Healthy people want to be happy. And there’s little doubt
about all the benefits of positive emotions. Amongst other things, they make us
more sociable, allow us to think more flexibly and they’re associated with
better physical and psychological health.
Gruber and her colleagues have looked at positive and
negative emotions in particular and identified four dark sides to the pursuit
of happiness , each of which shows that sometimes the pursuit of pure happiness
can go wrong:
1. Too
much
It might seem crazy to talk about ‘too much’ happiness, but,
like gorging on chocolate, you can have too much of a good thing.
Along with overall life satisfaction, happiness is about the
balance between positive and negative emotions that you experience every day.
To thrive, we need both the positive and the negative.
2.
Wrong time
Broadly, we need them when things go wrong. Without those
appropriate negative emotions, things can go awry. Here are a few examples:
·
People who are too happy don’t see the warning
signs of dangerous people or situations and may be more ready to trust when
they shouldn’t. It’s no wonder that happier people also tend to be more
gullible.
·
The fear response prepares the body for fight or
flight: but with a silly happy smile on their face, it’s less likely they’ll
get away quickly or win the fight.
3.
Wrong way
It’s one of the great ironies of life that sometimes the
more you pursue happiness, the further away it gets.
And this is backed up by some studies showing that when
people make a special effort to make themselves happy, they actually feel less
happy as a result.
4.
Wrong type
So, how can there be a wrong type of happiness? Surely
happiness is happiness is happiness? It all feels the same.
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