S7E8 Happiness Part 2 Dr. Lara Aknin: How did COVID affected our happiness and mental health? (It's not what you think...)

Do you want to know how COVID affected the happiness and mental health of the world?

It may not be what you think...

Dr. Lara Aknin a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Simon Fraser University,  co-editor of the World Happiness Report and Chair of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Task Force of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission.

In this episode, we discuss how COVID affected the happiness and mental health of countries around the world, and the link between generosity and its affect on our happiness.

 Her work has been published in various academic journals, including Science, Nature, Human Behaviour, the Lancet Public Health, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and has been covered in international media outlets such as CBC, CNN, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

This is the second in our 3 Part series on happiness featuring the co-editors of the World Happiness Report.

Transcript

Lara Aknin: 0:00

We often go through the world in this little bubble with these blinders on where we go from one task to another and assuming that just getting our to-do list done is really where the main purpose of our days and our lives are. other people are one of our biggest sources of joy in this world. I think success is meaningful. Helpful relationships with other people.

Michael Bauman: 0:23

How do we truly feel like a success in every area of our lives? How do we feel enough and know that we are not alone? Join me as I interview some of the top leaders and experts in the world, from Broadway directors to multimillionaire, CEOs, neuroscientists, and more to look behind the curtain of success and examine not only the achievements, but also the fears. The. doubts The loneliness and how we can navigate through that to create the incredible life we actually want to live. Welcome to Success Engineering. So welcome back to Success Engineering. I'm your host, Michael Bauman I have the privilege of having Dr. Lara Aknin on. She's a distinguished professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University, former fellow with the Canadian Institute for her Advanced Research. Go on and on. The co-editor of the World Happiness. She has a PhD in social psychology from the University of British Columbia, and then she chaired the Mental Health and Wellbeing Task Force of the Lancet Covid 19 Commission, which we'll get into as well. So tons of research around human happiness, generosity. It's been featured in a bunch of academic journals of science, nature, human behavior, Lancet, public health lot of international media outlets as well. New York Times Wall. You know, C B C C N N, things like that. So, tremendous amount of research. It's a pleasure to have you on the show here, Lara. Thank

Lara Aknin: 1:49

you for having me.

Michael Bauman: 1:50

Absolutely. So I wanna start talking about you want to go into psychology and, and coming in and going, oh man, I am, I'm unique and authentic. And then once you start diving into it, you're like, oh, maybe I'm just like everybody else.

Lara Aknin: 2:05

I originally thought I wanted to be an international lawyer. And, and so I. I took a Latin class, I took PolySci, I took econ. I think sociology and psychology, and psychology was my favorite class in first year. I had a very entertaining first year professor. And he, he had a lot of attitude, a lot of persona, a lot of charisma, and he kept me coming. Tuesday, Thursday mornings at 8:00 AM like the crack of dawn when it's still pitch. In Vancouver driving out to campus. And I remember really enjoying my first year and thinking, well, you know, may, maybe I can't zero in exactly, but I can weed out a couple classes I don't like and, and figure out what I wanna do. So in second year I took social psych and I remember I had this tension at first in my first few classes thinking like, all of this is interesting, but I don't think I do that. I mean, this might be what, you know, a lot of people do, but maybe. Special maybe I have this unique perspective on things. And there was kind of, it felt like it rubbed me the wrong way. It was, it was hard for me to imagine that I would, might respond characteristically in these textbook predictable ways across a lot of different social situations. But week by week I started to kind of pay attention to my own behavior and pay attention to what was happening in class. And lo and behold, I think by the midterm I was starting to realize that maybe. Maybe this textbook could have been just watching over my shoulder the whole time. I've responded in very predictable ways. And so, you know, in some ways I started to realize that maybe my behavior was in many ways nicely captured by a lot of theories of, of social science, in particular social psychology. It seemed very personally relevant for me at the time because it kind of helped. Explain what seemed like very idiosyncratic and unique behavior. But at the same time I was also really captivated and excited by this opportunity or this, this really unique perspective that science could be used to test very personal relevant questions. And so for me, I was kind of hooked by my second year I started taking a whole bunch of psych classes and applied to get into the honors class and kind of the rest is history and everybody who was around. Listen to me talk about psychology a lot of the time. I still, you still

Michael Bauman: 4:06

are to this day.

