Happy State Research Articles

The effect of the emotional state on driving performance in a simulated car-following task

Emotion is an important factor that influences driving behavior, but the mechanism is unclear. This research explored the effect of the emotional state on simulated driving behavior. Thirty-five licensed drivers participated in this study and completed a car-following task. The angry, happy and neutral states were manipulated during the task. The participants’ driving performance and risk perception were recorded under each emotional state. Trait anger and driving experience were also measured to explore the possible mediating effect. The results showed that the drivers in an angry or happy emotional state tended to maintain less time to collision and take a longer time to brake while following a lead vehicle than the drivers under the neutral condition, suggesting that drivers in emotional states are more dangerous those in neutral states. Moreover, the happy state rendered the drivers more dangerous, which manifested as a lower perceived accident risk than that among the drivers in the angry and neutral states. More specifically, experienced drivers in happy states performed worse with respect to vehicle lateral position control. Recommendations and implications for safety education and further research are discussed.

The Regional Path to Peaceful Change: What the Asian and European Experiences Tell Us

AbstractOne of the more striking, surprising, and optimism-inducing features of the contemporary international system has been the decline of interstate war. The key question for students of international relations and comparative politics is how this happy state of affairs came about. In short, was this a universal phenomenon or did some regions play a more important and pioneering role in bringing about peaceful change? As part of the roundtable “International Institutions and Peaceful Change,” this essay suggests that Western Europe generally and the European Union in particular played pivotal roles in transforming the international system and the behavior of policymakers. This helped to create the material and ideational conditions in which other parts of the world could replicate this experience, making war less likely and peaceful change more feasible. This argument is developed by comparing the experiences of the EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and their respective institutional offshoots. The essay uses this comparative historical analysis to assess both regions’ capacity to cope with new security challenges, particularly the declining confidence in institutionalized cooperation.

Will State of Happiness Assure Global Peace?

This research sought to determine the commonalities between countries with high levels of of happiness but low global state of peace. The values used were from published indices, namely, State of Global Happiness and Global Peace Index. These were analysed using nominal logistic regression in order to find the relationship between these variables. The general trend is that happy countries are peaceful countries. However, several countries did not fit this finding, namely: Israel, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Bahrain, Russia, Libya, Philippines, Turkey and Pakistan. Indicators used in the State of Global Happiness and Global Peace Index were further analysed. Findings suggest that individuals in these countries have strong social support that enables them to consider themselves happy despite the low state of peace in their respective countries, the factors of which vary from region to region and country to country.

¿Es posible la felicidad en estudiantes universitarios?: un estudio no paramétrico


 
 
 La pregunta ¿es posible la felicidad en estudiantes universitarios? guía la presente investigación cuantitativa dirigida a 237 estudiantes (hombres y mujeres) de la Universidad de las Regiones Autónomas de la Costa Caribe Nicaragüense. Investigación que está sustentada en un diseño descriptivo, aplicando la escala de felicidad de Alarcón (2006) tomando en consideración las variables de género, edad, etnia y años de estudio. Para ello, se realizó diferentes tipos de análisis, entre estos: de consistencia interna del cuestionario, el análisis de componentes principales, y un estudio de correlaciones entre las categorías aplicando las pruebas de normalidad de Kolmogorov, la prueba U de Mann-Whitney, prueba de Wilcoxon, Kruskal Wallis, y la prueba de Friedman, utilizando el paquete estadístico de SPSS. Los resultados demuestran que la felicidad en estudiantes universitarios sí es posible tomando en cuenta que la misma es meramente subjetiva en las personas y, a su alrededor se engloban diferentes elementos que la hacen posible. En este sentido, se concluye que las variables etnia, edad, género y años de estudio no tienen una relación directa con el estado de felicidad de los estudiantes, pues no son determinantes para definir este estado en el ser humano.
 
