The Science Of Happiness

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Happiness is like honey, a very strange thing. A huge volume of publications, both strictly scientific, and just to chat, like everything has already been spoken and negotiated. But the problem is that it is not entirely clear what is meant by this word. "Happiness" is like "beauty" or "soul" there. Therefore, if you take any neuroscientific article written clearly, specifically and to the point, it turns out that they promised to tell something about happiness, but talk about the reward system. And within the framework of general psychology, the texts constantly slide into general discourses on the topic of all good versus all bad, and how good it is to be happy and healthy. Plus, every time I have a strong feeling that specialists in the field of psychology of positive emotions constantly confuse personal and just business, and from their white-toothed scout enthusiasm, my eyes twitch and sore. But perhaps this is an individual reaction. There are common happiness screening tests, but the problem with them is that they are quite subjective. The most popular ones are the subjective scale of happiness and the index of subjective satisfaction with life, 4 questions on a 7-point scale. In general, these questions boil down to "Are you happy? - Yes / No / Well, here and there." That is not to say that these questionnaires dig deeply and somehow seriously objectify the question. Of course, we always have tomographs, but firstly, go and shove a happy person into fMRI, and secondly and most importantly, it is absolutely unclear what to do with the results. There are still animal models, but again, the big question is how homologous is the rat's joy from an unexpected meeting with a lump of sugar and the happiness of serving his people, for example.

But in any case, one way or another, everything ultimately rests on the reward system.

I. Theoretical Foundations of Happiness Functional Anatomy of Happiness. One of the key players is the orbitofrontal cortex (hereinafter OFC). There, incentives are assessed, the significance and value of a particular pleasure is exposed, preferences, choices are formed, and decisions are made. The front end of the OFC is more responsive to complex incentives - monetary, social, and so on; the back of the OFC are simple hedonistic pleasures - food, sex. The medial inner regions are active in relation to predicates of positive reinforcement, the lateral outer region responds to negative reinforcement and adverse stimuli. Although the OFC contains many mu-opiate receptors, it is most likely that this department does not directly create the feeling of satisfaction / dissatisfaction, it is there that the coding and evaluation of pleasure and the assembly of the final behavioral solution take place. Thus, the lateral OFC responds not so much to a negative stimulus per se as to evasion of trouble. I.e the punishment, which is inevitable anyway, causes much less excitement, rather than the same punishment that you can potentially do something about. In practice, this manifests itself known effect that humility and acceptance greatly relieves psychological discomfort in an unfavorable situation.

An example, a little to one side, - women in England and India were interviewed, their subjective happiness in family life was assessed. Among young women who recently married, Englishwomen were predictably happier than Hindus, because some married of their own free will and because of romantic love feelings, while their parents agreed for others, no one asked their opinion, they gave it to a stranger in a strange house. But among women who had been married for a long time, 10-15 years or more, the ratio changed to the opposite. When there are no easily accessible ways out of the situation, a person accepts, gets used to it, begins to receive his subjective satisfaction and lives on. "A habit is given to us from above, it is a substitute for happiness," - in fact, this is not a substitute, this is it.… And it is clear that the life of a woman in an Afghan village, or, I don’t know, in a Chinese village, is a fate from which any modern European girl will recoil in horror and disgust, but we must understand that this is all inside the head.

But back to the orbitofrontal cortex. A person with OFC does not lose the ability to rejoice or suffer, but loses much in emotional assessment, preferences, and adequate decisions.

The orbitofrontal cortex is intensively connected with the sections in the striatum. Striatum, also known as the striatum, is located in the center of the brain. Among many other functions, there are key hedonic hotspots, "hot keys" of pleasure. The most famous of them is the nucleus accumbens of the ventral striatum - Nucleus accumbens, and the inner parts of the pallidus of the dorsal striatum - Ventral pallidum. Their activity is revealed in a wide variety of reward chains. Nucleus accumbens is more responsive to emitted stimuli, i.e. to those subjective pleasures that clearly rise above the conventional basic level of rewards. It is known to everyone from everyday life that everything is cognized in comparison. Remember your childhood joy from the first and only car or doll regarding the situation when you have a full box of these toys and a new gift - just another in a row of the same ones. Or compare the subjective effect of your first self-earned money versus the same or larger amounts you receive monthly, year after year. Neurons do not have their own ideal chamber of measures and weights, and there are no reference metrics for assessing significance and pleasantness, all preferences are formed in relative and comparative categories