Lara Aknin: 4:08

To this day. Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Michael Bauman: 4:12

So, fast forwarding a little bit in your educational process. Talk to me about giving out people envelopes with$5 and$20 in

Lara Aknin: 4:19

a. Yeah. So from one happy accident to another, I I stuck around in psychology. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do for grad school and kind of right at the time I was making this decision, I realized I was very interested in emotions and in particularly positive emotions, which led me to work with the wonderful Dr. Elizabeth Dunn who happened to, had just come to ubc. So I, I was her lab manager and applied to stay on with her in grad school, and she and I. Not only really personally jived, but really had some un, some, some nicely meshed research interests. So Liz was a new faculty member who was you know, coming out of, you know, living, just getting by, just scraping by as a graduate student. And was now had this predictable, sustainable income and was curious about what you could do with it to make yourself happy, give it away. And I was and I had always been really interested in Prosociality. It had been something that kind of always intrigued me and always seemed related to wellbeing. But, you know, there, there wasn't that much work on the topic yet. And so, I remember early on in. School, Liz said, well, you know, I'm really interested in what, you know, how people can spend their money in ways that make them happy. And I was really interested in Prosociality and we did this large lit review just trying to understand, you know, what the field kind of knew at the time and one of the most predictable and reliable sources of happiness were other people. And so we started to think about, well, maybe. Spending money on other people might be this reliable and meaningful way to, to increase one's happiness. And so for my master's thesis, we started to explore this question and kind of developed or tagged this thing, this idea called pro-social spending, which is just a fancy name given to the idea that you can spend money on others as opposed to yourself. So you, it's a, it's a rough category of things, but generally speaking, you can easily imagine times in which you spend money on other people or you could turn around and spend the equivalent to mount on yourself. And we thought that maybe spending money on others in some circumstances, in some situations might lead people to be happier than spending on the. And the central cornerstone study of my master's thesis, which I conducted with Liz and our collaborator and my secondary supervisor, Mike Norton at Harvard Business School, involved me going around and giving people envelopes with money. So I had the. Fun fortune of walking around the university campus in the morning, recruiting people that participate in this short study that took, well, I guess it took part over the day on everyday spending choices. And if people were said they'd participate, they were randomly assigned to receive an envelope that had either five or$20 on, on inside. And on the outside we pasted these kind of broad spending directions that said, you know, please spend this money by 5:00 PM today. And they got one of two general directions in what we called the personal spending condition. We asked them to spend it on themselves. So that was a bill expense or gift for themselves. And in the pro-social spending condition, we told them to spend the money also by 5:00 PM. And we told them to spend the money on someone else, so that could be a gift for someone else or a charitable donation. And people said, yep. And they took the envelope and went on their merry way. And then as promised, we called them in the evening and asked them a series of questions. And these phone calls were always made by a research assistant who didn't know how much money they got or what they were told to do with it, broadly speaking. And the key questions of interest were, were their daily happiness. And so what we found was consistent with other research we had seen in kind of our main central hypothesis was that people who spent money on others, regardless of whether it was five or$20, were happier at the end of the day than people who got money to spend on themselves.

Michael Bauman: 7:52

Yeah, I mean that kind of spurred off a lot of, a lot of what you've done since that point. Mm-hmm. and I'm actually really curious to get into specifics. You know, cuz it's in, it's in my, in my neck of the world. So the listeners know that I grew up in, in Papua New Guinea. And you actually did, you know, cuz you're looking at this study and you're doing it in. You know, western countries and you go, does this actually apply in other places and in other demographics, in other populations? So can you talk about going to Vanuatu? So for people that don't know, it's a tiny little island right off of Papua New Guinea, actually. And I'd love to hear about that. I'm really, really curious to hear about this. You know, the experiments that you did or the studies and stuff that you did there, how that went. And we'll just dive into it from that point

