Hedonism and Wellbeing

We know positive emotions such as pleasure, serenity, and joy feel good as we experience them, but we also lament their transience. Therefore, how can they be anything but fleeting and casual contributors to our lasting happiness? Can we reconcile these ephemera to a more stable notion of long-term wellbeing?

The classic hedonist Aristippus argued that it is pleasure we actually seek in everything we do. A logical follow-through might then be to spend our days seeking to increase the number and duration of pleasurable emotions we feel, aiming for as close to constant pleasure as possible. As such, technologists could fulfill a wellbeing mission simply by creating ever more exciting games and facilitating the distribution of funny cat videos.

Without detracting from the value of cat videos, implying that pleasure suffices for wellbeing is a notion that has rarely satisfied in the history of philosophy and psychology. A constant pleasure-seeking approach to life (in addition to sounding fairly exhausting) manifests as decidedly self-defeating in cases such as addiction. However, even assuming we qualify this quest, as Epicurus did, by requiring that we take into account the effects of current pleasure-based acts on future happiness, the approach still feels inadequate. Perhaps it fails to inspire because it leaves our potential for wellbeing largely to circumstance?to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that will inevitably bring either pleasure or pain. Those of us not totally convinced by a desire-satisfaction model of happiness are certainly not alone, and it’s from other philosophers in ancient Greece that we have inherited more complex notions of happiness, such as eudaimonia.

Nevertheless, hedonism has maintained a thriving career, and perhaps that is because we have little choice in the matter. The utilitarian Jeremy Bentham suggested hedonic enslavement as a point of departure for economic theory: “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.”1 Are we biologically predestined to seek pleasure and avoid pain as a consequence of being animal? At the turn of the twentieth century, behaviorists such as Ivan Pavlov and B. F. Skinner produced ample evidence for this conclusion via myriad lab experiments and proposed it to explain all human behavior.

Modern research on positive emotion, however, has provided us with a far more nuanced and sophisticated perspective that goes well beyond stimulus-response and gives evidence for both agency with regard to our experience of positive emotions and their potentially profound impacts. Work such as Barbara Fredrickson’s in the area of positive psychology has advanced theories that explain not only why positive emotions have been essential from an evolutionary standpoint, but also how they might trigger lasting flourishing.

Hedonism and Wellbeing

We know positive emotions such as pleasure, serenity, and joy feel good as we experience them, but we also lament their transience. Therefore, how can they be anything but fleeting and casual contributors to our lasting happiness? Can we reconcile these ephemera to a more stable notion of long-term wellbeing?

The classic hedonist Aristippus argued that it is pleasure we actually seek in everything we do. A logical follow-through might then be to spend our days seeking to increase the number and duration of pleasurable emotions we feel, aiming for as close to constant pleasure as possible. As such, technologists could fulfill a wellbeing mission simply by creating ever more exciting games and facilitating the distribution of funny cat videos.

Without detracting from the value of cat videos, implying that pleasure suffices for wellbeing is a notion that has rarely satisfied in the history of philosophy and psychology. A constant pleasure-seeking approach to life (in addition to sounding fairly exhausting) manifests as decidedly self-defeating in cases such as addiction. However, even assuming we qualify this quest, as Epicurus did, by requiring that we take into account the effects of current pleasure-based acts on future happiness, the approach still feels inadequate. Perhaps it fails to inspire because it leaves our potential for wellbeing largely to circumstance?to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that will inevitably bring either pleasure or pain. Those of us not totally convinced by a desire-satisfaction model of happiness are certainly not alone, and it’s from other philosophers in ancient Greece that we have inherited more complex notions of happiness, such as eudaimonia.

Nevertheless, hedonism has maintained a thriving career, and perhaps that is because we have little choice in the matter. The utilitarian Jeremy Bentham suggested hedonic enslavement as a point of departure for economic theory: “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.”1 Are we biologically predestined to seek pleasure and avoid pain as a consequence of being animal? At the turn of the twentieth century, behaviorists such as Ivan Pavlov and B. F. Skinner produced ample evidence for this conclusion via myriad lab experiments and proposed it to explain all human behavior.