Another important node is the Ventral pallidum. Unlike nucleus accumbens it is no longer so much an "appraiser" as " molder »Primary hedonistic pleasure. The pallidum participates in the general limbic network of subcortical nodes and is engaged in a kind of reduction of the hedonistic impact with sensory inputs, emotional status, cognitive circuits, and motivational-behavioral decisions. In a pathological form, it is manifests itself, for example, in primary addictive attraction with various addictions (chemical, game, etc.). For a normal brain This ensures our interest in subjectively pleasing experiences … Simply put, it's like in a joke about Chinese Christmas tree decorations - "they look the same, but they don't make people happy." Cases of bilateral lesion of the ventral pallidum have been described - in these patients, the motivational significance of incentive stimuli and positive emotions significantly decreased, although formally they quite adequately assessed the subjective pleasantness of food, sexual and social stimuli. Thus, an anatomical "happy core" is formed, - pleasantness - attractiveness-preference, nucleus accumbens- ventral pallidum- orbitofrontal cortex. Of course, this is not limited to this, and many other departments are involved in ensuring our general satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with life. There are also the lower and internal parts of the prefrontal cortex (Ventromedial prefrontal cortex), where the medial prefrontal network is located, which is important for the formation of emotional response in particular, and provides conditioned “emotional intelligence. The upper and outer parts of the prefrontal cortex (Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), which ensure the effectiveness of working memory and cognitive-behavioral prosocial models, is the conditional “pre-individual social intelligence”. Anterior insular cortex, engaged in self-awareness, well-being and monitoring of internal sensations and experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant. Supplementary motor area, where prosocial behavior and interactions are assessed - I mentioned this department when I talked about laughter, this same department is involved in maintaining social hierarchies, - in chimpanzees, the accessory premotor nodes were activated when observing the actions of the dominant individuals of their group, relative to actions equal to or subordinate in the hierarchy. The main site of administration of cortical processes is the Cingulate cortex. For example, when the anterior cingulate cortex was damaged in rats, the ability to correctly compare the potential reward versus the required effort was lost. In the experience, it was possible to choose between a large reward, requiring effort to achieve, relatively easily accessible, but not very attractive reward (a lot of tasty food, for which one has to jump over the barrier and a little tasteless food that is available without effort). Healthy rats preferred to jump, and rodents with an affected ACC took what is simpler. A similar decrease in ACC activity was found in patients with anhedonia and decreased motivation in schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. Thus, the assessment of subjective happiness, satisfaction and contentment with life in general, with some particular events in particular, is a complex complex system, it is balance, interactions and balances. It is impossible to poke an electrode at some point in the brain and make a person happy (or unhappy). Chemistry and physiology of happiness In the general mechanics of subjective pleasure, “want” and “like” components can be distinguished. This is a rather conventional division; it has a psychological rather than biological meaning. There are no well-established analogous terms in Russian-language sources, and I find it difficult to translate correctly, which would not sound clumsy. "Desire" and "wanting"? "Attraction" and "satisfaction"? Letting go "want" and "like", I suppose, no one will have difficulty understanding these simple English words. Under " want"Means primarily the motivational component, - lack, desire, attraction, need, active interest, directed behavior … I.e it is the engine and driving force behind our pursuit of happiness, joy and pleasure. « Like"Is a direct hedonistic (ie simple, conditionally“animal”) or eudemonic (ie prosocial, conditionally“higher”) impact. This is directly subjective the pleasure we get from the promotion, assessment of positive reinforcement, degree of sympathy and involvement, all why we like “all good” and dislike “all bad”