 

The Data-Based Self: Self-Quantification and the Data-Driven (Good) Life

The Data-Based Self:Self-Quantification and the Data-Driven (Good) Life Natasha D. Schüll (bio) The reason you begin tracking your data is that you have some uncertainty about yourself that you believe the data can illuminate. It's about introspection, reflection, seeing patterns, and arriving at realizations about who you are and how you might change. —Eric Boyd, self-tracker the capacity to amass, store, and analyze data drawn from the physiological, behavioral, and "geolocational" experience of individuals is growing at an exponential rate and spreading to an ever-wider range of social domains.1 In the "datafication" (van Dijck 2014) of everyday life, big data enthusiasts see a new and important opportunity: to transform areas of life typically known through their qualitative aspects into quantitative variables that can be measured and mined for hidden correlations and patterns. Such data, they argue, promises to yield objective insights into and answers for individual and social problems, increase our rational and predictive power, and provide new forms of self-determination. Yet many scholars are skeptical of these promises, highlighting the ways in which digital quantification technologies "permeate [End Page 909] and exert power on all manner of forms of life" (Iliadis and Russo 2016, 2). Those who base their criticisms in Michel Foucault's work on modern forms of power tend to approach datafication from one of two angles: some draw on Foucault's early conception of disciplinary power (1977), focusing on the insidious surveillance capacities of data-tracking technologies (Ruckenstein and Schüll 2017); others draw on his later conception of biopolitics (2010), focusing on the way that population metrics are mobilized to regulate society—and, in particular, how quantification serves a neoliberal governmental rationality that accelerates the withdrawal of the welfare state from citizens' lives (Ruckenstein and Schüll 2017). Scholars working in a political-economic vein emphasize the "asymmetric relations between those who collect, store, and mine large quantities of data and those whom data collection targets" (Andrejevic 2014, 1673), as well as the ways quantification and algorithmic analysis alienate us from our own practical reasoning, intuition, and understanding of ourselves (Smith and Vonthethoff 2017). Selves are "sliced and diced into decontextualized parts, and bought and sold" (Neff and Nafus 2016, 62). Many invoke Deleuze's (1992) idea of a control society and the dividual—a subject divided into ever more granular bits so that it may be sorted into and tracked through multiple data sets with the aim of algorithmically steering its behavior (Ruckenstein and Schüll 2017). Running through these varied criticisms is the claim that datafication decomposes the person: as this special issue suggests, we are becoming persons without qualities. Particular deployments of algorithms, artificial intelligence, and other technologies of quantification work against human agency and self-image, such that we are treated—and treat ourselves—as "uniform, averaged, smoothed out" (Davis and Scherz, this issue, 4). This essay does not run counter to this criticism so much as obliquely, seeking to explore a space between the poles of boosterism and readymade critique, entertaining the idea that data tracking and quantification might serve as aids to self-understanding and new forms of living. [End Page 910] A conceptual entry point is found in the distinction that Foucault drew between technologies of power, "which determine the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends or domination, an objectivizing of the subject," and "technologies of the self," through which individuals perform "operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality" (1988, 18). The case of contemporary self-tracking, in which individuals monitor and make meaning of their own everyday "data exhaust" via sensor-laden devices, smart-phone apps, data-visualization software, and analytical algorithms, provides an ethnographic entry point. The popular Fitbit wristband, which tracks daily steps, is just the best known of an ever-expanding array of devices and apps for monitoring productivity, mood states, and mundane aspects of life such as sitting, chewing, and even breathing (Schüll 2016b). While self-tracking could certainly be characterized as self-surveillance...

National progress, sustainability and higher goals: the case of Bhutan\u2019s Gross National Happiness

