The dark side of happiness | June Gruber | TEDxCambridge

Yale psychologist June Gruber asks whether, in a culture obsessed with pursuing happiness, it's possible to have too much of a good thing.

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So I'm here today to talk about something

that is clearly near and dear
to all of our hearts:

happiness, right?

But what I want to do is approach it
from a somewhat unusual perspective

by asking the question

of whether or not - can there be
a dark side of happiness?

Is this a really odd question to ask?

Am I a hater of happiness?

Where are we going here?

So we know that happiness is something
that's gained a lot of recent attention.

We see an explosion
in the scientific study of happiness

as well as this overwhelming surge
of attention in the pop culture media.

We see books like "The Happiness Project,"

"Stumbling on Happiness,"

"Authentic Happiness,"

"The How of Happiness,"

"The Art of Happiness"

and a recent favorite of mine
that I discovered,

"Get Happy Today" with the dolphin
emerging out of the ocean.

(Laughter)

Not quite sure how that works.

We also see this evident
in the pharmaceutical industry, right?

We see like almost skyrocketing rate
in prescriptions for antidepressants,

ranging from Prozac to Paxil to Cymbalta.

So where are we going here?

Is there some basis for this upward trend
towards greater and greater happiness?

And I would suggest, well, yes,

there is some scientific basis
that psychologists have found

that suggests why
positive emotion and happiness

might actually be good for us.

What do we think these things are?

Well, we know that they build
vital social bonds,

it enhances creative thinking

and also builds
physical immunity to stressors.

So should we just continue
on this upward and upward trend

towards greater happiness?

Or should we stop,
take a step back and ask ourselves,

Is happiness unconditionally
always a good thing?

I'm going to suggest,
as the title of my talk indicates, yes,

that like everything in life,
there's two sides to every story,

and happiness,

Why should it be any exception?

And so what I want to do now

is turn ourselves to thinking
about this other side of happiness

or what some people like to think about
as a dark side of happiness.

(Laughter)

Thank you.

I'm going to take us
on a journey into the dark side,

and I'm going to start by echoing -
I think a lot of us like to echo -

some of the ancient observations
that philosophers knew way long before us,

and we're just sort of catching up.

So here's a quote by Aristotle,

who had some really keen insights
into the human condition about emotion.

He said, "Getting angry or sad
is easy and anyone can do it;

but doing it in the right amount
at the right time and in the right way

is not easy nor can everyone do it."

I want to pluck out three themes here

and take them on our journey
into the dark side of happiness.

I want to look at the amount of happiness,

the timing of happiness

and the way in which we become happy.

So let's start to take these themes
into the dark side,

looking at the amount,
the time and the way.

I'm going to start with this first theme,
looking at the amount.

Here, I want to ask the question,

Can there ever be too much
of a good thing?

Well, we know that the relationship
between happiness and well-being or health

is not a straightforward line.

In fact, it seems to look somewhat
more like an upside down or inverted U.

So let me show you what I mean by that.

So here we have a graph

with health up here
and happiness down here.

So what we've seen so far

is that, well, higher doses of happiness
seem to be associated with greater health.

Okay.

But as we start to pass
a critical tipping point,

this truism about happiness
seems to unwind,

where we start to see
that the benefits unravel

and they actually become associated
with negative consequences.

And so what might some of these be?

Well, on the one hand,

we see that extreme degrees of happiness

are actually associated
with less creativity

and a greater increase
in a host of negative behaviors,

ranging from risk-taking
to alcohol and drug use

and an increased risk of mental illness.

And in my lab, we've looked
at this latter - cause of mental illness -

specifically finding
that extreme degrees of happiness

are associated with an increased
risk for and diagnosis of mania,

which is a component of bipolar disorder.

Let me give you a preview
into what that looks like here.

I find this quote really,
really appropriate.

So here we see,

"The case for the dangers
of positive emotions

is made most straightforwardly
by individuals with mania.

Their joy is infectious, their optimism
and self-confidence unbounded.

One manic may give away
his life savings on a whim,

while another joyfully drives
100 miles an hour to a sexual liaison

with a potentially dangerous stranger."

So I hope what I've showed you here

is the relationship between happiness
and health is not straightforward,

and, in fact, suggests

at some point, there may be
too much of a good thing,

when we get past that critical threshold.