Lara Aknin: 8:35

Sure. Well, yeah, so that, that is another really happy accident because I had the pleasure of being hired at Simon Fraser University where I am now with one of my good friends and collaborators, Dr. Tanya Brush, who is Cross-cultural developmental psychologist and she studies how children develop in similar and different ways around the world. Like what are consistent patterns and what are different patterns you can observe around the world and parenting and child development and so on. And her lab, she has one in Vancouver, Canada where we're based, but also another one in a small village. In, in Vanuatu called Lukk. And she and I had gotten into many conversations about the consistency and difference in, in human prosociality and the emotional benefits that might, might emerge from it. And so, as you point out, our original work was conducted in North America and. You know that, I think that was a very reasonable place to begin. We were based in North America, But my collaborators and I kept seeing some evidence emerge that people time and time again were happy when they did things for others, specifically when they used their money to help other people. But we know as we were publishing these findings, as we were presenting them at conferences, as we were writing about them for public press and talking about them on the radio, you know, one of the most common questions we got, and I think is a very valid and important one is, you're raising these questions in a relatively rich country, but also with relatively wealthy participants. You know, your average undergraduate student might have more disposable income than many people around the world. And so maybe people are experiencing these benefits, but from a place of luxury and maybe it's not a human universal, and maybe it's, you know, maybe it's this valid finding, but in a very small niche of the world. And so how far reaching is this effect? And so, through my dissertation and and beyond, I became very interested in this question and we tried to triangulate it. On it in many ways. One of, I think the most exciting ways was to partner with John Halliwell and his student at the time, Chris Barrington Lee, who had access to the Gallop Poll and allowed us to look at responses from over 230,000 people across the world. And we found some consistent evidence that people who had donated money and. To charity in the past month were happier than people who had not, and this was in most countries around the globe. And that was very exciting, but it didn't allow for us to make these kind of conclusions of causality because although giving to charity might make people happier, happier people might donate to charity. And we couldn't disentangle that question using the gallop pool. And so through collaborations and with Tanya and others, I, I tried to collect data or travel to places where I could collect data to try to test this question in very drastically different cultural contexts from Vancouver, I guess would be a a, a. Of an appropriate way to kind of capture

Michael Bauman: 11:19

the, it starts with a V, so you got that going for you. Yes. Vancouver, Vanuatu,

Lara Aknin: 11:23

Vancouver, Vanuatu, so, so with Tanya, who happened to be, I think like five months pregnant at the time we traveled to Vanuatu, she kind of. Set me up. It, it was probably one of the most challenging and most rewarding research experiences I've had over the years because it was, I knew the question in and out. I knew exactly what I wanted to ask, but I had never done anything this complicated. Before. And so to, you know, we traveled around the world. She said we, we found local people at a local university in Port Villa, which is one of the main cities who helped us translate our materials from Vancouver to a local dialect. We were traveling to a village that had no electricity, so we had to get solar panels set up and everything charged. We had to translate and back, translate all our materials to make sure everything makes sense. We hired a local research assistant to help us, and then we took this plane to a small island and then, You know, trusted some strangers to drop us off in, off, in a village in the middle of somewhere. You know, I, I wasn't sure exactly, but it was this, a small town of Luk in the middle of one of the islands of Vanuatu, and the community was so warm and welcoming. We met the chief who, and there were maybe three people in the village who spoke English. Two women who worked with us as local research assistants, and the chief who kind of warmly welcomed us the day we arrived and, and helped coordinate things. And basically Tanya introduced me and helped me get set up, but she couldn't stay because she was pregnant and was worried about. Malaria cuz she couldn't take malaria medication at the time. So I stayed there with a student and we collected data for about three weeks. And we lived in the village. We lived in a, a small, one of the only cement buildings in the area that I think was built by a un visiting troop like a decade earlier. And it was, it was incredible. We ran one experiment with adults and one with children. But long story short was, you know, I, I. Run the studies because I could not speak at the local dialect. And so I worked with these with, with Le, who was my, Le and Rachel were the two women who helped us run the studies. They spoke in mother tongue because we couldn't even, we couldn't hand out paper questionnaires, many of the adults in the community there. Mm-hmm. Did not read or write beyond a certain literacy level. And so we ran these experiments like through word of mouth in what we rented was someone's mud hut for the day or two while we were there. And we collected data and people came in individually and we ran basically parallel versions of our local experiments that we had done before to try to, you know, it wasn't nearly as controlled as, as we could run it in North America because in North America we did all these bells and. To make sure that everything was on paper and linked so that nobody knew you were doing a generous act other than yourself. We couldn't do that there because we needed to have one person articulate the questions and the intervention. Long story short, we managed to run what I think was a, a very close conceptual replication of what we had done in Vancouver, and so we had traveled halfway around the world and trained local research. The news, solar panels to like, capture everything on film. And what I thought was amazing was that, you know, we got all these responses and finally when we got back to Port Villa, I was entering the data and I, I ran the analyses right away. And the findings were almost parallel to what we had seen before, which was to my mind, strong support for our argument. But I, I also think just like very beautiful a reminder of how central this feature is. So what we found in Vanuatu with both adults and children running parallel versions of our previous experiments were that people were happier giving things away, whether it be treats from young kids or gifts from adults than they were when receiving these same items themselves, which I think just underscores or supports my colleagues and I have been arguing, which is that humans may have evolved to feel good when we help other people. Yeah. So that was a long story.