BackgroundThe context of this study is the predominant global paradigm for measuring national progress, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which has resulted in an over-emphasis on production and consumption that in turn, is exhausting the planet’s capacity to sustain life. This study examines the potential for a new paradigm of development that can propel human society in a more meaningful, sustainable direction.ResultsCritiques of the GDP are overviewed, but the key critique is that if sustainability, human survival, is our key goal, then GDP, aiming at boundless material wealth, is driving us in the wrong direction. To drive a new sustainable, more meaningful way of life, we need an overarching paradigm with integrated, localized indicators that are internationally accepted as the measures of each nation’s progress. Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index exemplifies this. Based on the lived experience of a key GNH instigator, its nine domains are explained: Living standard, Health, Education, Ecological diversity and resilience, Cultural diversity and resilience, Community vitality, Time use, Psychological wellbeing, and Good governance. These have informed and been informed by the Sustainable Development Goals. It is outlined how the GNH Index guides development, allocates resources according to the targets set, measures people’s happiness, and measures progress over time and geography.ConclusionThe economic paradigm underlying the GDP - that the purpose of life is to become rich - is enabling our unsustainability. To enable future sustainability, we need to reconceptualize our concept of national progress. Moreover, since sustainability is effectively a euphemism for survival, then surely, as intelligent, sensitive beings, shouldn’t we be pursuing a higher, shared goal? For the Bhutanese, this is ‘happiness’ - a paradigm that encompasses the pursuit of meaningful societal progress by balancing the physical with mental, the material with spiritual, within a safe and stable environment, with the purpose of realizing happiness. Though the Bhutanese do not claim to have reached a state of national happiness, Bhutan has maintained happiness as its overriding goal, with the tool’s philosophy, authority and accountability driving this in everyday life.

Decoding the causation of a happy ending

This study addresses the question of causation in common human efforts to achieve and maintain happiness by attempting to gain insights into the causation of a happy ending in narratives, doing so through the investigation of an example of the metaphorical pursuit of happiness, as presented in the theme of pursuing immortality. It compares two versions of the same story that ends with the agent’s failure to achieve immortality, but the two stories have different outcome emotions: the Chinese legend “Du Zichun” 杜子春 ends with a tragic tone, while “Toshishun” 杜子春, as retold by Akutagawa, ends with a happy state of mind. A closer look into the information encoded in the three main elements of the narrative structure (the goal, the causal sequence and the agent of both stories) reveals some significant differences. The process of decoding the final causation is carried out first by a comparison of the image schemas underlying the goal; second, the numeric symbolism behind the causal sequences is examined; and third, the use of positive junctural and outcome emotions. The investigation reveals that the new story with a happy ending is a product of a shift in perspective.

Can I Sustain My Happiness? A Review, Critique and Research Agenda for Economics of Happiness

Human beings want to live in a state of happiness and prosperity, but happiness is important not just for the well-being of individuals but for the well-being of society. To ensure the maximization of happiness, it is necessary to consider more than just money, and rather include the right understanding of happiness at the individual level, the family level, the society level, and the environmental (nature) level. This paper contributes to the existing body of knowledge by consolidating the findings of the literature; grouping those into major themes and sub-themes; describing the mechanisms based on the empirical papers by highlighting the independent, dependent, control, and moderating variables, to study the causal relationships between variables under study; proposing an agenda for future research; and informing the policymakers about decisions influencing the human happiness level through legislative rules and regulations. Our results suggest prioritizing the conceptualization of happiness while computing the happiness level at the individual or collective levels. Furthermore, the study recommends governments to establish the conditions enabling individuals to report happiness independently from the political pressure to answer strategically for impressive happiness level figures at the macro level.

Inter- and Intra-Species Communication of Emotion: Chemosignals as the Neglected Medium.

Simple SummaryHuman body odors contain chemosignals that make species-specific communication possible. Interspecies communication studies were conducted on dogs and horses subjected to human chemosignals produced in happiness and fear emotional states. Dogs showed behaviors consistent with human emotions, while horses exhibited differential activation of the autonomic nervous system. These results are leading the way for further studies on human–animal communication through emotional chemosignals.Human body odors contain chemosignals that make species-specific communication possible. Such communication is without communicative intent and is generally below the threshold of consciousness. Human recipients of these chemosignals produced during emotional conditions display a simulacrum of the emotional state under which the chemosignal was produced. The investigation of an inter-species transfer of emotions via chemosignals was initiated by considerations of the historically anchored interdependence between humans and domesticated species, such as dogs and horses. Indeed, experiments with dogs have demonstrated that human body odors produced under emotional conditions of happiness and fear led dogs to manifest corresponding emotions to those experienced by humans. Preliminary data from horses also show that human body odors collected under fear and happiness conditions activate the autonomic nervous system of horses differentially. These studies indicate the possibility of a road to open our understanding of inter-species emotional communication via chemosignals.