Modern research on positive emotion, however, has provided us with a far more nuanced and sophisticated perspective that goes well beyond stimulus-response and gives evidence for both agency with regard to our experience of positive emotions and their potentially profound impacts. Work such as Barbara Fredrickson’s in the area of positive psychology has advanced theories that explain not only why positive emotions have been essential from an evolutionary standpoint, but also how they might trigger lasting flourishing.
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The Broadening and Building Effect

Negative emotions such as fear, anger, and disgust have long been explained by their importance in motivating useful survival actions, including escaping danger, fighting threat, and expelling poison. In essence, these emotions cause us to narrow in on a specific set of behavioral options most suitable to surviving a life-or-death situation.

In her seminal work, Fredrickson (2001) tackles the less straightforward survival benefits of specific positive emotions. She argues that while negative emotions narrow our options in order to facilitate quick survivalist decision making, positive emotions do the opposite. “The positive emotions of joy, interest, contentment, pride, and love appear to have a complementary effect: They broaden people’s momentary thought? action repertoires, widening the array of the thoughts and actions that come to mind.”

In other words, positive emotions broaden our behavior options at those times when fight or flight is not the imperative and allow us to take advantage of these moments of relative safety to think more creatively, do things differently, innovate, and build our resources (she identifies physical, intellectual, social, and psychological resources). This investment in resource building increases our chances of survival over the long term. To a digital gamer, this is like switching from survival mode to creative mode in Minecraft (and, indeed, games arguably present the richest and broadest set of examples of technology support for positive emotion to date).

Fredrickson reviews experimental findings of phenomenologically distinct positive emotions that are linked empirically to evolutionarily advantageous behaviors. Specifically, research has demonstrated a causal link between

• joy and an urge for playfulness and creativity;
• interest and an urge to explore and learn;
• pride with an urge to share news of achievements with others and envision greater progress;
• contentment and an urge to reflect and integrate savored experience into new worldviews and self-views; and
• love, which Fredrickson (2001) describes as “an amalgam of distinct positive emotions (e.g. joy, interest, contentment) experienced within contexts of safe, close relationships [that] broadens by creating recurring cycles of urges to play with, explore, and savor experiences with loved ones.”

There are many others whose work supports these conclusions. Alice Isen (1990) suggests that positive affect leads to “broad, flexible cognitive organization and ability to integrate diverse material.” Moreover, studies abound on how happy moods lead to more open-ended thinking and effective problem solving. Sonja Lyubomirsky, Laura King, and Ed Diener (2005), for example, show how positive moods facilitate a variety of approach behaviors and positive outcomes.

But according to research, there’s even more to positive emotions than adaptively significant resource building. Veteran positive-psychology researchers Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener (2008) identify positive emotions as critical to what they call “psychological wealth.” They explain that “Happiness is the fundamental building block of psychological wealth, but it is important not just because it feels good, but because it is so beneficial in so many areas of life. Rethinking happiness requires us to understand that it is not just a pleasant goal, but necessary to achieving success in many domains of life.”

Likewise, Martin Seligman includes “positive emotions” as one of the five pillars of flourishing. Fredrickson’s work goes furthest to support this claim. She has amassed compelling evidence to support the idea that the experience of positive emotions in the right quantity can trigger an “upward spiral” of psychological flourishing.

The Broadening and Building Effect

Negative emotions such as fear, anger, and disgust have long been explained by their importance in motivating useful survival actions, including escaping danger, fighting threat, and expelling poison. In essence, these emotions cause us to narrow in on a specific set of behavioral options most suitable to surviving a life-or-death situation.

