“Clap along if you know what happiness is to you,” Pharrell Williams sings on his smash hit, “Happy.” For many, happiness is defined as an abstract goal, but that can set up unrealistic expectations. The most effective way to achieve happiness, according to a Stanford University researcher, is to set concrete goals, because they are more likely to be met.
“Although the desire for personal happiness may be clear, the path to achieving it is indefinite,” said Jennifer Aaker, the study‘s co-author and the General Atlantic Professor of Marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business. “One reason for this hazy route to happiness is that although people often think they know what leads to happiness, their predictions about what will make them happy are often inaccurate.”
To understand how benevolent acts may increase personal happiness, Aaker and her colleagues conducted six experiments involving 543 participants. The experiments focused on the level of abstraction of a person’s “prosocial” goal. Prosocial acts are voluntary actions done to benefit another person.
The researchers found that concretely framed goals, such as causing a smile, let to greater happiness for the giver, as opposed to abstractly framed goals, such as making someone happy. This was due to the givers’ perceptions that their acts met their expectations of creating happiness for others.
Consider these findings the next time you set out to help another person. By making your goals more concrete, you’ll both be happier.
(photo credit: Camdiluv ♥ via photopin cc)