Mild Affective Shifts and Creativity: Effects on Idea Generation, Evaluation, and Implementation Planning

AbstractThis study investigated the impact of mild shifts in affective tone (i.e., pleasant vs. unpleasant) and arousal (i.e., high vs. low) on three creative processes. Undergraduates read short stories designed to induce affective shifts and then were asked to generate solutions to a complex business problem. Shifts in affective tone and arousal interacted to influence idea generation and implementation planning, but not idea evaluation. The strongest creative performance was exhibited by participants who experienced a stable and pleasantly toned, low‐arousal (i.e., relaxed) state and by those who shifted to an unpleasantly toned, high‐arousal (i.e., angry) state. In contrast, those who shifted to an unpleasantly toned, low‐arousal (i.e., sad) state or a pleasantly toned, high‐arousal (i.e., happy) state tended to exhibit poorer creative performance. These results demonstrate the need to revisit the popular conception that organizations should promote intense levels of pleasant affect to enhance employee creativity.

The Resemblances of the Concept of Love in Theravada Buddhist Philosophy and Stoicism: A Comparative Study

In Theravada Buddhist Philosophy, love exists as psychological activities that can be called by many names such as Sineha or romantic love, Karma or erotic love, Pema or family love, Metta or compassionate love etc. Variety of love is also categorized into lower kinds and higher kinds of love. Lower kind of love refers to those psychological activities that demand possession of the objects that we love while higher kinds refers to psychological activities that extends goodness to others. However, love, as well as everything, is governed by the Law of Impermanence, meaning that it occurs, comes into being and then cease to be. The highest form of love in Buddhism is, presumably, called Chanta (the will) or the love of dharma which is the highest truth and the wisdom to be free from all attachments. Similarly, the Stoic philosophers (c.300 B.C.-c. 300 A.D.) try to live their lives according to their ideal state of happiness (Eudaimonia) by avoiding the emotions such as desire, pain, grief, fear and passion. The Stoics hold that such feelings are caused by false judgements and that the wiseman who had attained moral and intellectual perfection would not undertake them. The later stoic philosophers such as Seneca and Epictetus, emphasize the doctrine that the wiseman is entirely resilient to misfortune and that virtue is satisfactory condition for happiness. Thus, passionate or romantic love is an unnecessary condition for human to attain happiness. In this research paper, the researcher attempts to identify the commonalities in the concept of love of two ancient school of thoughts, one from the western and the other from the eastern part of the world. The result will support at the international level, the expansion of knowledge in the field of philosophy of love.

A Study on the Developmental Differences in states of Happiness

A Study on the Developmental Differences in states of Happiness

Poor sleep quality is associated with perinatal depression. A systematic review of last decade scientific literature and meta-analysis.

Background Although pregnancy is frequently associated with mental states of happiness, hope and well-being, some physical and psychological changes can contribute to increased sleep disturbances and worsened sleep quality. Sleep quality has been linked to negative emotions, anxiety and depression. The main objective of this paper was to systematically review the impact of sleep during pregnancy on maternal mood, studying the association between objective and subjective measures of sleep quality and perinatal depression. Methods We performed a systematic review according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, which included studies published between January 2008 and April 2019, and met the following criteria: (i) studies on pregnant women assessing the effects of sleep quality variables on perinatal mood disorders, (ii) studies published in English and (iii) full paper published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal with full-text format available. Results A total of 36 studies published in the last decade met the inclusion criteria for qualitative review and eight of them were suitable for meta-analysis. Both confirmed the negative effects of poor sleep on perinatal mood. However, qualitative analysis showed that unrepresentative samples and low participation rates falling below 80% biased some of the studies. The standard random-effects meta-analysis showed a pooled size effect [ln odds ratio (OR) 1.49 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.19, 1.79)] for perinatal depression in cases of poor prenatal sleep quality, although heterogeneity was moderate to high [Q 16.05, P ≤ 0.025, H2 2.45 (95% CI 1.01, 13.70)]. Conclusion Poor sleep quality was associated with perinatal mood disturbances. The assessment of sleep quality along the pregnancy could be advisable with a view to offering preventative or therapeutic interventions when necessary.

