Positive experiences happen to us everyday yet we don't always take full advantage of them. Have you ever noticed that it could be a great day (you had 8 hours of sleep, it’s the weekend, had a great conversation with a friend etc…) but that it takes just one harsh word from someone or one piece of bad news to ruin the day. Research by Shelley Gable and Jonathan Haidt suggests that we actually have three times more positive experiences than negative. What keeps us from fully capitalizing on all the good in our lives, making us a slave to the bad? Researchers have identified two main tendencies that keep us from experiencing, extending, and expanding our joy: the negativity bias and habituation. The negativity bias refers to our mind's innate tendency to give more weight to the negative; Roy Baumeister has shown that we tend to remember and focus more on negative experiences. Habituation, discussed in research on the hedonic treadmill, refers to the fact that while we receive boosts of happiness from new positive experiences, over time, we get used to these experiences and they no longer have the same effect.

How can we counter this tendency to assign greater weight to the negative experiences in our life? A recent study by Nathaniel Lambert and colleagues at Brigham Young University gives us a clue. Their research shows that discussing positive experiences leads to heightened well-being, increased overall life satisfaction and even more energy.

This research may seem surprising because we are often reluctant to talk about our good fortune. We don't want to show off. Sometimes we don't want to "jinx" ourselves. Or we may feel guilty that good things are happening to us in the face of the suffering that exists in other people's lives. Bonding over complaints, commiseration or even gossip somehow feels more proper, realistic and grounded. However, Lambert and colleague’s research suggests that describing our happy experiences to close friends and romantic partners is a better idea.

A number of studies have shown that making daily lists of the things you feel grateful for – which helps draw our attention to the positive experiences in our lives – improves our psychological and physical health and well-being. For example, gratitude improves our ability to connect with others, boosts our altruistic tendencies, make us optimistic and happier, decreases envy and materialism and even improves health for people with physical ailments (neuromuscular disorder, in one study). Lambert's new study, however, extends research on gratitude to show that verbally expressing the gratitude we feel to people close to us helps increase and sustain our well-being above and beyond simply feeling or writing down gratitude. Great literary figures have long known that happiness grows in sharing. In one of her letters, Charlotte Brontë observes “Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.” In The Common Reader, Virginia Woolf writes "Pleasure has no relish unless we share it.” Lambert’s research provides empirical validation of their wisdom. 

The researchers found that people who habitually tend to talk to people they are close with about the good things that are happening to them also tend to feel happier and more satisfied with life. They also found that, the more these people shared their happiness with someone on a given day, the happier and more satisfied they were on that particular day. To actually determine whether sharing happiness caused this boost in well-being, the researchers then invited participants into a laboratory with a romantic partner or friend. Participants were asked to write down a positive experience or a neutral experience like a fact they had learned in class and either share it with their partner or not. Those that shared a positive experience with their partner experienced a greater boost in well-being than those who did not share their experience with their partner or who shared a neutral experience with their partner. These findings suggest that it is the act of sharing happiness (and not of just thinking about happiness but not sharing it, or of sharing neutral information) that boosts well-being. 

12 Comments

1. 1. virtueorvice 07:29 AM 12/25/12

   I don't think sharing our happiness makes us happier. It is making other people happy and sharing the good things of life with them that make us more satisfied.

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2. 2. Clivestaples 08:12 AM 12/25/12

   Thanks for your informative article.
   One complaint:
   Albert Schweitzer was many things;
   1. He was a physician-he started a hospital in Africa in an area that had none.
   2. He was a musician-having earned a doctorate in organ performance, he regularly gave concerts which served as fund-raisers for some of his other activities such as
   3. He was a Christian missionary (please see 1.) and
   4. He was a theologian-he wrote the book "the Quest for the Historical Jesus" among others.
   5. He was a philosopher.
   6. And before he died he had garnered more than 50 earned and honorary doctorates.
   7. yes, he was German, and won a Nobel.
   Albert Schweitzer was many things.
   But he was NOT a physicist.

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3. 3. joenn 03:12 PM 12/26/12

   Hmmm... I guess Jesus was right 2000 years ago after all. Even if you don't believe in God see for yourself.
   Matthew Chapters 5 to 7.

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4. 4. cnj4755 in reply to Clivestaples 07:27 PM 12/26/12

   ...Albert Schweitzer, a German "physician" .... No one said he was a physicist.

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5. 5. cnj4755 in reply to virtueorvice 07:30 PM 12/26/12

   I don't believe you can make others happy...they need to find their own happiness & the same goes for yourself. You can do the same thing for two different people; one may find great happiness in it & the other may not...it is all up to the person to decide how to react. JMHO

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6. 6. hermst in reply to virtueorvice 04:59 PM 12/27/12

   Correct. If unwittingly this kind of sharing as invi
   dious. Then it defeats the whole purpose.

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7. 7. hermst in reply to hermst 05:03 PM 12/27/12

   Correct. If this kind of sharing is perceived as invidious. Then it defeats the whole purpose.
   

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8. 8. gabenza 06:20 PM 12/27/12

   The point of this article was that it makes you happier when you share your sucess. When you are happy others are influenced in that direction.

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9. 9. hermst in reply to gabenza 09:05 PM 12/27/12

   Let's extend our horizons for a while. Generally this article talks about happy sharing of moods, mental disposition,happy events in one's life or even material goodies. This works! Generally. but let's not be naive about some people who might not take to it graciously but rather see this kind of sharing as showing off, at the worst, insulting on one's relatively low situation or even at the far end of negativism -- vindictiveness. I am persuaded to believe that only a few fall into this category but the world is an agglomeration of psycho-emotional types. Be careful, careful . . .
   

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10. 10. hermst in reply to hermst 04:59 AM 12/28/12

    hermst is on Facebook known as John Argophontes
    

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11. 11. Clivestaples in reply to cnj4755 07:47 AM 12/28/12

    :) i think it's been edited. . . made the comment within 20 minutes of original posting.

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12. 12. sfpkent 05:31 AM 12/31/12

    If we tell people that we just made a million deal, they think that we show off, especially in Chinese culture.

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