Both of these components, want and like, "movement to" and "satisfaction from", are fundamental for the formation of final subjective satisfaction, normally they do not work separately. From popular science statements, we can conclude that want This dopamine system, but like opiate … Here you need to understand that this is a very gross simplification, balancing on the brink of the permissible. Without some coarseness, it is impossible to talk about such general concepts as "happiness", "love" and the like, and if you adhere to the exact correct formulations, this will be a text on a highly specific topic, difficult for a layman to understand (and not of interest, to be honest), so the authors of popular articles are forced to make some assumptions, but still, you should keep in mind that all this is very quoted. Dopamine is not a neurotransmitter of euphoric alertness, just as a lack of serotonin is not the same as depression. The function of the amygdala is not to make scary, and the nucleus accumbens is not a happiness factory. Well, etc. Indeed, there are dopamine pathways that begin in the Ventral tegmental area (lining of the midbrain), there are serotonin pathways that begin in the Raphe nuclei (the nucleus of the suture of the medulla oblongata), these are very, very deeply lying departments, the very bottom of the "reptilian" brain. There is also a network of opiate receptors, mainly in the striatum and prefrontal cortex (we are talking about mu-opiate receptors, as the most significant for human mental processes). All these receptors, plus endocannabinoid, norepinephrine, oxytocin and acetylcholine, plus 2 main brain mediators - inhibiting GABA and excitatory glutamate (primarily NMDA and AMPA) receptors - all this chemical machinery, it serves as the basis and foundation for mental processes, but these are not mental processes. An obvious and well-worn example is drug addiction. Psychostimulants - cocaine and amphetamine - act through the forced release of dopamine. Opiates (for example heroin), - acts through opiate receptors … Those want and like in a pure, chemical, pure form. A drug-intoxicated person receives powerful reinforcements that are inaccessible in ordinary life. Does this make drug addicts very happy? Rhetorical question. Everyone has heard the story of rats with electrodes implanted in pleasure centers, which endlessly pressed the key, and as a result, they died there at the lever. At the turn of the 60s-70s, similar experiments were carried out with people. In 1972, a young man had electrodes implanted in the striatum area. His name was not disclosed, in the descriptions it appears as "patient B-19". Electrical stimulation caused him the strongest mental and sexual arousal, in conditions of unlimited access to the lever, he made series of 1000 or more presses, very actively resisted attempts to take away the button from him, i.e. in general, the behavior was similar to experimental animal models. But at the same time, he did not get any actual pleasure; during the observation period, his subjective rating of happiness and satisfaction with life fell sharply and catastrophically; what was happening could rather be described as an acute, painful and uncontrollable attraction that has no outlet and does not bring relief. Subsequently, such experiments were discontinued for ethical reasons, but deep brain stimulation is currently experiencing a rebirth. The modern technical level allows for a much more accurate placement of electrodes, injuries and the risks of complications are small, and this method in the foreseeable future may become an effective and technical alternative to psychosurgery, insulin-coma and electroconvulsive therapy that has gone out of the way. In particular, the Japanese now have a lot of interesting works on the topic, while in Western countries they are still cautiously assessing the prospects for DBS. Anticipating possible questions - no, superpowers will not work out of this. No, there won't be a slag either. There is no matrix either. If the technology of deep brain stimulation works, then, as always, it will be boring, difficult, expensive and not with us. With rigid formalized indications. Perhaps we can treat severe forms of depressive and anxiety disorders that defy any other treatment. Maybe some forms of epilepsy. If you are very lucky, it will be possible, if not to treat, then at least to stabilize and inhibit pathological processes in schizophrenia. At present, the technology is still of experimental scientific interest, not clinical. Science is moving in all directions at once, and most of the seemingly promising methods end up in zilch, and one should be very careful about various "breakthrough" innovations, so I am very skeptical about different stories about ampakines, the possibilities of transcranial magnetic stimulation, the potential of metacognitive psychotherapy. and so on. But in this particular case, I really hope that everything will work out with deep brain stimulation. I am ready to go and light a candle, - "Pussy Riot, holy martyrs, save me, do not let me disappear, lead me through the thorns." In general, we are all knocking on wood and keeping our fingers crossed for another 5-7 years. Well, we stock up on popcorn, because if it dances, it will be such a shit that no GMO dreamed of.