In her seminal work, Fredrickson (2001) tackles the less straightforward survival benefits of specific positive emotions. She argues that while negative emotions narrow our options in order to facilitate quick survivalist decision making, positive emotions do the opposite. “The positive emotions of joy, interest, contentment, pride, and love appear to have a complementary effect: They broaden people’s momentary thought? action repertoires, widening the array of the thoughts and actions that come to mind.”

In other words, positive emotions broaden our behavior options at those times when fight or flight is not the imperative and allow us to take advantage of these moments of relative safety to think more creatively, do things differently, innovate, and build our resources (she identifies physical, intellectual, social, and psychological resources). This investment in resource building increases our chances of survival over the long term. To a digital gamer, this is like switching from survival mode to creative mode in Minecraft (and, indeed, games arguably present the richest and broadest set of examples of technology support for positive emotion to date).

Fredrickson reviews experimental findings of phenomenologically distinct positive emotions that are linked empirically to evolutionarily advantageous behaviors. Specifically, research has demonstrated a causal link between

• joy and an urge for playfulness and creativity;
• interest and an urge to explore and learn;
• pride with an urge to share news of achievements with others and envision greater progress;
• contentment and an urge to reflect and integrate savored experience into new worldviews and self-views; and
• love, which Fredrickson (2001) describes as “an amalgam of distinct positive emotions (e.g. joy, interest, contentment) experienced within contexts of safe, close relationships [that] broadens by creating recurring cycles of urges to play with, explore, and savor experiences with loved ones.”

There are many others whose work supports these conclusions. Alice Isen (1990) suggests that positive affect leads to “broad, flexible cognitive organization and ability to integrate diverse material.” Moreover, studies abound on how happy moods lead to more open-ended thinking and effective problem solving. Sonja Lyubomirsky, Laura King, and Ed Diener (2005), for example, show how positive moods facilitate a variety of approach behaviors and positive outcomes.

But according to research, there’s even more to positive emotions than adaptively significant resource building. Veteran positive-psychology researchers Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener (2008) identify positive emotions as critical to what they call “psychological wealth.” They explain that “Happiness is the fundamental building block of psychological wealth, but it is important not just because it feels good, but because it is so beneficial in so many areas of life. Rethinking happiness requires us to understand that it is not just a pleasant goal, but necessary to achieving success in many domains of life.”

Likewise, Martin Seligman includes “positive emotions” as one of the five pillars of flourishing. Fredrickson’s work goes furthest to support this claim. She has amassed compelling evidence to support the idea that the experience of positive emotions in the right quantity can trigger an “upward spiral” of psychological flourishing.
…

The Tipping Point

Based on her work with Marcial Losada and others, Fredrickson concludes that positive emotions, in a quantity beyond a certain “tipping point,” is consistently predictive of psychological flourishing. In other words, if your positive emotions surpass your negative emotions by about three to one, research predicts you will exhibit the characteristics of someone who is experiencing optimal mental health and wellbeing (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005). The idea is a parallel to the more conspicuous negative tipping point beyond which negative emotions can spiral into clinical depression.

Because Fredrickson’s findings show that just as negative emotions can spiral into depression, positive emotions can spiral into flourishing, positive emotions are evidently worth cultivating not only for their own sake, but also because they generate stable mental health. SuperBetter (invented by Jane McGonigal) is currently the best example of a technology (we would call it positive computing) that is designed around the notion of and research behind psychological resources. SuperBetter is a mobile app and web-based environment that pragmatically supports small acts of wellbeing in a variety of goal contexts.

Positive Emotions versus Positive Thinking: The Vital Importance of Authenticity

Although supporting the positive is clearly valuable for wellbeing, should the benefits of positive emotions lead us to turn all bad thoughts to good, avoid difficulty, and dodge negativity in any way we can? Surely this would get us to the holy grail of a three-to-one ratio most efficiently? Yet dedicating a slew of tools intended exclusively to “cheer people up” feels suspiciously limited as an overarching goal for positive computing, perhaps because we instinctively sense the tendency for any such endeavor to lack authenticity. In fact, research has demonstrated how optimal functioning relies on the experience of negative emotions as well, which both have evolutionary purpose and distinguish authentically happy human beings from the fictional Pollyanna and the nonfictional sociopath.2 In their paper on the positivity ratio, Fredrickson and Losada (2005) conclude that “appropriate negativity is a critical ingredient within human flourishing that serves to maintain a grounded, negentropic system” and that “the complex dynamics of flourishing first show signs of disintegration at a positivity ratio of 11.6.” In other words, positive feelings can go too far.

