothing.

First of all no one is "really happy" unless you've managed to end all suffering in your life like some of the buddhist monks have.

This test is stupid, look they measured happiness on a level scale after giving THINGS to people.

Things = false happiness so this is silly.

I've met people in absolute destitution - living in conditions that most people would be terrified at the prospects of - who were happier than anyone I've ever met, and some of the most generous people I've ever met. I think, perhaps, the idea that happiness is a general feeling that presupposes outside influences and circumstances would likely meet the criteria of the outline presented in the article, but happiness has many different depths that are more difficult to measure by statistical analysis. Happiness based on the material sense (E.G. having luxuries and commodities to spare, having most basic needs met, etc...) would seem to be to be a superfluous anomaly that fades once a person's desire for more than what one needs overrides any contentment that could be found otherwise. Happiness, in my understanding, is intrinsically linked to the ability of a person to be content regardless of their circumstances. This can be a difficult thing to accept, despite how simple it may be.

Are the saying that company loves misery?

ruveyn

Interesting article. But I agree with TXaspie. The use of the word happy here is stupid. I'd describe it as 'pleasure'. If I'm suicidal and then watch half an episode of fawlty towers, I don't suddenly become happy, but I may feel a slight elevation in mood, due to the hit of pleasure chemicals. But that's not happiness. You ever know a junkie you'd call happy?

Buddhists talk of the 'happiness independent of conditions'. That's more like real happiness. Everything else is just pleasures, and transient.

Anyway... If this is all true and getting pleasure makes you greedy and stupid, and not getting it makes you sharper and more persuasive, then eventually you'll find the initially pleasured subjects losing opportunities for further pleasure, and the ones who'd missed out before catching them. So it's a self balancing system. I'd imagine that if you plot any relatively healthy human's 'happiness' on a chart, you'd see something like a sinusoidal cycle.

As an aside, they don't talk about why the pleasured folks get greedy with the tokens. I'd imagine it's because that little hit of endorphins or whatever in the blood is washing out, so they bogart the tokens hoping to get the rush back. It's drug addiction/withdrawal.

it cracks me up they used Fawlty Towers for the happy part.

increased wealth = increased greed.
the poor are easily entertained, so they do not need to accumulate so much money.