Happy Subjects Research Articles

The Semantics of Happiness in Descartes's Discourse

THE SEMANTICS OF HAPPINESS IN DESCARTES'S DISCOURSE by Louis A. Mackenzie,Jr. The discourse on method is a work in which most readers can take delight. Its attractiveness resides perhaps less in the philosophical argumentations—the Meditations and Principles do a more thoroughjob of that—than in what might be called its humanness. The reader need not be a philosopher to appreciate the image of Descartes warming himself or his thoughts on a winter's day, or to sympathize with his anxiety over publishing a risky piece of writing. These are moments when, to appropriate Pascal's thought, the reader finds himself "astonished and overjoyed to find a man there where he might have expected an author." And one of the most agreeable traits of the man who reveals himself in the Discourse is his clear capacity to experience joy and to express it. Indeed, happiness is not only one of the important "themes" of the Discourse specifically, it is also a persistent point of focus in Descartes 's writing generally.1 Here, however, I will be looking at the single element of Descartes's expression ofjoy in the Discourse. While my examination may lead me to several other texts, I do not intend to engage the sweeping subject of Cartesian happiness. I choose, rather, to stake out a small corner of the subject by focusing mainly on the semantic patina given the expression of happiness in the Discourse. In so doing, it should be possible to geta better sense notonly ofthe man, the method, and the philosophy, but also if I be permitted to pirouette on Pascal's thought, of an author fully conscious of the terms he uses and of their nuances. In the first part of the Discourse, Descartes looks back to his schooldays Louis A. Mackenzie, Jr.89 at La Flèche, "one of the most famous schools in Europe."2 He sees himself disillusioned and stymied. He recalls being "nourished" in the humanities, a diet which his Jesuit mentors had promised would bring clear and certain knowledge of everything it was useful to know. This promise, one he recalls as much for himself as for his readers, has to be understood as a promise for happiness, especially since Descartes talks about it in terms of his own "extreme desire" to learn all those things prescribed by the regimen. The adjective with which Descartes modifies the noun "desire"—and it is important to remember that, for all its accessibility, the language of the Discourse is not the unmediated expression ofspontaneous memory, but the carefully chosen expression ofsomeone preoccupied with clarity, precision, and publication—should not be taken as a simple synonym for "great" or "keen." It should be allowed to retain its strongest, most literal resonances. In short, it means vital, critical, and crucial.3 Descartes wants it understood that his desire teems with urgency, so that, when at the end of his course of studies he finds himself compelled to "change his mind completely," the sense of his disappointment can be fully appreciated by the reader. This need to change his opinion completely is to admit to the sad fact that extreme orurgentdesire has gone unfulfilled. More importantly, it has generated its opposite: extreme frustration. Once again, the term Descartes uses to express this frustration, "embarrass é," is important. To be embarrassé is not simply to be upset. It is to be blocked off, weighed down, encumbered, disoriented and confused . This unhappy condition forces Descartes to admit that faithfulness to his course ofstudy has brought no fruit other than an ignorance only vaguely consonant with Socratic wisdom. It should be noted parenthetically that while his disappointment with regard to the curriculum at La Flèche is authentic and weighty, his critique does not represent a broadside against his mentors and their pedagogy. Indeed, in a letter to an acquaintance who had asked advice on schooling for his son, Descartes goes so far as to recommend in the most glowing terms the program of his former instructors, particularly insofar as the teaching of philosophy is concerned.4 This recommendation does not, however, contradict what was clearly an unpleasant sensation for the young Descartes . In his disillusionment...

Mood, Persistence, and success

The idea that moods have a strong impact on performance has popular appeal but equivocal research support. In the present study, college students received tape-recorded instructions to recall vividly happy or sad experiences or to imagine a neutral situation. After the induction happy subjects persisted longer at an anagrams task and solved more anagrams than those who were sad. Women were also faster at reaching solutions when happy than in a sad mood. Results confirm our impression that positive moods promote persistence and ultimate success, but they raise questions about the role of self-efficacy and the sources of gender differences.

Mood, self-awareness, and willingness to help.