Experiencing Joy as a Source of Selfobject in the Self - Focused on Selfpsychology and Pastoral Theology -

According to selfpsychology, we need selfobject(it shores us up to the last moment with the cognition, "I'm O.K." or "I'm worth while to live in spite of this frustrations.")to keep stable and inner peace in self, regardless of the results(happy or tragic). So especially, in a competing, stressful contemporary times, one needs stable selfobject more than ever. And affirmative emotions, such as gladness or joy are essential sources to keep selfobject stable and calm. And there are levels about the state of happiness, gladness and joy. If a man seek happiness only in possessing materials, his self is likely to lose inner peace easily when he fails to get something he want, materially. But if a man pursue gladness, including mental and spiritual level, his self is not likely to lose inner peace so easily. In this light, christians can experience profound and deep peace and inner joy, than non-christians, with the help of the calming structure of the presence of God in his self. Jesus shows the truly and dedicated empathic role to whomever he meets, by letting them enjoy inner joy by experiencing the presence of God, so they can have cohesive self. Pastoral counselors are to play their roles, as helpers in letting clients have the calming structure of selves, through experiencing the presence of God, following Jesus Christ who shows the most dedicated model.

Effective EEG Channels for Emotion Identification over the Brain Regions using Differential Evolution Algorithm.

The motivation of this study was to detect the most effective electroencephalogram (EEG) channels for various emotional states of the brain regions (i.e. frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital). The EEGs of ten volunteer participants without health conditions were captured while the participants were shown seven, short, emotional video clips with audio (i.e. anger, anxiety, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise and neutral). The Savitzky-Golay (SG) filter was adopted for smoothing and denoising the EEG dataset. The spectral features were performed by employing the relative spectral powers of delta (δRP), theta (θRP), alpha (αRP), beta (βRP), and gamma (γRP). The differential evolution-based channel selection algorithm (DEFS_Ch) was computed to find the most suitable EEG channels that have the greatest efficacy for identifying the various emotional states of the brain regions. The results revealed that all seven emotions previously mentioned were represented by at least two frontal and two temporal channels. Moreover, some emotional states could be identified by channels from the parietal region such as disgust, happiness and sadness. Furthermore, the right and left occipital channels may help in identifying happiness, sadness, surprise and neutral emotional states. The DEFS_Ch algorithm raised the linear discriminant analysis (LDA) classification accuracy from 80% to 86.85%, indicating that DEFS_Ch may offer a useful way for reliable enhancement of the detection of different emotional states of the brain regions.

How does the 'care of the self' impact on fitness to practice in dental education?

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Foucault defines care of the self as activities which "permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom perfection, or immortality" ( Foucault, 1988). This paper will explore how the care of the self impacts on fitness to practice in dental education. Fitness to practice refers to a student's competence, including clinical skills and professionalism as well as the ability to reflect on their own health and capabilities. This paper will examine how the dominant discourse of reflective practice influences a student's care of the self using techniques of writing and verbalisation, and how the development of competent graduates is tied to Foucault's work on disciplinary power, panopticism and governmentality. The role of pastoral power and confession, and the relationship of educators and students will also be explored.

The Grateful Don’t Cheat: Gratitude as a Fount of Virtue

Gratitude has been linked to behaviors involving the exchange of resources; it motivates people to repay debts to benefactors. However, given its links to self-control—itself a necessary factor for repaying debts—the possibility arises that gratitude might enhance other virtues unrelated to exchange that depend on an ability to resist temptation. Here, we examined gratitude’s ability to function as a “parent” virtue by focusing on its ability to reduce cheating. Using real-time behavior-based measures of cheating, we demonstrated that gratitude, as opposed to neutrality and the more general positive emotional state of happiness, reduces cheating in both a controlled laboratory setting (N = 156) and a more anonymous online setting (N = 141). This finding suggests that not all moral qualities need to be studied in silos but, rather, that hierarchies exist wherein certain virtues might give rise to seemingly unrelated others.