Michael Bauman: 15:07

No, I mean it's, it's so fascinating. So fascinating and I love you. You did mention this, but in my research, like you're having a point at like a 10th rung ladder for the happiness.

Lara Aknin: 15:18

Yes. Well, thing, I mean, and we got some really great questions and feedback on the. Methods. But you know, we couldn't just give people a numerical scale and say, circle where you feel right now, which we normally do with, you know, university students in Canada or the United States. You know, people would've looked at us like, this is nonsensical. So we had to kind of show them and say like, here's the bottom and here's the top. Where do you think you fall on this spectrum? And it was, you know, a very visual representation. And we had to back translate and translate all these materials to kind of ensure that we weren't interpreting too much or too little from our understanding of the data. And so it was, it was a really challenging, but an extremely rewarding experience. Mm-hmm.

Michael Bauman: 15:58

And what I, what I wanna dive into a little bit more, cuz it's something, I mean obviously like I said, it's very close to, close to home, literally for me. Mm-hmm. And it's something that I noticed as well. Like you'd have these people in Papua New Guinea very similar. Island that have like, you know, they're subsistence farmers, so maybe they're just like gardening and they eat the food. Mm-hmm. they get fruit, you know, fruit off the trees. They have very little money, but they're so happy. As a, you know, overgeneralization. And you found that in, in your research with your little 10 rung ladder as well, so, What have you found as some of the things that actually contribute to that? Because so often in the western world, we're like, and I'll get this promotion and this raise and you know, whatever it's gonna contribute to this. Where really we have these people that have very little, um mm-hmm. that are, that are happier. What are the things that you've seen that contribute to that?

Lara Aknin: 16:46

Yeah, so you're right. I mean our, we, we did detect the condition differences or the group differences that we had predicted and expected. Such the people who did kind things reported feeling happier in the moment, the people who would just purchase things for themselves. But generally, just even looking across both conditions, you're right, everybody was reporting themselves as very high on this 10 rung ladder higher than. Expect, or we typically observe in many North American countries at, at least in most of the typical samples we're working with. And at first, you know, I, I think our first blush might be that's a little bit puzzling Or perhaps at least from a very North American western centric approach, we think, like, you know, these folks don't have access to running water. They don't have all the luxuries that, you know, many people. Where men, where many of us listening or your listeners might be, might be situated and thinking. But you know, it didn't take me too long to realize while visiting in, in, in this village that while they may not have some of the same amenities that I, you know, thought, you know, that I enjoy at home they were surrounded by many of the things that matter. And so it, it wasn't all that puzzling for all that long. So, specifically you noticed that a lot of these families although they're. You know, there isn't an abundance of food. There is a security of food, at least in many of the places I visited. Mind you, many of these communities are now at some of the highest risk for climate change concerns and so mm-hmm. that might not always be a security, but in many of these places, because they farm their local environment, they know there's a reliable sustenance. And so there's a security there on in many ways, meeting those basic needs. They're also surrounded by friends and family in many of, in a way that is something that I think many of us don't, don't have the pleasure of enjoying. I mean, it was just incredible to watch. You know, there's the saying, it takes a village to raise a child. It was just incredible watching. All these kids run around. I'm watching a seven year old take care of a three-year-old with absolutely no concern. And the three-year-old is extremely trusting of this seven-year-old who is, is not their sibling. This is just another child in the village who, you know, feels like a sibling. And so there was such a sense of community and a lot of people, they had lived their lives this way. I mean, people marry across different villages, but there was a closeness that I hadn't really seen before. Like I something I did not experience in my day-to-day in Vancouver. And they were perhaps not surprisingly, but through the subsistence farming, they were immersed within a local environment that was just, In, in ways that, you know, we, many of us escaped the city to go enjoy this was their natural habitat and beauty. And so, you know, aside from like major environmental risk and concern, I feel like many of these folks live very predictable, calm. Comfortable safe lives, but in very close proximity, in very tight networks with friends and family. And for the most part lived quite healthy, happy lives. And so, you know, in retrospect that aligns with many of the predictors that we see in the World Happiness Report and elsewhere. And in the larger literature on happiness about what are the strongest predictors of wellbeing? Well, you know, money is something that does predict often correl. With people's happiness. But up to a point. And a lot of it also has to do with comparisons, right? A lot of us kind of keep thinking and striving. We compare ourselves to our neighbors. There's this whole keeping up with the Jones' Effect. But there's also this hedonic treadmill where we seem to think if we just make another 10 K, another 50 k, another million, that's when we will finally be happy. But these strivings actually keep us from reaching our current levels of happiness. And I think. Th that wasn't so much, this materialistic mindset wasn't nearly as present there as, I think many of us kind of have to deal with these troubles here. So I think a lot of the, the security, I think is something that maybe I had overlooked when I first arrived, but the social connection and the immersion in nature was I think two, two really big sources of, of happiness for. In Vanuatu, I'm

