Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

An outpouring of empirical findings has lent credence to Frank’s prescient claims. Consider one such set of results, generated by studies that use the ultimatum game. In the ultimatum game, an allocator is given a sum of money, say $10, and told to keep a certain amount and allocate the rest to a second participant, a responder, who can either accept or reject the offer. If rejection is the choice, neither player receives anything. The enlightened self-interested approach would be for the allocator to give the responder 1¢, or perhaps in a fit of generosity $1, and for the responder to accept. In the end, both individuals’ overall wealth is advanced, and Adam Smith smiles.

Across ten studies of people in 12 different cultures, however, economists Ernst Fehr and Klaus Schmidt found that 71 percent of the allocators offered the responder between 40 and 50 percent of the money. Most people showed a strong preference for near-equality. Remember these are strangers they’re making these offers to, not kith and kin. People around the world will sacrifice the enhancement of self-interest in the service of other principles: equality, a more favorable reputation, or even, God forbid, the advancement of others’ welfare.

So we don’t always act in the pure pursuit of self-interest. What about a more basic question: Does material gain make us happy? Certainly this is a pervasive notion. Seventy-four percent of today’s undergraduates cite economic gain as the primary motive for going to college (compared to 25 percent twenty years ago, above other motives, such as developing a philosophy of the meaningful life or contributing to the greater good). We are increasingly defining our needs in terms of gratifying materialistic desire. Look at the table below, adapted from Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety, which portrays recent shifts in the percentage of U.S. citizens who consider different products to be basic necessities.

               

1970        

2000        

SECOND CAR        

20        

59        

SECOND TV        

3        

45        

MORE THAN ONE TELEPHONE        

2        

78        

CAR AIR CONDITIONING        

11        

65        

HOME AIR CONDITIONING        

22        

70        

DISHWASHER        

8        

44

Does money make us happy? The answer for those who have very little is yes. Material gain allows individuals in the lowest economic strata to avoid the innumerable problems associated with economic deprivation, including depression, anxiety, compromised resistance to disease, and higher mortality rates.

For those in the middle classes and above, however, the association between money and happiness is weak or nonexistent. Researchers have now asked millions of people the simple question: “How satisfied are you with your life right now?” It is not personal wealth, the strength of the stock market, inflation, or fluctuations in interest rates that cause the ebb and flow in our personal well-being. This same literature reveals time and time again that what makes us happy is the quality of our romantic bonds, the health of our families, the time we spend with good friends, the connections we feel to communities. When our jen ratios are high in our close relations, so are we.

THE JEN OF BLUSHES, LAUGHS, SMILES, AND TOUCH

 

When I began my study of emotion fifteen years ago, the bad is stronger than the good thesis found a comfortable home in the literature on emotion. Empirical studies were quick to find that there are more words in the English language that represent negative than positive emotions. Only one signal of positive emotion in the face, the smile, had been studied, compared to the five or six signals of negative emotion. Nothing was known about how positive emotions activate our autonomic nervous system, which controls basic bodily functions like digestion, blood flow, breathing, and sexual response. These empirical facts led many in the field to the view that positive emotions are in reality by-products of negative states. For example, my first response is fear toward someone I don’t know, and upon recognizing that such a person is familiar and safe, I experience warmth and love; affection is in actuality the cessation of fear. Scientists were quick to take the next step: The negative emotions are rooted deeper in human nature than positive emotions, and are a more active currency in our daily living. The jen ratio of the science of emotion hovered near 0.