News from happiness research. Happiness that doesn’t get boring.

We recently came across an interview with neurobiologist Gerhard Roth in the online magazine „Spiegel +“. The topic: „There is only one kind of happiness that you don’t get bored with“.

In the following, we would like to 1) explain the types of happiness distinguished by Roth and 2) ask you which attitude towards life can lead to lasting happiness. In the survey section, compare your opinion with that of others.

1) Different types of happiness according to Roth. We need to distinguish between:

Happiness

According to Roth, happiness is a short-term result of the brain’s reward process. Triggers can be, e.g: sex, alcohol, drugs, extreme sports, salary increase, unexpected profit, falling in love, a new job offer, etc. All of these moments of happiness have one thing in common: they are transient and may cause us to fall back into a feeling of unhappiness. Dissatisfied people tend to search harder for these triggers of happiness. They wander around hoping that happiness is just around the next corner. According to Roth, they are in constant, diffuse, undirected search for happiness, or rather, short-term happiness triggers.

Intrinsic happiness

According to Roth, intrinsic happiness is happiness where you enjoy what you are doing or experiencing from within. Learning, hearing, or seeing something new. Enjoying work, listening to music, a good conversation, collaborating on something meaningful. They say that this happiness does not go into saturation – that is, you don’t get tired of it. If you enjoy your job and it provides gratification, you will continue to enjoy doing it and sense happiness. In these moments, the feeling of happiness is linked to contentment in life, so the feeling of happiness is more long-term. These are the phases in which you, for example, get into a „flow“ and can „work around the clock“. In which artists write operas or symphonies within a month, or the motivation experienced by a scientist who loves his field of research above everything else. But even this kind of happiness can come to an end, according to Roth. The creative frenzy can subside – once the work, or the research project, is finished, the artist is empty, the scientist depleted.

Contentment in life

According to Roth, contentment in life is not happiness; these are two completely different things. According to Roth, they are also processed in different neurobiological systems. Contentment in life is an attitude towards life – a fundamental personality trait. Content is someone who has a pronounced stress management and has developed the ability to calm himself down. A person who is content does not need to win the lottery and does not want to become a superstar overnight. He is content with what he has. According to Roth, this attitude towards life is formed in our earliest childhood years and remains relatively stable throughout life. We can consciously change our attitude towards life, however, the older we get, the harder it becomes.

2) Can we consciously change our satisfaction in life? What do you think? Please choose the most suitable response!

The poll is on German, but you may find the translation of the possible answers here below. If you want to participate in the poll, please just remember the lower case character of the answer you would give and click the same in the German poll below. Afterwards you may compare your answer with the answers others have already provided.

a) I think Roth is wrong when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. It is rather the external circumstances, i.e. our upbringing, the events in our life, which affect our life satisfaction and shape it permanently. We ourselves do not play a major role in this.

b) I think Roth is wrong when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. Even if we were able to consciously change our life satisfaction for a period of time, it can happen that our current attitude towards life changes in an instant due to external circumstances. Examples: Life crises, traumas, death of a loved one, etc.

c) I think Roth is right when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. The best way to do that is to get into the habit of looking more at those who are less fortunate than us in our daily lives. For example, if we are chronically ill, we could compare ourselves with people who are worse off, rather than with those who are in good health.

d) I think Roth is right when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. We can do this best if we get into the habit of seeing the positive even out of negative events. An example: we break our leg and use this involuntary „time out“ to learn something new or to deepen a certain skill, or, or … – something we would not have done otherwise, because we would not have had the time.

e) I think Roth is right when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. The best way to do this is to get into the habit of looking at life as an opportunity for development rather than as a place where as many of our desires as possible are to be satisfied. An example: we suffer a material loss and instead of complaining, we take this as an occasion and perhaps even as an indication to rethink our attitude and to put more importance on other things in our life that are not as „fleeting“.

f) I think Roth is right when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. We can do this best if we get into the habit of acting as much as possible in accordance with our conscience and try to accept the result of our decisions, whether it „tastes“ good to us or not. An example: we are faced with the dilemma of either using our vacation money to financially support a family member who is in financial troubles or using it for our vacation.

g) I think Roth is right when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. We can do this best if we get into the habit of always keeping the welfare of others in mind. An example: an elderly gentleman boards the train and all seats are occupied. Since we have no health problems , we offer him our seat.

h) I think Roth is right when he says that we can consciously change our life contentment. We can do this best if we get into the habit of looking out for our own benefit. An example: we donate a large sum of money to a charitable organization and make sure that everyone notices this in order to receive recognition.

i) None of the answers coincide with my opinion and attitude towards life.