Michael Bauman: 20:27

curious whether you saw a difference between the people in Vanuatu and in Africa. Like if you've done boots on the ground research in Africa, because I know a lot of those countries rank lowest on the World Happiness Report, and a lot of them have a lot more challenges in terms of like clean water, sanitation, even food. In contrast with mm-hmm. you know, similar levels of poverty, quote unquote yeah. As potentially popping in. But I've always been curious about that e even growing up, and I don't even know if you have the answer, but I was, I wanted to ask you the question.

Lara Aknin: 20:58

I, I'm afraid I don't because our collaboration, so we have. But my collaborators and I have collected data from Africa, but I was not the one doing it. We worked with local collaborators there, so I have not had my boots on the ground in Africa. That being said, I think one of the largest, there's often a stronger relationship between a country's wealth and the happiness of citizens than individual wealth an an individual happiness. And part of the explanation is that certain wealthier countries have the opportunity to provide these basic necessities for folks. So clean water is like, and, and infrastructure, I think is a really big deal for helping people live like safe, predictable, healthy lives. And so I think that aligns with what you're saying, but I couldn't speak.

Michael Bauman: 21:41

Personal anecdote. No, I'm just, I was, I'm just really curious cause I've always kind of wondered about that even as a, as a kid going growing up. And the, the other question that I had for you, and it's along those, along those lines. So, you know, we have this aspect of your research where you, you have these effect of happiness when you're, you're giving to other people and it's greater than when you're spending on yourself. Mm-hmm. have you done any research or any study on whether there's like a tipping point in terms of scarcity? and then be benevolence like at a certain point, does it all of a sudden turn and go, I need to spend this on myself because of a safety or a security kind of threshold? I'm, I'm curious about that as well.

Lara Aknin: 22:21

Yeah, that's a really interesting question. So short answer is no. Because we, we only, so in the context of experimental studies, we only have so much money to give people to give away and. We can, but it sounds to me like what you're describing is an experiment where some people are endowed with a lot of money and some people are endowed with quite a bit less, and, and you would see whether the emotional rewards of giving kind of tip, if you will, like you were saying,

Michael Bauman: 22:49

I'm meaning more, more so like. You know, I'm, I'm fine. And this, again, this is difficult to study, right? Mm-hmm. so like you were kind of seeing in, in the, the Western countries, you're like, oh, these people, you know, can give money and you're, you're giving it to them. Mm-hmm. So, I don't know if you've done the research on this. It's just something that I was curious about is, let's say like, I'm totally fine giving this money because it doesn't cost me as much. Mm-hmm. but then the minute. is there a tipping point where it's like all of a sudden this is actually costing me something, maybe even potentially in terms of my safety and my security, like that threshold of like mm-hmm. physical needs. Do you still have benefits of benevolence? I, and I don't know, like I, I literally don't know whether you've. Studied it, but it's something I'm curious about.