II. Applied Happiness Mechanics Optional Happiness In many works on positive psychology, the independent value of happiness, positive emotions and, in general, well-being as a general category of subjective satisfaction with life is accepted as a basic axiom that does not require clarification and clarification. " All people want to be happy ", “Everyone strives to be happy,” “no one will give up happiness,” and so on. in different variations. In fact, this statement is not so obvious at all. And, in fact, why do all people want to be happy (or should be happy)? How is it? That is, if you understand "happiness" as something indefinitely Big Warm and Soft, and speak in that sense,that people like it when it is good and do not like it when it is bad - then at this level, yes, everyone strives for happiness. But this is a too smeared category, there is nothing to cling to, and there is nothing to talk about. If you look objectively, then it turns out that not a single category, inevitably necessary for all, does not exist. There are no obligatory universal predictors of happiness. Family and Children? No. Work and career? No. Spiritual growth? No. Material well-being? No. Mental peace and comfort? No. Activity and aspiration? No. Any category can be challenged. Find a counter argument for any argument. The concept of happiness and dignified, in all senses of "good" life - has been discussed from the beginning of time, from the inception of philosophical thought, from the Greeks and the Chinese. But in our modern form, this is a fairly fresh interpretation. Only during the last century, or even the last couple of generations, has the public focused on the value of the subjective mental state. In the modern world, subjective well-being - what a person feels, what he experiences, his inner emotional world and psychological comfort - has become at least as significant (and possibly more significant) as what he does and what he achieves. It seems to us now an unshakable axiom, but some Victorian gentleman simply would not understand what this is about. I want to emphasize that I am not at all going to rally for the good old against the new spineless, which nowadays are entirely emo-infantiles, but before the men spoke in the spirit of G. M. Stanley. "Dr. Livingston, I presume?" It's about something else. The concept of happiness in its current form is a modern obsession, an obsession in the modern world. This was not always the case (which does not mean at all that it was better before). And like any overvalued idea, it has its excesses. Paradoxically, excessive and unrestrained concentration on issues of inner harmony, mental well-being and mental comfort has a maladaptive and harmful effect on this very harmony, well-being and comfort.… This paradox is visible, because any overvalued idea is harmful, even if it is a supernatural idea about the absence of overvalued ideas.

The arbitrariness of happiness No specific endpoint behavioral manifestations are necessary or sufficient for subjective happiness and well-being. "Happiness in your personal life"? And why? And what will happen? And who said that there is no way without it? "Good luck in job"? Again, why all of a sudden? And not what? Because personal experience and intuition suggest this? Not a very reliable source, let's face it. Residents of developed countries of Southeast Asia (Japan, Singapore) have subjective happiness scale indicators that are significantly and significantly lower relative to Western countries with a similar level of well-being. And the residents of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean have the opposite - they are noticeably happier than one would expect based on the level of their economic development. The source I got this information from is a fairly orthodox guide to positive psychology. The author there, in such a neo-Russianist vein, commented on the topic that some are sandwiched robots in a corporate anthill, while others have palm trees, a beach, a coconut in one hand, a joint in the other hand, a chiquita in the third (I am dramatizing, there, of course, everything was stated much more correctly). Does this mean that the Japanese are living worse than the Cubans? No, nothing like that. Presumably, they have many other values and significant moments in life that do not fall under the Western concept of personal happiness and pass by the low-power radars of the SHS and SWLS questionnaires. That is, we have two shores that you can more or less grab onto. On the one hand, there is a global and most general understanding of happiness in terms of “all good versus all bad”. On the other hand, there are the clicking relays of the reward systems of the mesocortical and cortico-striatal pathways. And between them is the fog over the Yangtze. Fragrant as the hair of a celestial fox.

Sociality of happiness The main question of life, the Universe and everything else: is it possible to sit in a nutshell and feel like the king of infinite space? I dont know. On the one hand, we are absolutely social creatures. Actually, what we mean when we say “we” is a derivative of the social function of the organism. The brain produces the psyche in the same way that the intestines produce digestive secretions, and the endocrine glands produce hormones. But our self-consciousness exists only within the limits of this functional activity, therefore it is difficult (if not impossible at all) for us to separate ourselves from our own mental processes. It is easy for us to say - “my stomach hurts” or “my leg is numb”, but how to say “I am numb and aching”? The vast majority of our pleasures (and displeases) are socially preconditioned, socially secured and have social outlets. Even simple hedonistic rewards are prosocial, otherwise we would be content with dry rations and masturbation.