In fact, authenticity of emotion is so critical to wellbeing that “faking” happiness by repressing negative emotion and affirming positive thoughts in the face of negative experience have been shown to be not just ineffective, but actually harmful to one’s wellbeing.

Psychology writer and Guardian journalist Oliver Burkeman (2013) dedicated an entire book to the importance of the negative. Although “reframing,” that stalwart of cognitive behavioral therapy, is proven to be highly effective, there is an important line to be drawn between reframing and denial or repression. Considering alternate interpretations is different to either ignoring the possibility of negative events or denying the existence of your negative emotions. Burkeman points to Western business culture’s tendency to repress any consideration of negative outcome or failure as a contributor to the 2008 financial crisis.

The harmful effects of inauthenticity can become a chronic problem for people who have to fake happiness as part of their job. “Emotional labor,” a term introduced by Arlie Hochschild (2003) in the 1980s, refers to the effort made by employees who must display certain emotions as part of their work (e.g., sales people, waiting staff, nurses, actors). Emotional work is becoming increasingly common in the ever-growing services industry, and if it is not properly managed, it can lead to burnout and depression. Researchers have developed management strategies such as support groups and psychological work breaks where employees can “be natural.”

It is in our interaction with others that we observe another case for the importance of negative emotions. Meaningful connection with others is critical to wellbeing, and it involves expressing our emotions and empathizing with others. These acts by definition require us to share in others’ experience of negative emotions. We delve deeper into the wellbeing links to empathy in chapter 10.

The sophisticated dance between negative and positive emotion is easy to see when we play games. Positive experiences (such as flow) are contingent on “appropriate challenge,” which means coming up against stressful and frustrating but surmountable limits and obstacles. If the obstacles weren’t challenging or the limits not somewhat frustrating, there would be no rewarding sense of joy and pride in overcoming them.

Why is this important for technologists? One can easily imagine a well-intentioned design team looking to motivational speakers or self-help writers who push an imbalanced positive-thinking approach in order to inform their design work. Seen as a moral tale, the critical caveats surrounding the role of positive emotion for wellbeing highlight the importance of engaging with academic psychologists rather than being satisfied with pop psychology or trends. Where there is plenty of talk but little research evidence, not only can resources be wasted, but actual harm can be done. Again, the imperative for interdisciplinarity is clear.

In practice, few engineers will be aiming to build happiness-generating machines. Instead, design will likely find most benefit from viewing positive emotion in the context of the project and its requirements?in other words, by applying those specific strategies best suited to the activities and contexts being supported. For example, supporting gratitude in social networks, fostering serenity in a mindfulness app, or supporting interest in a productivity tool will generally be more practicable than aiming vaguely at positive emotion in general.

The Tipping Point

Based on her work with Marcial Losada and others, Fredrickson concludes that positive emotions, in a quantity beyond a certain “tipping point,” is consistently predictive of psychological flourishing. In other words, if your positive emotions surpass your negative emotions by about three to one, research predicts you will exhibit the characteristics of someone who is experiencing optimal mental health and wellbeing (Fredrickson & Losada, 2005). The idea is a parallel to the more conspicuous negative tipping point beyond which negative emotions can spiral into clinical depression.

Because Fredrickson’s findings show that just as negative emotions can spiral into depression, positive emotions can spiral into flourishing, positive emotions are evidently worth cultivating not only for their own sake, but also because they generate stable mental health. SuperBetter (invented by Jane McGonigal) is currently the best example of a technology (we would call it positive computing) that is designed around the notion of and research behind psychological resources. SuperBetter is a mobile app and web-based environment that pragmatically supports small acts of wellbeing in a variety of goal contexts.

