How to determine your level of happiness with one formula

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-13 00:26

What is happiness and how to be constantly happy? For many years, researchers have been trying to find an answer to this question. How can we make sure that there is more joy and prosperity in our life? It turns out that the level of happiness can be calculated using the formula.

Happiness is contagious. If you have a happy friend next to you, then you will most likely be happier. Money is important to happiness. We need enough money to live well, so we become happier. True, after a certain moment, the increase in the amount of money no longer plays a special role. Research published in the journal Psychological Science has shown that money spent on experiences is more enjoyable than money spent on things. Vacation or skydiving will make you happier than good shopping.

There have been many attempts to assess the level of happiness in various countries. Some even suggest that this indicator is more suitable for measuring a country's progress than GDP.

In the World Happiness Report 2015, Russia ranked 64th out of 158 countries.

The happiness rating in the report was formed on the basis of several indicators, including life expectancy, social support, freedom of choice, generosity of the population (taking into account the level of income).

There are many other rankings that try to measure the well-being of countries based on similar indicators: the UN's Human Development Index, the Happy Planet Index, The Legatum Prosperity Index, the well-being index Gallup-Healthways (Gallup / Healthways Well-Being Index).

Now researchers suggest that happiness really depends on whether things are going better or worse than expected.

Robb Rutledge and colleagues at the Max Planck Center for Computational Psychiatry and Research on Aging at University College London presented a study looking at the relationship between happiness and reward.

Rob Rutledge Researcher

Based on the data, we developed a mathematical formula to predict how happiness is affected by past events. We have found that happiness does not depend on how well things are going, but on whether they are doing better or worse than expected.

This is the formula:

The level of happiness depends on the safe choice (reliable reward, CR), the expectations of the risky choice (expected value, EV) and whether the results of the risky choice turned out to be better or worse than you expected. The final RPE variable is the error in predicting the reward - the difference between reality and expectation. If you love math, take a look.

Simply put, your happiness level will rise from the anticipation of meeting a friend. If you manage to book the last table at a popular restaurant, your happiness level can increase even more. If the food in the restaurant is tasty, but not as good as you'd expect, your happiness levels will drop.

Research shows how important expectations are. But it doesn't mean that low expectations (and the pleasant surprise when reality surpasses them) will be the key to happiness.

Rob Rutledge Researcher

We usually don't know what major life changes like changing jobs or getting married will bring us in the long run. But our research shows that positive expectations about decisions increase happiness.

Rutledge's equation has been validated in the smartphone app The Great Brain Experiment. 18,000 players played the What Makes Me Happy mini-game.

The players had to score as many points as possible. To do this, they could choose to win or lose the guaranteed number of points, or rely on luck and spin the roulette wheel. After a few moves, the game asked to evaluate the current level of happiness.