Effects of anger and collision history on driver space preference

Driver space has been defined as the personal space extending from the driver to surround the vehicle in traffic. The current study explored if emotions have an influence on driver space preference. A sample of 39 drivers completed a projective measure of their driver space preference under the influence of state emotions. Three different emotion states were induced in each participant during the experiment, including anger, happiness, and neutral. The results showed that participants preferred larger space when angered compared to the other two states. However, the happy state did not change driver space preference compared to the neutral condition. Meanwhile, history of collisions also had some impact on driver space preference, where those with more collisions over the past three years reported larger driver space preference. In conclusion, driver space preference appears to be influenced by both emotion state and driving experience. These results provide some new perspectives about driver space preference which may be beneficial to more deeply understand the protective function of space that can help build a safer traffic environment.

Languages of the unconscious: let the tattoo speak for itself (2nd phase)

Introduction: The skin reflects each personal story through each line, wrinkle, beauty spot, scar, shape or color [1,2]. Today, tattoos have become works of art and/or a body accessory, serving as anchors that help to solidify a sense of Self, by narrating an individual’s conception of his or her identity [3]. The present exploratory and qualitative study aims at understanding the mental representation of the skin in tattooed individuals and the role that tattoos playas a vehicle for the projected identity of the Self. Materials and methods: The sample consisted of 387 individuals from both genders with visible/exposed tattoos, who were invited to produce two self-portraits, one before and one after they were tattooed. All participants answered a brief socio-demographic inquiry and provided a written answer on whether they had experienced any form of discrimination due to their tattooed body. We then proceeded to the content analysis of the 774 collected pictorial drawings, using a grid featuring analytical categories, purposely conceived for this study. Results: The results revealed that the self-portraits drawn before the subjects were tattooed showed less body investment than the self-portraits drawn after. However, the mental representation of the self-portraits drawn after the subjects were tattooed showed a fragmented idea of the body – only the body part that was tattooed was pictorially represented. Additionally, they were associated to a state of happiness (e.g. smile, movement/flexibility/freedom) and/or a personal valorization. Discussion and conclusions: From the content analysis of the drawings, we can subjectively interpret that the Body and the Self (seen as unit) seem to be caught in a “fatal trap” [4] in the case of the tattoo individuals.

Understanding Dante’s Comedy as Virtuous Friendship

As Dante explains in his epistle to Can Grande, the purpose of the Comedy is to move the reader from a state of misery to a state of happiness. The poet himself testifies that the poem was written as a work of moral philosophy oriented to the achievement of happiness, eudaimonia: the beatific vision of God. Moreover, Dante insists on his poem’s efficacy to affect in its readers a similar moral and religious transformation as that which the poem represents through the narrative journey of the pilgrim. To put it another way, Dante represents his poem’s relationship to its reader as a kind of virtuous friendship. This essay sets forth a model for teaching Dante’s poem as an experiment in virtuous friendship that can transform the classroom into a workshop for the philosophical and religious quest for happiness. This involves teaching the text with an eye not only to the content and style of the poem but also to the performative and participatory demands of the text. Beginning with this framework, this essay works out pedagogical strategies for teaching the Comedy as a form of virtuous friendship extended over the centuries between Dante Alighieri and the contemporary reader. Chiefly, I explore ways Dante makes his readers complicit in the pilgrim’s own moral and spiritual journey toward the virtue of hope translated into the practice of prayer through a close, pedagogical reading of Inferno 3, Purgatorio 5, and Paradiso 20. I explore ways that Dante’s use of surprise, shock, misdirection, appeal to mystery, and retreat to silence creates a morally significant aporia of knowledge that serves as a laboratory for readers’ own virtuous transformation. I end with a critical assessment of the challenges involved in understanding the Comedy as virtuous friendship.