Lara Aknin: 23:31

So the, that's a really interesting question and I think that here's the closest experiment we have. So two kind of converging points of evidence is we find that the emotional rewards of giving are detectable regardless of people's income. So it's not just that people, they seem to emerge for both people who have relatively high and relatively low levels of income. That's not a perfect proxy for people who are on the verge of scarcity. But it suggests that like within the realm that we're normally sampling, which is not all that tight to be honest. So like when we run nationally representative samples of the United States, we do get quite a spectrum of, of folks. And so some people are living around the poverty line and even still when we, when, at least when we control for income, we're seeing the general. Same pattern so people who give more regardless of their income, tend to report higher levels of happiness. But perhaps the better test of this question, and, and this was run with kids and with treats because little kids don't seem to care so much about a few dollars here and there. But so, but may, maybe it will help inform the question. So we've run this one study a couple times with toddlers and it was actually something that we repeated in Vanuatu where we run this experiment where kids just under the age of two, cuz we were interested in. Early in on, or how early in the life spectrum we might see these emotional rewards of giving. They come into the lab they're, they sit on their parents' lap, but their, or their caregiver is blindfolded and has their ear co ears covered, so they don't know what's going on. And the kid plays with a, a puppet over the span of several minutes. And so the kid is, they're introduced to a puppet. The child is given eight edible treats, so things that kids like kind of to act like a proxy of money. And then over the course of the next few minutes, the kid is asked to kind of watch or participate in three key phases. So in one phase, the child is asked to watch is the experimenter, gives a treat away in one phase, the child. Is asked to give one of their own treats to the puppet. And in one phase, the child is asked to give one of the experimenters treats to the puppet. And every time the puppet gets a treat, he eats it and is excited about it. And the reason I bring this up is because the last two key phases I talked about both involve giving, but one time it's costly because you're giving your own stuff and one time it's not costly because you're giving the exact same thing, but it doesn't belong to you. Mm-hmm. And so what we find, The one key finding is that kids smile more when they give than when they receive, which parallels nicely what we see in adults. But the cool finding relevant to this question that you're asking is that kids smile more when they're giving away their own treat than when they're giving away one that doesn't belong to them. Mm-hmm. And the reason why I think that's cool is because it suggests that giving might be especially rewarding when it's costly. Excuse me. No, that's not perfect because it's not like these kids are on the cusp of, you know, not paying their next rent check, but it, it is, you know, they're giving the exact same item to the exact same recipient who is responding in the exact same way, yet they seem to be happier. when they give with personal cost. Mm-hmm. And that's really, I think that's fascinating because I think that actually gets to the heart of why my colleagues and I think that humans have evolved to give, and it's because, and why we find it rewarding, which is like, we get this emotional kickback. It, it's our reward when we do the kind thing that really helps when it's needed. And so, you know, if, if we only felt good when giving was non costly, then you know that that would be an easy way to get by. But when you feel. Giving when it's costly. That's, that's like the clearest signal and the clearest reward that like, you actually do care about who you're helping and, and the emotional rewards are there kind of to, to encourage this kind of costly action.

Michael Bauman: 27:04

Hmm. Yeah, that's, that's exactly what I was curious about. Cause that's kind of my next, well, my next question was along those lines, like mm-hmm. and I don't know know if you've, you've seen this and this, you kind of answered this question, but I'm curious to ask it anyway. Sure. The, have you found whether there's a link between the, the cost of the, or the sacrifice of the gift and the, the effect of the happiness, which is kind of like what you're saying. The more it costs. Have you seen it be more happy and the less it costs, there's less of effect? Or have you not done enough besides the one that you, you mentioned there? Yeah,

Lara Aknin: 27:38

so, I can give an answer, although it may not be all that. So within the realm of what we studied, usually the more costly, the more rewarding. Mm-hmm. We're studying within a very restricted range here. So for instance, we've run lots of experiments, or we did when I was in grad school looking at what we like the dictator game. So people are endowed with like$10 and they can give away as much as they like, and the recipient just has to. Get what they get. They can't really fight back. They can't, they can't reject it and so on. And generally speaking, in almost every study we ran, the more money people gave, the happier they reported feeling. But this is in the span of$10. It's not breaking the bank. It wasn't even their money to begin with, right? Because ethically, we can't make people give away their own money. No, it's nice to know that it converges with what we see generally in big picture data with people's own money. So people who tend to give more money tend to report more happiness. But you know, there may be a tipping point. And in fact, I think one of the. The clearest signs of this is actually not from financial giving, but from volunteering and, and caregiving. So there does seem to be this really interesting relationship. So by and large, when you're supporting someone who, who is in need. So if you have a partner or a parent or a child or in someone, Who, you know, who's dealing with medical challenges, for instance. You know, it can be very rewarding and meaningful to help, but there is also a burnout, a caregiving burnout that comes when you know, you can't escape this, it's not volitional. And sometimes might take so much of you that you know, it's. There is a tipping point. There might be a different tipping point for everybody else, but there does become a point where giving too much can, can in fact be painful. It's not just this straight upward shot. And so I think what you're tapping into is an important question. Whether we've articulated the boundaries of where that might be, I, I don't think we're there yet.

