If you knew there was research that definitively revealed that your children could be happier and healthier simply by having them adopt a few simple habits, wouldn’t you want to know about it?
Such is the case in a new study from the University of Dayton published in the Journal of Research in Personality. It reveals that among the many methods that promise improved happiness, one guaranteed method involves thinking positively about yourself. In other words, the more you like who you are, the happier you will be. While traditional thinking may have people believe that they have to be someone likeable in order to be happy, the results of this unique study reveal that thinking positively about yourself and feeling happy is a cause-and-effect relationship. Thinking well of yourself can actually help you feel happier.
Interestingly, the study showed that even where cultures are more likely to focus on the group’s success than the individual’s, thinking positively about oneself still had a dramatic impact on levels of happiness and well-being. This is important because thinking positively about oneself, referred to as self-enhancement, is a Western phenomenon. The fact that it had an impact on people from Eastern cultures in which collective well-being took priority over individual well-being speaks to the strength of self-enhancement in improving levels of happiness.
To determine whether or not culture had any impact, the researchers gathered more than 100 participants from the U.S. and more than 100 participants from China. Each participant took a variety of tests designed to measure self-esteem, then wrote about instances that revealed their self-enhancement and self-effacement proclivities. The researchers followed the writing assignment by repeating the same well-being tests to evaluate any changes in their levels of happiness and well-being. Regardless of culture, the participants who had self-enhancing behaviors had higher levels of well-being than those who self-effaced regardless of culture or ethnicity.
Erin O’Mara, PhD, the lead researcher, explains, “Not only is self-enhancement prevalent across cultures, but so is its effect of improving psychological well-being. The debate should not be whether all cultures self-enhance, but on how self-enhancement manifests and functions in varying cultural contexts…This research establishes that self-enhancement is linked to the promotion of psychological well-being in Eastern and Western cultures, decreasing experiences such as depression and increasing experiences such as satisfaction with life.”
Teaching our children to think positively about themselves is something that can begin long before the school years and may lead to lifelong habits that increase happiness for them.
Another example of the power of positive thinking. In our culture that is so appearance-focused, I think that the way people think of themselves has a lot to do w/ how they look (yes, even guys). Look at all of the weight-loss ads on t.v.: lose weight and you’ll be happy. I think we have to try not to tie how we think of ourselves to external things (when I look a certain way, get a certain job, buy that house, then I’ll feel better and think more positively of myself) and try not to wait for things to be perfect before we can be happy. It’s all about the internal stuff and how we think of ourselves, as the article says! Great info.