Positive Emotions versus Positive Thinking: The Vital Importance of Authenticity

Although supporting the positive is clearly valuable for wellbeing, should the benefits of positive emotions lead us to turn all bad thoughts to good, avoid difficulty, and dodge negativity in any way we can? Surely this would get us to the holy grail of a three-to-one ratio most efficiently? Yet dedicating a slew of tools intended exclusively to “cheer people up” feels suspiciously limited as an overarching goal for positive computing, perhaps because we instinctively sense the tendency for any such endeavor to lack authenticity. In fact, research has demonstrated how optimal functioning relies on the experience of negative emotions as well, which both have evolutionary purpose and distinguish authentically happy human beings from the fictional Pollyanna and the nonfictional sociopath.2 In their paper on the positivity ratio, Fredrickson and Losada (2005) conclude that “appropriate negativity is a critical ingredient within human flourishing that serves to maintain a grounded, negentropic system” and that “the complex dynamics of flourishing first show signs of disintegration at a positivity ratio of 11.6.” In other words, positive feelings can go too far.

In fact, authenticity of emotion is so critical to wellbeing that “faking” happiness by repressing negative emotion and affirming positive thoughts in the face of negative experience have been shown to be not just ineffective, but actually harmful to one’s wellbeing.

Psychology writer and Guardian journalist Oliver Burkeman (2013) dedicated an entire book to the importance of the negative. Although “reframing,” that stalwart of cognitive behavioral therapy, is proven to be highly effective, there is an important line to be drawn between reframing and denial or repression. Considering alternate interpretations is different to either ignoring the possibility of negative events or denying the existence of your negative emotions. Burkeman points to Western business culture’s tendency to repress any consideration of negative outcome or failure as a contributor to the 2008 financial crisis.

The harmful effects of inauthenticity can become a chronic problem for people who have to fake happiness as part of their job. “Emotional labor,” a term introduced by Arlie Hochschild (2003) in the 1980s, refers to the effort made by employees who must display certain emotions as part of their work (e.g., sales people, waiting staff, nurses, actors). Emotional work is becoming increasingly common in the ever-growing services industry, and if it is not properly managed, it can lead to burnout and depression. Researchers have developed management strategies such as support groups and psychological work breaks where employees can “be natural.”

It is in our interaction with others that we observe another case for the importance of negative emotions. Meaningful connection with others is critical to wellbeing, and it involves expressing our emotions and empathizing with others. These acts by definition require us to share in others’ experience of negative emotions. We delve deeper into the wellbeing links to empathy in chapter 10.

The sophisticated dance between negative and positive emotion is easy to see when we play games. Positive experiences (such as flow) are contingent on “appropriate challenge,” which means coming up against stressful and frustrating but surmountable limits and obstacles. If the obstacles weren’t challenging or the limits not somewhat frustrating, there would be no rewarding sense of joy and pride in overcoming them.

Why is this important for technologists? One can easily imagine a well-intentioned design team looking to motivational speakers or self-help writers who push an imbalanced positive-thinking approach in order to inform their design work. Seen as a moral tale, the critical caveats surrounding the role of positive emotion for wellbeing highlight the importance of engaging with academic psychologists rather than being satisfied with pop psychology or trends. Where there is plenty of talk but little research evidence, not only can resources be wasted, but actual harm can be done. Again, the imperative for interdisciplinarity is clear.

In practice, few engineers will be aiming to build happiness-generating machines. Instead, design will likely find most benefit from viewing positive emotion in the context of the project and its requirements?in other words, by applying those specific strategies best suited to the activities and contexts being supported. For example, supporting gratitude in social networks, fostering serenity in a mindfulness app, or supporting interest in a productivity tool will generally be more practicable than aiming vaguely at positive emotion in general.
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