Evolution of Happiness

The Evolution of Happiness

(Blog post by Angela Chun)

              

                Man has always been romantically portrayed as in the pursuit of happiness, and as more and more self-help books pop up on store shelves today, we could even say that we have become obsessed with the idea of happiness. However, in his paper The Evolution of Happiness, Buss (2000) suggests that evolution has created impediments to achieving happiness in today’s society. He points to three main modern barriers to happiness.

               Firstly, we’re ill-equipped to deal with the discrepancies between modern and ancestral environments, and these modern psychological environments cause damage. For example, ancestral humans evolved in the context of small groups, but modern humans live in huge cities surrounded by thousands of other humans, which, on the upside, means thousands of potential mates. However we’re still dissatisfied since unrealistic media images of attractive models lead to unreasonable expectations and to lower self-esteem of viewers, resulting in the interference with the quality of close relationships. Similarly, erroneous comparisons to unattainable fantasy lives result from mass communications that make us all one competitive group while destroying our intimate social networks (Facebook, anyone?). This can lead to feelings of envy, depression, and self-perceived failure. These factors are further exacerbated by the fact that “modern living conditions of relative anonymity and isolated nuclear families deprive people of the intimate social support that would have characterized ancestral social conditions” (Nesse & Williams, 1994, p. 221).

               A second challenge is the evolution of psychological mechanisms that cause subjective distress under certain circumstances. In order to succeed evolutionarily, we must experience risk-averse unhappiness. In other words, “human anguish in modern minds is tethered to the events that would have caused fitness failure in ancestral times” (Buss, 2000, p. 18). For example, jealousy is suggested to have evolved to guard against the specific adaptive problem of spousal infidelity. Experiencing psychological distress in these contexts is not only normal but beneficial and inevitable.

               Lastly, we have evolved to become overly-competitive. In an environment in which it’s beneficial to get ahead at the expense of others, humans “have evolved psychological mechanisms designed to inflict costs on others, to gain advantage at the expense of others, to delight in the downfall of others, and to envy those who are more successful at achieving the goals toward which they aspire” (Buss, 2000, p. 18). This leads to the paradoxical, modern situation of trying to design lives improving the quality of all, in a world in which one’s happiness depends on another’s misery and failure.

               On the positive side, people also possess evolved mechanisms that produce deep sources of happiness: those for mating bonds, deep friendship, close kinship, and cooperative coalitions. Buss concludes that understanding the selective design process, evolved function, and activating contexts of our emotions will allow us to selectively repress and activate evolved mechanisms to ultimately increase our happiness. However, I found his practical tips for increasing happiness to be underwhelming and vague. Tips such as developing deep friendships, promoting cooperation, and reducing incest are not ground-breaking.

               Furthermore, it’s easy to misinterpret the conclusions of this paper. It may seem that our evolved psychological mechanisms are ill-adapted to the modern environment, or that we seem almost evolutionarily unfit for happiness. However, I think that the entire basis of the paper is off. Happiness does not improve an individual’s fitness. Therefore, evolution should not care about increasing happiness. In conclusion, although I find Buss’s insights interesting, I don’t think that evolutionary psychology holds the key to happiness. What do you think?

Word Count: 560

Buss, D. (2000). The evolution of happiness. American psychologist, 55(1), 15-23.

Nesse, R., & Williams, G. (1994). Why we get sick. (pp. 220-221). New York: New York Times Books.