On the other hand, the normal psyche is stable. Brain it's a damn gyroscope. He stabilizes and comes to equilibrium from any position … Approximately 30% of the population experiences mental disorders of the neurotic register in one form or another, usually a depressive and / or anxious circle. And this is in conditions of a calm, prosperous life. Meanwhile, in the course of human history, people have repeatedly arranged hell on earth for other people. One would expect that under the Khmer Rouge or in Nazi concentration camps, everyone would go to bed in vital depression. But this is not happening. Barbed wire, machine gunners, a mountain of corpses - what else does a person need for a good deployed depressive triad? It's such a post-traumatic stress disorder that you can't imagine more post-traumatic and stressful. Meanwhile, the psyche drives out of any impenetrable nightmare. Healthy psyche, I mean. Patients with complete bilateral paralysis. The only contact is through the eye tracking equipment, through the eye tracking interface. In fact, it is a living consciousness trapped in a corpse. 72% of patients rate their well-being as “moderately or very happy”. 21% as “moderately or severely unhappy” and 7% suffer so much that they would like to be euthanized. The data is taken from an article on this equipment, and the authors mostly bragged about how they improve the quality of life of critically ill patients, so you need to make a discount on this. But nevertheless, eye tracking eye tracking, and undoubtedly, the technology is wonderful, and you can only applaud standing up, but the very fact that people can be happy, and really happy, even from this position. Absolute gyroscope. Monetizing happiness

Money illusion is one of the most widespread and stable ones. In words, everyone knows that money is not happiness, but this is mostly perceived as greasy nonsense. Formally, it is, of course, yes, but you understand, brother, that is how it is, but life in general is such a difficult thing, and without money, well, you understand, I was not born yesterday, yes. Everyone is interested in money, so there is a lot of data. The first was started by Daniel "Our Everything" Kahneman, back in the early 80s, but apart from him there is a lot of research. We looked at the ratio of well-being and welfare for American households, from the poorest (below $ 10,000 / year per person) to the richest (around 250,000 / year). It is clear that there are both poorer, there are also richer, but within these limits, you can collect a lot of statistics. First, people were asked how they believed income affects their subjective well-being, and what the gap between the rich and the poor would be in the life satisfaction index. Interestingly, at both social poles the importance of material well-being was rated very highly. The poor and the rich alike believed that the gap would be huge, that the poor would feel bad, and the rich would be happy. Then, in order to objectify the situation, the respondents were run through neuropsychological tests and questionnaires, and what was found out. There really is a difference. The poor live worse, the rich live better. But this gap turned out to be much more modest than people thought. I.e there is a gap in subjective satisfaction depending on the level of income, but it is very moderate, and in any case, it is much smaller than people usually think … Moreover, for different social strata, depending on the increase in family income, subjectively happiness grows for some time, but around $ 75,000 / year it reaches a plateau, and then that's it. A further increase in well-being in general does not have any statistically significant effect on subjective satisfaction, and completely different things are significant - family well-being, social environment, professional fulfillment, and so on. These are figures for the United States, of course, they are not absolute. As far as I understand, 75k / year is somewhere in the top middle class. These are wealthy, prosperous, well-earning people, but far from the richest people. I find it difficult to recalculate the top middle into the Russian counterpart on the fly, probably somewhere around 50-60 thousand rubles a month. About. Thus, people stable and strong overestimate the importance of the monetary factor in their life … Why is this happening? Because money is a universal motivator … Here is what was said above about "want" and "like" - components of satisfaction. Money has a colossal want-impact. With a very moderate like. People do a lot of things for monetary incentives, a lot of wonderful things are done for money. Well, and not very wonderful, of course, too. And also not great at all. Anything is done. Miscellaneous. That is, the need is great. Great motive. Powerful driving force. But the immediate pleasure obtained from money and through money is rather modest, no comparison. It can be compared, for example, with eating behavior. Objective pleasure from delicious food is very great, but as a driving motive, it is so-so. Of course, the need for nutrition is great, this is physiology, but we are talking about the relative balance of want and like. It is unlikely that someone will commit a criminal offense, or even just an unseemly act, for the sake of the most luxurious steak and the finest wine, but for the sake of money, easily. Working model of happiness There are hedonistic stimuli (conditionally “simple”, associated with direct receiving pleasure) and eudemonic (conditionally “higher”, linked to cognitive-emotional constructions). It is not entirely correct to say that in one case we are talking about biology, in the other case about sociality. All sociality. And all biology. An obvious example is sex and food. It would seem that there is nowhere simpler and more biological, but at the same time, the final behavioral manifestations, whether they be gastronomic pleasures or romantic love experiences, to a large extent consist of social constructions. The joy of intellectual cognition, when something suddenly shifts in the volume of raw data, and the puzzle begins to fold into a coherent and ordered picture - a light bulb that lights up in the anterior parts of the orbitofrontal cortex, this euphoric emotional uplift would be impossible without a banal ancient purely animal search activity. Therefore, it makes no sense to separate the bodily bottom and the spiritual top - everything is tied to everything, nailed down and cannot be torn off. There are countless tutorials on how to be happy (successful, effective, write your word)”. This is a whole literary genre, a bookshelf stretching beyond the horizon. If we remove various mystical and para-religious exotics, and take into account the popular psychological mainstream, they are all more or less about one thing. "If you want to be happy, be happy" - only the availability and convincing presentation differ plus different hocus-pocus and exercises for every day. Therefore, I will not give here the next 5 rules, 7 principles, 12 steps or any other numerals "N is there to be happy and M". Well, how to say "I will not." Very much even I will, where to go, then. But I want to emphasize that these are not tablets of the covenant, these are very general provisions, and everyone can customize to their liking.

