Positive emotions give us a chemical edge in problem solving
Key lesson from the book - Happiness is an advantage
Shawn Achor, a positive psychologist and speaker, in his book The Happiness Advantage talks about how we have gotten the idea of happiness, as an end result, all wrong. He explains, through studies and examples, how happiness is actually not the result but what fuels success. Our general wellbeing and positive outlook is what powers our behaviour leading us to positive outcomes like a promotion or sale or stronger relationships.
Before we get into the core point, it probably makes sense to have a working definition of happiness. The simple meaning of happiness that is used in the book is borrowed from Martin Seligman, who is considered the father of positive psychology. According to him happiness is pleasure, engagement and meaning. People who pursue all three are the happiest, followed by two and then those that go after just one. This is the basic definition that we will stick to when we refer to ‘happiness’ in this post.
In a study done to understand the impact of positive mindset on people's cognitive abilities, two groups were primed differently and then were given the same set of pictures. The group that was primed with negative emotions processed far fewer details in the pictures, often times missing even the most basic information like the background colours. The group that was primed with positive emotions consumed more information faster and retained it for longer than the other group.
This experiment shows that positive emotions give us a chemical edge in problem solving. Happiness dumps Dopamine and Serotonin in the brain, that light up the learning centres of our brain, broadening possibilities and pathways. This improved cognitive ability was the evolutionary advantage of happiness and mental well being. (As opposed to the flight-fight response for survival that came with fear/stress).
The author builds over this concept and goes on to explain how to happiness should not be treated as the end but be used as a means to achieving success. Highly recommend reading this book, especially if you, like me, focus more on the negatives than the positives that surround us.