Week 4- Science of Happiness Notes

 Section 1: Cooperation and Happiness 

VIDEO: THE EVOLUTION OF COOPERATION 

What are the benefits of cooperation? 

    • “Collective Neighborhood Effect” (Robert Sampson) 

  • Greater health in children. 
  • Higher graduation rates. 
  • Greater life expectancy. 
  • Reduced social disorder. 
  • Cooperative play fosters greater enjoyment than competitive play (task enjoyment). 

  • Machiavellian's experience (non-cooperative individual) 

  • Feel socially isolated. 
  • No gain of power. 
  • Experience stress. 
  • High levels of exclusion. 
  • Generally, feel less happy. 
  • Weak social ties. 

    • Where did cooperation come from? 

    1. Martain Nowack’s Theory: Cooperation is a basic principle of nature. 
    2. Robert Axelrod’s “The Evolution of Cooperation” (1984): Made case for cooperation as a regular occurrence. 
    3. Study on chimps: We do things to benefit others in cooperation. 
    4. Prisoner’s Dilemma  

    • Tit-for-tat social strategy 

    • Anatol Rapoport 
    • Start out cooperatively and then mirror the past action/ move of a partner. 
    • Why is it so effective?  
    1. It is cooperative. 
    2. It is mindful of the partner. 
    3. It is easy to read and transparent. 
    4. It is forgiving. 

    VIDEO: NEUROSCIENCE OF COOPERATION 

    • Key question: are there systems in the brain that have evolved to enhance cooperation? 

    1. Insula (part of the brain) expresses emotions like being “moved” in connection to others. 
    2. Temporal Parietal Junction associated with understanding the feelings and perspectives of other people. 

    • Key question: are there parts of the brain dedicated to making decisions and whether to cooperate? 

    • The Dorsal and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex is important for self-referential activity and pro/con decision making in connection to personal goals. 

    • Cooperation represented in the brain through pleasure or reward activation when it works/ pain when it doesn’t work. 

    1. Ventral caudate and the nucleus accumbent. 
    2. Amygdala: signals displeasure.  
    • Reward activation is imperfect although working cooperation fosters pleasure signals. 
    • Mutual benefit when cooperation works. 
    • Unreciprocated cooperation triggers negative brain responses. 
    • Study: Increased activation in the orbitofrontal cortex when increased cooperation occurred. 
    • Cooperation is inherently pleasurable. 

    • How carefully are we attuned to displeasures of not cooperating? 

    1. The science of altruistic punishment 
    2. Brian Knutson of Stanford University 
    3. A study in which an individual was given the opportunity to punish a non-cooperator (person who breaks social contract), results to reward activation. 

    Section 2: Peacemaking and Reconciliation 

    VIDEO: CONFLICT AND PEACEMAKING 

    • Why do we have the capacity to make peace?: Conflict within human relationships: conflicts are common and are part of dynamics. 
    • Frans De Wall’s discovery: Peacemaking emerges in the face of conflict (instead of dispersing). 
    • Instinctual tendency to make peace. 
    • Embarrassment as an experience produces a reliable set of the behavior of averting attention in defense (similar physical movement to peacemaking movements). 
    • Physical response in regards to signaling behavior (like blushing) to trigger other’s forgiving emotion. 

    ESSAY: BORN TO BLUSH 

    • Embarrassment is sometimes absent from violent people. 
    • Experiment on young boys: well-adjusted boys showed embarrassment when missing a test question. Aggressive boys showed little to no embarrassment and became angry when missing a question. 
    • Subtle displays of embarrassment (blushing, pursed lips, etc.) are signs of respect to others and show a commitment to social order. 
    • Our sociality brings us together in spite of conflict. 

     

    VIDEO: INTRODUCTION TO APOLOGY 

    • Deep moral and ethical connotations to an apology. 
    • Signals remorse. 
    • An apology is one of the most effective forms of handling/ solving interpersonal conflict. 
    • Allinson Byrne (Canadian scientist studying apology) research showed that apologies increased psychological health and positive emotion of those who have been offended. 
    • When looking at leaders who have apologized, have increased psychological health. Have increased authentic pride. 

    • What makes an apology effective? 

    1. Expresses remorse 
    2. Acknowledge offense 
    3. Is empathetic 
    4. Include intent to undue harm or offers compensation 
    5. Conveys feeling of reduced repetition/ likelihood it will happen again 

    • What is it that an effective apology does? 

    1. Restores dignity 
    2. Affirms both parties share values and that the harm was wrong 
    3. Validates the victim 
    4. Conveys a sense of reparative justice 
    5. Affords an opportunity for dialogue 

    • An apology is the most effective route to forgiveness and valuable skill in cooperation. 

