staying happier for longer

Seligman, M., Professor. (2006, May 9). Staying happier for longer. BBC News. Retrieved November 26, 2007, from BBC Web site: http://news.bbc.co.uk

This article says that our levels of happiness are generally predetermined, and that life events won't change your happiness levels in the long run. Winning the lottery will give you a temporary high, but won't turn a grouch into a saint. Conversely, a bubbly mother won't be turned into Scrooge if an accident leaves her paralyzed.

Seligman says that simple happiness activities like "three blessings" (writing down three things that went well each day) are most useful in trying to cheer up a person.
"We looked at the effect on severe depression of doing just the first web exercise, three blessings.
In this uncontrolled study, 94% of severely depressed people became less depressed and 92% became happier, with an average symptom relief of a whopping 50% over only 15 days."
"At the end of three months about 10% of the patients with medication or treatment as usual improved, versus 70% of the patients in positive psychotherapy."
"While these exercises increase well being among relatively untroubled people, there is one surprising implication for serious depression: psychotherapy traditionally is where you go to talk about your troubles." (in psychotherapy, you focus on your trouble and hardships; in postive psychology, you focus on the good things. maybe this is why therapy doesn't help everyone)


So, people are happier when they focus on the good things in their life. It follows that, after they write down three good things that happened to them today, they feel happier. If they watch a TV show about happy things, does this allow them to think about the good things in their life? Or do they compare themselves to those on TV and get sad cuz their lives aren't as good? Previous research suggests the latter (that they'll compare and feel less worthy).