Two experiments using female subjects investigated the effects of mood and self-focused attention on the willingness to help another. Experiment 1 induced a positive, negative, or neutral mood and also two kinds of high self-awareness (by either the mirror procedure or requiring essays) as well as a low self-awareness condition. Experiment 2 used a different technique to induce the three moods and also established either high or low attention to the self with the mirror procedure. In both studies, self-awareness did not interact significantly with mood in affecting the subjects' reported feelings, although there were indications in Experiment 2 of an intensification of the negative mood under self-focus. Furthermore, in both studies self-awareness operated together with the positive mood to increase the subjects' effort in behalf of the supplicant, whereas the joint operation of self-focus and negative mood was much weaker. Also in the second experiment, self-awareness raised the frequency of positive ideas about the self in the happy subjects and increased the frequency of negative selfideas in the negative mood group. In a multiple regression analysis, these frequencies of positive and negative ideas about the self, but not a mood index, successfully predicted the amount of work the subjects did for the supplicant.

Mood effects on person-perception judgments.

How does mood affect the way we learn about, judge, and remember characteristics of other people? This study looked at the effects of mood on impression formation and person memory. Realistic person descriptions containing positive and negative details were presented to subjects experiencing a manipulated happy or sad mood. Next, impression-formation judgments were obtained, and subjects' recall and recognition of details of the characters were assessed. Results showed that subjects spent longer learning about mood-consistent details but were faster in making mood-consistent judgments. Overall, happy subjects formed more favorable impressions and made more positive judgments than did sad subjects. Both cued recall and recognition memory were superior for mood-consistent characteristics. Positive mood had a more pronounced effect on judgments and memory than did negative mood. These findings are discussed in terms of recent theories of mood effects on cognition, and the likely implications of the results for everyday person-perception judgments are considered.

Equity and Affect: The Effects of Relative Performance and Moods on Resource Allocation

This investigation examined the interactive effects of moods and performance on allocations of reward. Ninety-seven undergraduate students were randomly assigned to six treatment conditions. Mood (happy, neutral, sad) and relative performance (better than competitor, worse than competitor) were factorially combined to produce a 2 x 3 design. It was hypothesized that results consistent with equity theory (performance main effect) and mood research (main effect for mood with happy subjects acting selfishly and sad subjects behaving generously) would be found. Following the inductions, subjects divided 100 raffle tickets between themselves and their competitors. As expected, main effects for mood and performance reached or approached conventional levels of significance. However, these findings were qualified by a significant interaction between mood and performance. In general, moods affected allocations for worse performers but not for better performers. These findings are discussed in terms of the effects ...

The effect of mood and incentives on helping: Are there some things money can't buy?

Happy, guilty, and neutral mood states were induced in participants who were then provided with an opportunity to donate blood for free, to donate in exchange for $5, or to choose between donating for free or for $5. As expected, there was a significantly higher incidence of helping when subjects felt happy and guilty as opposed to emotively neutral. Contrary to predictions, helping was unaffected by the type of incentive (donate for $5, donate for free, choose $5/free) subjects were offered in interaction with their mood state. However, the type of incentive did seem to influence the postdonation emotions of subjects: Guilty subjects who donated for money felt significantly less guilty following donation than prior to it and happy subjects felt more self-altruistic (kind and generous) following donation when they helped for free. The results are discussed in terms of Cialdini's negative state relief model (for negative moods) and the intrinsic qualities of helping (for positive moods).

The Effect of Culture on Mother-Child Tactile Communication

A field study of the normal tactile interpersonal behaviors of forty-five motherchild pairs in a public, recreational setting. No phase of high tactile contact between mothers and children was evident. Mothers met the children's basic needs for food, tactile comfort and safety. All mothers gave less tactile communication to their youngest children than they gave to their just-walking ones. Tactile contact declined from this peak on. Mothers were most active in the areas of Control and Nursing; much less frequent were Play, Affection, Comfort, and Anger. Most of the childinitiated contacts were of the affectionate attachment kind. Tactile communication has been a relatively neglected area of psychological interest, yet it plays a crucial role in all human relationships. It appears to be biologically essential to the human being in the first four months of life; throughout the life cycle it is physically and psychologically useful in returning the individual to normal functioning after experiencing stress; and finally, it is the main avenue through which the human need for intimacy and acceptance is satisfied. The lack of interest in this fundamental modality can be viewed as an indication of a number of American attitudes. For example, there is the American preoccupation with words and with the articulated part of our culture; there is also the lack of concern with the subject of happiness as compared with the volume of problem literature; and finally, there is the attitude of prudery and anxiety about sexual matters which carries over into the tactile area because of the relationship between touch and sex.