The Happiness Hypothesis
by Jonathan Haidt · first published 2005
78% recommend22% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Accessible, well-argued tour of what psychology and ancient philosophy say about a well-lived life. The elephant-and-rider model of mind and emotion is widely praised; it suits readers wanting more than a self-help book.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Applies the latest findings in psychology and brain research to the wisdom of the ancients to define what makes people happy and how you can find more happiness in your life. Confirms and builds on the happiness formula defined by other psychologists: H=S+C+V or Happiness = your biological Setpoint + the Conditions of your life + the Voluntary activities you do
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Your comment aligns with an old HN comment that I have saved that resonated with me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16402387 I'd also recommend people feeling this way to read The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. It helped me.
on “If You're Often Angry or Irritable, You May Be Depressed” ↗I can recommend _The Happiness Hypothesis - Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom_, by Jonathan Haidt, as relevant here. The book was suggested to me by a CBT practitioner. It languished on my shelf for several years because it sat adjacent…
on “Psychological techniques to practice Stoicism” ↗The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. You hear 'ancient wisdom' on how to lead the good life all the time. These ancient aphorisms came from a time before the scientific method and the idea of testing your hypotheses.…
on “Ask HN: Books you wish you had read earlier?” ↗Jonathan Haidt used the metaphor of rider and elephant in The Happiness Hypothesis (worth the read IMHO): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Happiness_Hypothesis One commenter on HN once wrote, that meditation helps him more than the stimulants. The ten stages of meditation (https://www.consciouslifestylemag.com/wp-content/uploads/201...)…
on “Microdosing: Improving performance enhancement in intelligence analysis (2019) [pdf]” ↗…other items I'd recommend. Buddhism and Modern Psychology on Coursera covered some mind boggling studies that give strong evidence of this, and subsequently support for core secular Buddhist practices. Happiness Hypothesis by Haidt discusses at a higher level the connection of modern psychology to stoicism, Buddhism, and the many brains theories. And Waking Up by Sam Harris takes a slightly more incendiary take, but is…
on “The Thousand Brains Theory of Intelligence (2019)” ↗…attention and respect to people that I used to treat like furniture before. Books that would have changed my life had I read them sooner (and not have to learn their lessons the long/hard way.) The Happiness Hypothesis ( http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Hypothesis-Finding-Modern-An... ) The notion this book puts forward of the subconscious as a powerful but stubborn elephant and the conscious as its well-meaning but…
on “What one book could give me a new, useful superpower?” ↗…of horrific accidents revert to an average happiness over the long term. You can read more. This book[1] by my college Psychology professor is the first that came to mind: [1] https://www.amazon.com/Happiness-Hypothesis-Finding-Modern-A...
on “Buying time promotes happiness” ↗To understand meditation, one has to understand how our brain works. Once you fully understand the brain, it's a no-brainer to meditate regularly. If you are game, I recommend everyone read the Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt.
on “Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (113 Models Explained)” ↗There's a great book, The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, that covers a lot of this. From what I remember, experiments have been done that show your body can react to stimuli before there is actual neurological activity, seeming to indicate…
on “Your brain runs your body using something like a budget” ↗…think you will find most theological traditions aka religions have a lot of common ground. So much so that you can actually abstract out lot of the ancient wisdom from the religion itself. The book "Happiness Hypothesis" by Johnathon Haidt examines this in detail if you wish to purse it further.
on “All problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone (2014)” ↗…study) http://thehowofhappiness.com -- this book shares the specific advice you share in your comment. A lot of great books I can recommend as well, e.g. Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert and The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt.
on “Show HN: Three Things Daily – Make gratitude a daily habit” ↗…that result and teaching it to others? The act of teaching is itself story generation. Mental models are just story-driven hacks that allow people to generalize results in an insanely complex system. 1. Happiness Hypothesis Jonathan Haidt 2. Buddhism and modern psychology, coursera
on “Enigma: GPT-2 trained on 10K Nature Papers: Can you spot the difference?” ↗…first-hand (and second-hand, from others) testimony that you requested. The wealth of literature on the topic is at your disposal. My recommendations if you'd like to have a skim are Waking Up (Harris), Happiness Hypothesis (Haidt), both of which take a bird's eye view of the practices and try to position it with respect to both personal experience and medical establishment. Haidt is more scientific than Harris, but Harris…
on “Ask HN: What exactly is a mindfulness meditation?” ↗For anyone interested, the above topics (Stoicism, positive psychology, budhism) are all nicely discussed in Happiness Hypothesis, by Jonathan Haidt.
on “Tell HN: I have the perfect job, why is it not enough?” ↗…Brain Rules and The 48 Laws of Power to be mostly garbage. The Wisdom of Crowds, Wikinomics and Made to Stick are decent essays in book form. Stumbling on Happiness is not nearly as good as Haidt's The Happiness Hypothesis which would be in the first list I made above if it were on Siver's list. Seth Godin's books are good for motivation and for changing the way you think about marketing, especially if you've been doing…
on “Reading list for those who love to learn” ↗