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Why aren't smart people happier?

theseedsofscience.pub

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Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#351

Post by lutusp »

The author of the article has a Ph.D. in psychology and the journal is named "Seeds of Science." To a seasoned traveler in life, these are both red flags (real science journals don't need to proclaim their relationship with science, and psychology isn't a science as the term is defined).

As I expected, the article fails to address its title in a systematic, constructive or scientific way, by for example defining what happiness is or establishing whether it can be reliably measured.

I imagine writing a substitute article that rings the same bells. Mine would begin, "I hope you didn't come here expecting a meaningful answer to this classic among unanswerable questions. Now enjoy my overly long, folksy narrative that only pretends to address its topic."

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#352

Post by machomaster »

lukan wrote: post #335
machomaster wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people would not tell you how smart you are, you would blame your unhappiness on low esteem and on the lack of support in your childhood. Which one would you prefer? It's all postfactum explanation attempts, that create links that usually are not there. Another, internally happier, positive and more cheerful person would be the exact opposite - would always find ways to spin things around for the positive. It's al…

"If people would not tell you how smart you are, you would blame your unhappiness on low esteem and on the lack of support in your childhood." It depends how it was told. Being told "you are smart" vs. "you are the smartest kid" makes a big difference.

As is not saying anything about your smartness vs. being actively told that you are dumb.

Radical examples should be compared with each other, as should more balanced ones.

In both cases I would prefer to be told about being smart.

In a vacuum, self-confidence in kids is more useful than lack of it.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#353

Post by stephen_g »

zdragnar wrote: post #84
Ardon wrote: post #53

Might be useful to ask a different question: What makes people happy? It's things like relationships, satisfying work, accomplishment. (and many, many more) Then the real question emerges: How many of those happiness 'sources' are made better by intelligence? What percentage? Relationships? Seems like no. Work? Also seems like no, lots of work doesn't make use of a high IQ that people enjoy nonetheless. Accomplishmen…

As I heard someone say, happiness is your reality minus your expectations. Smart people see more variables that could be changed, more components that could be modified, and are less likely to accept things as they are. This creates a false sense of ease by which reality could be modified, and thus higher expectations for the world around them. I suspect this misplaces happiness and contentment, but the two are also…

> As I heard someone say, happiness is your reality minus your expectations.

I don’t think that’s true, e.g. from my personal experience, I’m far more optimistic than my wife, but even though she has far lower expectations she still takes negative things with far more disappointment than I do when we face the same hardship. So generally I’m a much happier person despite having higher expectations.

This is independent of intellect too for us, she would readily admit I’m more intelligent.

I don’t know whether it’s a innate thing or something learned but the key seems to be that I am always primed to look on the bright side, like my brain automatically weights positives much stronger than negatives, whereas hers does the opposite.

For both of us this seems to be self-reinforcing too because we always have confirmation bias because I’ve focused on the positives and can say “see it wasn’t that bad” and she will be like “see, I thought it would be bad” for the same thing.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#354

Post by queuebert »

hinkley wrote: post #295
zdragnar wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I heard someone say, happiness is your reality minus your expectations. Smart people see more variables that could be changed, more components that could be modified, and are less likely to accept things as they are. This creates a false sense of ease by which reality could be modified, and thus higher expectations for the world around them. I suspect this misplaces happiness and contentment, but the two are also…

Polymaths in particular could be good or great at many things. It’s a matter of choice and opportunity. But they can’t be great at absolutely everything. So one choice closes another. And the grass is greener on the other side.

And cumulative opportunity costs take their toll.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#355

Post by nurettin »

In "smart people" that I've met, those who perform well in quickly understanding subjects, have some sort of strong long and short term memory (something most IQ tests fail to measure) and generally read the room well, I noticed one thing: most of them are very impatient.

Whatever the task, they just want to move on, go ahead, skip over if possible and are generally awkward to be around. Those who have mastered patience are the bright ones. They also seem happier overall.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#356

Post by alvah »

johnfn wrote: post #343
alvah wrote: post #318

It's very difficult for most (not all) people to relate to others who are either significantly more or significantly less intelligent than them. So, for example (using IQ as a proxy), most people of average intelligence (~100IQ) would find it difficult to relate to those of ~65IQ, and equally difficult to find much in common with someone much more intelligent than them (140+IQ). Given power laws / bell-curve distribu…

This doesn’t seem obviously true. There’s a bell curve of how knowledgeable people are with tech and somehow people I spend time with end up in the tail end. There’s a bell curve of how much they like board games and I end up spending a lot of time with people at the tail end as well. In general, the people you spend time with are not selected by a process which is even close to random.

"In general, the people you spend time with are not selected by a process which is even close to random"

That very much depends on where you are born & brought up, and how willing you are to leave all that behind.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#357

Post by jameslk »

Surprising but unsurprising… nobody wants to “just” be happy. I’d go as far as to say most aren’t prioritizing being happy, even if they think they are.

A lot of people want to have kids. Is this because they want to be happy? Is buying a house about seeking happiness? Is following a religion and going to place of worship about happiness? Is the author writing this article to be happy? Is reading Hacker News going to make you happy?

If happiness is all that matters, there's far more direct ways to be happy than most choose. Apparently happiness for many is not the only reason to live.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#358

Post by bhawks »

socalgal2 wrote: post #349

anecdata but my experience on dating services is Christians, on average, look happy. No idea why. I'm atheist and not interested in dating a Christian because I could not support their beliefs. But, it's uncanny how often the pattern fits. I'm pretty confident, given 100 dating site profile photos, I can, far better than chance, guess which ones are Christian. Note: I'm not saying Christians are happier than other re…

In my journey to Christianity I have found that as my faith grew my anxiety and depression became much more manageable. This really wasn't intentional on my part but Ive transitioned from a decade+ of actively managing with medication and weekly therapy to no meds and monthly psychotherapy over a few years. Looking back I do credit that to my faith giving me a framework to manage my long list of worries, concerns and fears. The people in my Church community generally are happy even despite dealing with many difficulties. I can't say the same for all the people I know through work or other venues.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#359

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

mancerayder wrote: post #348
johndhi wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lot of interesting views in this thread. One thing I loved from Osho (spiritual guru) is the notion that everyone thinks they are "extraordinary" but actually the happiest person is the person who is ordinary. Being ordinary and just eating breakfast and sleeping and doing a job is - in fact - extraordinarily rare.

The same Osho who ran an expensive cult in the 70s and 80s? Putting that aside, it's hard for me to associate simple with happiness. That's the opposite of motivation, from my unenlightened perspective. It's hardly a rational or smart choice since not being challenged also makes one a bit narrower when it comes to seeking out new experiences. But even if you take the intellect out of it, it 'feels' wrong. And some th…

If you haven't done so already, you should probably read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse.

If you have read it already, you should probably read it again.

Re: Why aren't smart people happier?

#360

Post by saghm »

Ardon wrote: post #53

Might be useful to ask a different question: What makes people happy? It's things like relationships, satisfying work, accomplishment. (and many, many more) Then the real question emerges: How many of those happiness 'sources' are made better by intelligence? What percentage? Relationships? Seems like no. Work? Also seems like no, lots of work doesn't make use of a high IQ that people enjoy nonetheless. Accomplishmen…

Yep, and the logical chain itself can often be pretty clear where the discrepancy lies. In order for it to have a noticeable effect, you'd need to be looking at people smart enough to correctly identify circumstances that will make them happy in advance and then be able to influence things in average more than factors outside their control influence them. I don't think most "smart" people are more smart than life is random, without even getting into how common the requisite level of self-awareness is.
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