“In postmodernism, narratives of politics, justice, freedom, religion, but also truth are no longer shared narratives. This is where happiness is about to be the new big player – also because it is something subjective,” says Mitterwallner, who speaks of happiness as a “present-day substitute religion that promises salvation”. The numbers seem to back him up: According to Statista, by 2025 the wellness and well-being industry will be worth around $7 trillion, or $7,000 billion.
Against this background, a strong increase in publications on the subject of happiness can be observed. But most of them are one-sided, and there are rarely qualitative surveys, for example in the form of interviews lasting several hours, says the researcher, who has set himself the goal of changing that. The focus was on the question: What do people do for their well-being in everyday life?
friends instead of kindness day
“Each day, write down three things you’re grateful for,” “meditate,” “smile,” “set a kindness day.” It’s small exercises like this that promise great luck and want to give instructions on how to be happy – but they ignore the essentials, as Mitterwallner criticizes. Because the most important factor, the basic condition for happiness, are interpersonal relationships.
But: “There are no interventions that specifically target social ties, which is hard to believe,” says Mitterwallner. The most important happiness strategy should be: “Do more for your social relationships!” Whether romantic, family, friendly or interpersonal relationships.
Short-term vs. long-term happiness
Of course, it is exhausting and difficult to have and maintain good relationships. In order to have a successful relationship, one must also be able to make oneself vulnerable – many would shy away from this alone. In addition, people often do not even know what makes them happy.
“That’s the perfidy of happiness. That people do things that make them unhappy in the long term in order to protect themselves in the short term.” But it is also clear to Mitterwallner, and this is often overlooked in the “oversweetened happiness research”, that there are relationships that are so bad that you “ just get out”.
Unhappier than you thought?
In principle, people are “extremely good at adapting”, i.e. adapting to new situations. Not least to justify, so to speak, where you are in life at the moment. This also makes happiness research more difficult, because “people can convince themselves that something makes them happy, even if objectively it may not be the case at all.”
Although most would rate themselves as seven to eight on a “happiness scale” of one to ten, this is actually only the case for 20 to 25 percent.
For example, parents would only regain the extent of their well-being before the birth of their children after they had moved out. Because in view of all the challenges in everyday life, children sometimes lead to negative emotions, but at the same time are evaluated positively, Mitterwallner explains the paradoxical feelings of happiness.
genes to money
In any case, the happiness potential is already determined at birth: “The genetic influence on happiness is very strong, one speaks of 30 to 40 percent,” says Mitterwallner. While young adults and older people feel the most psychologically happy, people in their 40s experience the lowest levels of happiness – as do people in old age. However, it has been proven that sufficient exercise and sport can be used to successfully counteract this.
Happiness vs. Wellbeing
“I can’t imagine happiness that lasts longer than a second, maybe two or three seconds,” Heinrich Böll once wrote. While happiness is defined in positive psychology as a “short outlier” in the emotional state, well-being is a continuous state – a part of which life satisfaction is also seen.
What has also been known in happiness research for a decade: happiness can be bought. “Money is one of the most important factors in happiness, especially when it is scarce. The more money you have, the more positive and fewer negative emotions you experience,” says Mitterwallner. But it is also the “least considered” factor of happiness, because if politicians wanted to do something positive for society, this is exactly where it should start.
Even if the happiness researcher is skeptical about national and international happiness indices and measuring indicators such as gross national happiness, he advocates paying more attention to people’s well-being in economic policy. After all, the welfare state, for example, also has a positive influence on human happiness.
Can you be happy unhappy?
But do you have to be happy at all? Isn’t it possible to be happy and unhappy? Studies would prove that happier people would live more creatively, more actively, more successfully, healthier and, above all, longer.
In the case of the latter, the happiness researcher refers to a “funny study with nuns” with an analysis of their diary entries. Due to their highly standardized environment, it was found that those nuns who used the most positive adjectives in their youth actually lived the longest.
“Will Disenchant Happiness”
However, Mitterwallner also points out the prevailing problem of causality and correlation: “Is it the case that one is happy and therefore does things or does things and therefore is happy?” That is a “basic problem” in happiness research.
When asked whether the “formula for happiness” can be deciphered at all and not always remain something mysterious, Mitterwallner answers: Not now, but with the right technology, at the latest when the human brain has been decoded, luck will also be “completely disenchanted”. .