Okay.

So now I want to look at the timing.

Is happiness always a good thing
in every context?

Or can there be a wrong time
for happiness?

And here I want to give two examples
where I think it may be the case.

One of them looks at competition.

So we find that situations
in which people are competitive -

so imagine you're trying
to win an athletic tournament

or beat someone on a game of chess,

Do you want to be feeling happy?

What would you think?

What might be the appropriate emotion

you want to feel?

Well, what researchers find
is that the more happy you feel,

the less well you perform
on these situations

and that people who perform better
on these situations are actually angrier.

So happiness is not always adaptive
in these situations.

My lab has looked at the context of loss.

So here we find -

we bring people into the lab,

we have them watch sad movies,
depicting things of death and dying.

It's a nice lab to be in.

We also have them interact with strangers

as well as intimate romantic partners

sharing times of
extreme suffering and loss.

And what we find

is that those individuals

who continue to remain happy
at high levels in these situations

are at greater risk
for emotional impairment

as well as - so poorer functioning
in their everyday lives.

So this suggests that you don't want
to be happy all the time

and you don't want
to be happy in every context.

In some, the timing of happiness
is really crucial.

And so now I want to conclude
with our final question here,

looking at the way
in which we become happy.

Specifically, I want to think about,

Can there be wrong ways
to pursue happiness?

Since we all want to become happy -

we're reading these books,

we're thinking, seeing it in the media -

Are there actually wrong ways
to pursue this path?

So does anyone recognize
what this is here?

Okay, good.

So this is the Declaration
of Independence,

and it seems ingrained in us as Americans

that we hold true "Life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness."

Right? So this is sort of one
of our core cultural values,

but yet should we
always be pursuing happiness?

What do you think I'm going to say here?

No. And why?

So there's some really,
really provocative work

coming out by Iris Mauss, a psychologist,

suggesting that there's
a group of us out here,

perhaps some in the audience today,

who highly value happiness,

that this is a core value in their life.

They expend efforts to become happy,

they consider it a core
component of who they are,

and they put just enormous amounts
of their mental attention

towards ways to become happy:

"How can I become happier?
What can I do? Where can I go?"

What do you think happens
with these people?

Well, they're actually setting
a very high happiness standards - right? -

for where they ought to be,

for where that path
toward ultimate happiness should lie.

And what happens when we set up
high standards or high expectations?

We often become disappointed

because we usually are not meeting
standards when they're very high,

and this applies even to happiness.

And this is especially evident
in contexts that are positive or pleasant,

so situations where we expect
to experience some degree of happiness.

So this paradoxical effect

is that there's people
who value happiness,

they set up high standards.

By doing so, they end up
actually feeling disappointed,

and as a result, they feel less happiness.

So it's those who try to be happy

are those who actually can
set themselves up to become less happy.

And we've seen this:

not only that people
report less happiness,

but they also show
increased symptoms of depression,

and in recent work,

we found they show
increased symptoms of mania,

a component of bipolar disorder -

having this zest or almost obsession
with the pursuit of happiness.

And so in many ways,

this hearkens back to ancient,
you know, observations

that people have seen years before
a lot of the psychologists got on board

with the happiness train,

which is that

"Those only are happy

who have their minds fixed on some object
other than their own happiness."

And so I just want to conclude
with a few take-home themes.

One of them is that I don't think
happiness is bad, by any means.

I think it's a really crucial component

of our daily lives.

It's what gives us meaning
and gives us a reason to thrive.

But the second message
I want to take home today

is that happiness
needs to be treated carefully;

it needs to be experienced in moderation.

So not too much.

It needs to be experienced
in the right context.

So timing is crucial.

And we shouldn't strive
to be happy all the time, every time.

And then finally,
as you saw that quote there,

it's really important to not be
so focused on becoming happy,

but instead, as many sort of ancient
Buddhist traditions really strive,

to just accept your current
emotion state as it is,

accept whatever degree of happiness
you may have in the moment

and just let it come as it will.

So with that, I hope that I've provided
a sort of broader portrait of happiness

as this really fascinating
but complex phenomena

that indeed has two sides
and possibly even a dark side.

And so with that,
I just want to thank you.

If you want to shoot me a note,
I'm right there.

[[e-mail]]

(Applause)

Thanks.