Michael Bauman: 29:28

Yeah, I'm just, yeah, really. I mean, obviously research is really, really fascinating, you know? And so I was just always curious, like, you can have this outward focus and you're giving, giving, giving until there's a certain point where you're now I can't put food on the table for my family. Right. You know, like, what, what is that point where like, then it's all of a sudden like, oh no, I'm gonna turn inward and use this, you know, money on myself or whatever those things are. Those things are interesting to me. Mm-hmm. But one of the things that you talked about in this, this is kind of a good segue into the aspects of emotions. So you talk about, you know, so often we look at those, those negative emotions and, and how they, how they affect us. But can you talk about, you know, kind of emotions, our me memory and then even the theory of broaden and build around positive emotions and what that, what that kind of, you know, reinforces some of the research that you found in giving.

Lara Aknin: 30:19

Yeah, certainly. So the theory of broaden and build or the broaden and build theory of positive emotions is not mine, but it's certainly one of my favorites. So I'm happy to talk about it and I hope I do it. I hope I do it justice. But it's the work of Barb Fred, Barb Frederickson at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. And she has been studying emotions for decades and it's very interesting. Psychology is not new to the study of emotions. In fact, I think it was one of the earliest kind of topics that piqued the interest of Darwin and many others. But there was a clear focus on negative emotions at the beginning. So fear and anger and disgust and sadness, all these kind of very visceral human emotions, really captured the imagination of a lot of early psychologists trying to understand what are, what, what is the key purpose and function of a lot of these emotions. And that is really where a. Attention went for a long time. And a lot of researchers kind of triangulated on what I think is a very cool perspective, which is that emotions serve an evolved function. They're basically a way for human individuals to coordinate their actions in response to outside events. And so, fear is an example where like our bodily reaction is like our heart rate increases. Our vision becomes. Focused. And our body is basically mobilized to deal with a threat that is in front of us to either take off or to fight whatever is right in front of us. Another very interesting example is disgusted. So when we encounter something that is disgusting, either physically or morally, We have this repulsion and it's designed to basically expel or distance our body from this like aversive stimulus. So if you think you're just walking down the imagine walking down the street and you realize that right beside you, there's a pile of human feces what will likely happen is that your, your body will go, ugh, and your, you know, like your nose, your nostrils close, your tongue expels. And basically what it's trying to do is to like keep your body closed. Not take this in Well, so for a very long time for, so for relatively speaking, a long time psychologists have realized there are these very clear functions, very quick and coordinated functions for negative emotions. But that left a lot of people wondering. So one of the positive emotions too, and Barb Frederickson's, really interesting take through the broaden and build theory, which is now kind of sup grown in support and research over the years is really interesting. I think she argues. Positive emotions too, serve to coordinate and organize human functions in response to events, but it's not nearly as fast and discreet. So she argues that in contrast to negative emotions that need to capture our. Capture our focus for the right here, right now, because missing something dangerous could mean you don't survive. Her argument is that for positive emotions, it's not, it's not as gripping for the here and now, but basically what it does is it broadens your mindset and might even literally broaden your field of vision. It broadens your creativity and these positive emotions also. help people kind of, build psychological and social resources for their future and forthcoming opportunities. Mm-hmm. And so, over the years, her research and other people's have actually shown that when people are in more positive moods, they actually think more creatively, their vision is more ex. Banded. There are many kind of both physical and psychological manifestations of like this broadening perspective that positive emotions bring. But also when people are in positive moods, they're more likely to, if you will, engage with other people and do things that build these social relationship. And that's where I think some of the research that you're thinking about may come and play in. So my colleagues and I have found that when people are in a good mood, they're more likely to kind of invest in pro-social activities. And which helps strengthen social resources, but also people who are Positive pro-social things are more likely to experience positive emotions. And so we have this one paper on a positive feedback loop between generosity and happiness that really kind of captures this positive upward spiral, if you will. Mm-hmm. So when people are in a good mood, they're more likely to help other people and helping other people facilitates and encourages this positive mood. And I think that kind of nicely reinforces this broaden and build theory and kind of demonstrates one exemplar of it.