Social connectedness, search activity, physical activity, learnability and personal sharing

Social connectedness it is the volume of emotionally meaningful communications. We get the bulk of positive emotions from interacting with people for whom we experience some personally colored feelings. Family, children, relatives, friends, acquaintances, etc. People with a large and friendly family are, on average, happier than people with an atomized family. Sociable people are happier than closed ones. People who have many friends are happier than people who have few friends. Etc. Search activity. Learn something new … Take an interest. Pay attention. Show curiosity … No matter what and how, it may be a sincere interest in the vicissitudes of the life of friends and relatives in the spirit of “What are you to him? What is he? Wow! And then what? And what do you think to do now?”, Or it may be an interest in some completely abstract things, be it the history of the New Age, modern technologies of individual construction, the life of people in distant countries, or whatever. Physical activity. The animal needs to be walked. A vigorous active animal is a happy animal, the coat is shiny, the muzzle is satisfied. The physical condition affects the mental state, in a healthy body a healthy mind, this has all been discussed a thousand million times. Physical activity in any form is useful and increases personal satisfaction, whether it be a fitness room, crawling in the garden in the country, or just wandering around the city without a visible purpose. Learnability … Also learn something new. But if “search and curiosity” is a sideways movement, then “learning” is an upward movement. Learn, develop, improve professional skills, social skills, emotional skills - it doesn't matter what. It is important that at every moment you can look back and say to yourself, “Well, during the reporting period I became cooler and better,” no matter what, any garbage will do (and non-garbage, of course, will do even better). Sharing personal. To share, to share, to give, to do something good to someone. To do irreparable benefits, as they say. People are arranged to enter into strong empathic interactions, positive experiences that we receive as a result of emotional involvement, much stronger than direct hedonistic stimuli. Spending $ 50 on someone close is much more fun than spending the same amount on yourself. Of course we are talking about people to whom we experience any emotions, not about an abstract alien uncle. And there are already individual characteristics - what a person gets into the space of empathic reaction, whom he sympathizes with and what he experiences. It may be caring for loved ones, or it may be charitable activities in favor of sick children or homeless kittens, it is not important. In any case, a person receives a powerful subjective reinforcement from this, and this significantly increases the quality of life and personal happiness rating.

Thus, general conversations about well-being have little practical value. "Happiness at all" does not exist as some clearly defined category, and does not exist as a specific mental mechanism. In this sense, the question "I am unhappy, what to do" or "I am unhappy, what I am doing wrong" is a request from the series "I have strange knocks in my basement, dear scientists, please explain this phenomenon." It makes sense to reduce to some specific subjective rewards and rewards, and to talk not about happiness in general, but about exactly how specific mental mechanisms and directed behavioral activity can be used in order to attract additional benefits and increase general subjective satisfaction with one's own existence.