Review: The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work

The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work by Shawn Achor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was good but not ground breaking to me.

Shawn Achor mostly takes studies he's found among some of his own studies he's personally done personally and at Harvard. He also often takes excerpts from Malcolm Gladwell and other authors and just skims the surface. It's almost strange to quote another author while that other author is references other studies. It's like a reference to a reference lol

This book is amazing if you're new to psychology and just getting into it because it summarizes many interesting topics. But if you're like me and like to dive into the details behind it all this book isn't for you.

Notes:
- "So how do the scientists define happiness? Essentially, as the experience of positive emotions—pleasure combined with deeper feelings of meaning and purpose. Happiness implies a positive mood in the present and a positive outlook for the future. Martin Seligman, the pioneer in positive psychology, has broken it down into three, measurable components: pleasure, engagement, and meaning. His studies have confirmed (though most of us know this intuitively) that people who pursue only pleasure experience only part of the benefits happiness can bring, while those who pursue all three routes lead the fullest lives
- Barbara Fredrickson, a researcher at the University of North Carolina and perhaps the world’s leading expert on the subject, describes the ten most common positive emotions: joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love.
- Barbara Fredrickson has termed the “Broaden and Build Theory.” Instead of narrowing our actions down to fight or flight as negative emotions do, positive ones broaden the amount of possibilities we process, making us more thoughtful, creative, and open to new ideas.
- A recent University of Toronto study found that our mood can actually change how our visual cortex—the part of the brain responsible for sight—processes information
- People who put their heads down and wait for work to bring eventual happiness put themselves at a huge disadvantage, while those who capitalize on positivity every chance they get come out ahead.
research even shows that regular meditation can permanently rewire the brain to raise levels of happiness, lower stress, even improve immune function
- Anticipating future rewards can actually light up the pleasure centers in your brain much as the actual reward will.
- A long line of empirical research, including one study of over 2,000 people, has shown that acts of altruism—giving to friends and strangers alike—decrease stress and strongly contribute to enhanced mental health
- Contrary to the popular saying, money can buy happiness, but only if used to do things as opposed to simply have things. In his book Luxury Fever, Robert Frank explains that while the positive feelings we get from material objects are frustratingly fleeting, spending money on experiences, especially ones with other people, produces positive emotions that are both more meaningful and more lasting. Spending money on other people, called “prosocial spending,” also boosts happiness.
- Each time we use a skill, whatever it is, we experience a burst of positivity. If you find yourself in need of a happiness booster, revisit a talent you haven’t used in a while.
- Countless other studies have shown that consistently grateful people are more energetic, emotionally intelligent, forgiving, and less likely to be depressed, anxious, or lonely. And it’s not that people are only grateful because they are happier, either; gratitude has proven to be a significant cause of positive outcomes.
- But armed with positivity, the brain stays open to possibility. Psychologists call this “predictive encoding”: Priming yourself to expect a favorable outcome actually encodes your brain to recognize the outcome when it does in fact arise
- Turns out, there was one—and only one —characteristic that distinguished the happiest 10 percent from everybody else: the strength of their social relationships."

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