Welche der möglichen Antworten deckt sich am besten mit Ihrer eigenen Meinung und Lebenseinstellung?

a) Ich denke Roth liegt falsch, wenn er sagt, dass wir unsere Lebenszufriedenheit bewusst ändern können. Es sind vielmehr die äußeren Umstände, also unsere Erziehung, die Ereignisse in unserem Leben, die auf unsere Lebenszufriedenheit einwirken und sie permanent prägen. Wir selbst spielen dabei keine große Rolle.
b) Ich denke Roth liegt falsch, wenn er sagt, dass wir unsere Lebenszufriedenheit bewusst ändern können. Selbst wenn wir in der Lage wären unsere Lebenszufriedenheit für einen Zeitraum bewusst zu ändern, so kann es doch passieren, dass sich unsere aktuelle Lebenseinstellung von einem auf den anderen Tag durch äußere Umstände ändert. Beispiele: Lebenskrisen, Traumata, Todesfälle im engen Kreis, etc.
c) Ich denke Roth liegt richtig, wenn er sagt, dass wir unsere Lebenszufriedenheit bewusst ändern können. Das gelingt uns am besten, wenn wir uns in unserem Alltag angewöhnen, mehr auf die zu schauen, die weniger haben als wir. Ein Beispiel: wir sind chronisch krank und vergleichen uns eher mit Menschen, die es mit ihrer Gebrechlichkeit noch schlechter erwischt hat, als mit solchen, die kerngesund sind.
d) Ich denke Roth liegt richtig, wenn er sagt, dass wir unsere Lebenszufriedenheit bewusst ändern können. Das gelingt uns am besten, wenn wir uns in unserem Alltag angewöhnen, negativen Ereignissen etwas Positives abzugewinnen. Ein Beispiel: wir brechen uns das Bein und nutzen diese unfreiwillige „Auszeit“ etwas Neues zu lernen oder ein bestimmtes Wissen zu vertiefen, oder, oder ... – etwas was wir sonst nicht getan hätten, da wir keine Zeit gehabt hätten.
e) Ich denke Roth liegt richtig, wenn er sagt, dass wir unsere Lebenszufriedenheit bewusst ändern können. Das gelingt uns am besten, wenn wir uns in unserem Alltag angewöhnen, das Leben eher als Entwicklungsmöglichkeit anzusehen denn als Ort, an dem möglichst viele unserer Bedürfnisse befriedigt werden sollen. Ein Beispiel: wir erleiden einen materiellen Verlust und anstatt uns zu beklagen, nehmen wir das als Anlass und vielleicht sogar als Hinweis darauf unsere Einstellung zu überdenken und anderen Dingen in unserem Leben, die nicht so „flüchtig“ sind, mehr Bedeutung zuzumessen.
f) Ich denke Roth liegt richtig, wenn er sagt, dass wir unsere Lebenszufriedenheit bewusst ändern können. Das gelingt uns am besten, wenn wir uns in unserem Alltag angewöhnen, möglichst im Einklang mit unserem Gewissen zu handeln und versuchen das Ergebnis unserer Entscheidung anzunehmen, egal ob es uns „schmeckt“ oder nicht. Ein Beispiel: wir stehen vor dem Dilemma mit unserem Urlaubsgeld entweder einem Familienmitglied finanziell unter die Arme zu greifen, das in eine finanzielle Ausnahmesituation geraten ist, oder es für unseren Urlaub zu verwenden.
g) Ich denke Roth liegt richtig, wenn er sagt, dass wir unsere Lebenszufriedenheit bewusst ändern können. Das gelingt uns am besten, wenn wir uns in unserem Alltag angewöhnen, immer auch das Wohl der anderen im Blick zu haben. Ein Beispiel: ein betagter Herr kommt in die Bahn und alle Sitzplätze sind belegt. Da wir gesundheitlich kein Problem haben längere Zeit zu stehen, bieten wir ihm unseren Sitzplatz an.
h) Ich denke Roth liegt richtig, wenn er sagt, dass wir unsere Lebenszufriedenheit bewusst ändern können. Das gelingt uns am besten, wenn wir uns in unserem Alltag angewöhnen, immer auch auf unseren Vorteil zu achten. Ein Beispiel: wir spenden eine größere Summe Geld an eine gemeinnützige Organisation und achten darauf, dass dies alle erfahren, um Anerkennung zu bekommen.
i) Keine der Antworten deckt sich mit meiner Meinung und Lebenseinstellung.

115 votes

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Do you not find yourself in the answers? Then write to us by email to info@ethica-rationalis.org or use our Contactform.

We also want to point out two more articles on the topic of happiness on our website:

The small happiness – how gratitude can change our lives (part 1) and (part 2). Here you will also find more thoughts on this topic.

Authors: The Ethica Rationalis editorial team

Comments:

Anonymous – Sunday, 12. September 2021 at 10:12

„Hello,

I think that another very important point in finding contentment in one’s own life is to consciously

focus on all the good things that happen to you or you succeed in every day (even small things

like the sun, a nice greeting, a friendly gesture, something that went well) or the strengths and

abilities that one has. Gratitude also plays an important role.

It is also an important and powerful psychotherapeutic intervention method often used in

therapies (the so-called sun or friend diary in which you consciously focus on the good things

that happen every day and write down at least three of them in a diary, „negative“ or unpleasant

events are deliberately not written down).

Thank you for the nice article.“

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