     

    Section 3: The Science of Forgiveness 

    VIDEO: WHAT FORGIVENESS MEANS (JACK KORNFIELD) 

    • Forgiveness is not sentimental or fast 
    • Forgiveness can honor justice 
    • Epidemic of self-hatred urges a need for self-forgiveness 
    • Forgiveness permits us to love and be free 
    • “Forgiveness means up giving up all hope for a better past” 
    • Vulnerability becomes a place that our hearts depend on to survive 
    • “It's like the two ex-prisoners of war, one who says to the other, "Have you forgiven your captors yet?" And the second one says, "No. Never." And the first one then looks and says, "Well, they still have you in prison then.” 

     

    ESSAY: THE FORGIVENESS INSTINCT 

    • “The desire for revenge isn’t a disease that afflicts a few unfortunate people; rather it’s a universal trait of human nature, crafted by natural selection, that exists today because it helped our ancestors adapt to their environment” 
    • Forgiveness was crafted by natural selection. 

    • Three simple truths: 

    • Truth #1: The desire for revenge is a built-in feature of human nature 

    • The desire for revenge is not absent anywhere 

    • Vengeance is an essential part of what it means to be human 

    • Successful outcomes of vengeful acts became common knowledge among our ancestors, thus they continued acting in these ways and passed down vengeful traits.  

    • Truth #2: The capacity for forgiveness is a built-in feature of human nature 

    • Truth #3: To make the world a more forgiving, less vengeful place, don’t try to change human nature—change the world! 

    VIDEO: INTRO TO THE SCIENCE OF FORGIVENESS 

    • Defining forgiveness 

    1. Acceptance that transgression happened. 
    2. Reduced urge to punish or seek vengeance. 
    3. The decline in avoidance. 
    4. Increased compassion toward offenders for their own suffering. 

    • Forgiveness is not... 

    1. Reconciling with the person who harmed you. 
    2. Condoning the offense. 
    3. Absolving the offender of responsibility. 
    • When holding a grudge: increased fight or flight physiological response (Study by Charlotte Witvliet) 
    • Forgiving on one day linked to higher levels of happiness on the next (Bono) 
    • Couples who forgive are happier nine weeks later (Tsang) 

    ESSAY: THE NEW SCIENCE OF FORGIVENESS 

    Forgiveness and Health- 

    • Defining forgiveness: how we define depends on context, “reducing or eliminating resentment and motivations toward revenge” 
    • Impacts of unforgiveness: negative emotional state, hostility, anger, and hatred 
    • Studies by Wilvliet 

    Forgiveness and Relationships- 

    • “People are usually more willing to forgive if they sense trust and a willingness to sacrifice from their partner” 
    • The more we invest in a relationship (like a marriage) the more we need to practice strategies to get through hard times  

    Learning Forgiveness- 

    • Benefits: high self-esteem, better moods, and relationships. 
    • Skepticism: Happy people are more likely to forgive anyway. 
    • Research shows that people from all backgrounds and happiness levels can learn to forgive. 
    • Other cues for encouraging forgiveness: when receiving apologies there are physiological reactions like lowered blood pressure, heart rate, and sweat activity. 

    VIDEO: WANTING “YES” AND GETTING “NO” (FREDERIC LUSKIN) 

    • “Forgiveness is the ability to make peace with the word ‘no’” 
    • “The essence of forgiveness is the ability to be resilient when things don’t go the way you want” 
    • “The essence of forgiveness is to be able after grieving to at peace with no” 
    • Being without prejudice informs forgiveness 
    • “Can I use resilience enough to be able to handle ‘no’ when it comes my way?”  

    Section 4: Building Trust 

    VIDEO: THE SCIENCE OF TRUST 

    Paul Zak’s studies on the correlation between how trusting a nation is and how their happiness levels are: More trusting cultures tend to be happier. 

    What cultivates trust? 
    • Tactile Contact/ Touch: soothing and reward circuitry link (Ex: teacher study and basketball study, amount of touch was predictor of success in a season) 
    • Be sensitive to language (Wall street vs. Community game) 

    ESSAY: BRAIN TRUST 

    The biology of trust: 

    • Oxytocin steers trust. 
    • Oxytocin reduces social anxiety and helps people bond. 
    • Oxytocin helps humans overcome distrust in human-to-human contact situations. 

    ESSAY: TRUST AND BETRAYAL 

    • Why trust is important: 

    • Trust is what makes human connections work. 

    • Low and high trust regions 

    • Characteristics of low trust regions include high rates of crime, little volunteerism, little parental involvement in schools, low rates of voting, greater economic disparities between rich and poor. 

    • How do we build trust? 

    • Small moments of connection. 

    • Awareness of partner’s emotion. 

    • Tolerance of different viewpoints. 

    • Trying to understand a differing perspective. 

    • Responding with empathy. 


    • References:
    • Dacher Keltner, Ph.D., Founding Faculty Director, Greater Good Science Center, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Berkeley Social Interaction Laboratory, UC Berkeley
      •       Emiliana Simon-Thomas, Ph.D., Science Director, Greater Good Science Center, UC Berkeley

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