Michael Bauman: 34:24

Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because, you know, typically we have this view of like, like you talked about, right? If I make more money, I'm, on the hedonic you know, treadmill you know mm-hmm. I'm gonna achieve greater success in that. Greater success will lead to greater happiness as opposed to what you're talking about, which is actually like, Cultivating happiness and leading to more success in, in different areas of, of life. Can you talk about that a little bit more if you have more research around that concept?

Lara Aknin: 34:53

Yeah. So some of the research is mine or that, that we've talked about already. We've found in this particular study and several others, that when people are in this good or in good moods, whether it be through just straight up happiness or other positive emotions, like higher feelings of pride and alertness and whatnot, engagement they're more likely to help others. And that in turn predicts these positive feelings. But there's also some really fascinating work by other people that document this in, in. I think what is very important high stakes research. So for instance, there's been some really fascinating research by Abigail Marsh and Sean Rhodes at Georgetown University showing kind of the opposite. So most of my research looks at whether doing kind things makes people happy, they study with some really Fantastic and incredible data, whether happiness of of a nation or happiness of a geographical area can predict the levels of pro-social engagement in some really fascinating tasks. Oh, wow. So for instance, they've studied altruistic kidney donation where people will give, they'll give organs to complete strangers. And it's just fascinating to see that in the US, in, in multiple geographic locations, they can take data from across the United States and see whether I believe. State or city level happiness. I think it's state level happiness can predict the number of altruistic kidney donations within a a nation. And here it's kind of interesting because people may not necessarily be having relationships with the people that they're giving kidneys to, but they're investing in their communities. They're investing in their neighbors, they're, they're helping someone in need. And so, They've done some really fascinating research, kind of studying the other arc of this feedback loop to demonstrate that it's, you know, positive emotions can propel people on this upward trajectory towards helping other people. And then my research kind of studies the other arc, if you will, which is whether doing kind things does in fact make people happy. So I, I think they're kind of a nice complimentary approach. And I think one of the reasons that we tend to see this kind of robust association between generosity and happiness is because, The relationship is bouncing back and forth. Happier people do kind things and kind things make people happy. And so, you know, we can, we can pull levers and experiments to see if it functions in one direction or the other, but I think out and about in the messiness of the real world, it's probably going both ways and that's a positive thing.

Michael Bauman: 37:11

Yeah, that's something that's, that's been very fascinating to me as well, is kind of looking at, you know, and then that's what you have in the World Happiness Report, right? Mm-hmm. you have a very macro, a life evaluation scale of one to 10, you know how your life is doing and looking at that across the countries, but then you have. The aspects of like, how do positive emotions affect that evaluation? How do the negative emotions affect that evaluation? How does that individual, like day-to-day life, how I'm feeling affect my, my life evaluation? So I love that aspect of like, and even the, you know, I love just thinking about like, if I define success or happiness, whatever, you know, whatever you wanna put in there. If I had to find it as for myself, how does that look? But what if I just change the definition and I go, what if it's success as my family? Like how would I then look differently? Or what if it's a, you know, now I'm going like, what if I define success as a part of a community? Mm-hmm. Or how does my environment, and that's what you're talking about. You have these systems that contribute to individual happiness. Mm-hmm. and again, the world happiness support, the trust, the corruption, the things like that. Mm-hmm. But then, you know, on the individual level, what. What does it look like? Cause that's why I asked those questions. Right. So in Papua New Guinea, I see these, you know, people that are very happy, that have very little, and I thought it was, you know, incredibly fascinating. In the US we have tons of amazing things, like we're really driven and stuff, but so often the, the friends, the family can get pushed out. We might be less happy. And then, you know, here in China we have a very collective culture. And what are the benefits of me viewing, like subsuming assuming my needs as an individual for those of the collect. And how does that change? But then also what are the detriments of that? So that's a more, you know, not a rant on my end, but it's just things that just bounce around in my head that I'm really,

Lara Aknin: 38:52

well, you're right. I think it's really fascinating because oftentimes the pursuit of our very personal individualistic goals and often materialistic goals come at the sacrifice of these social and prosocial sides of ourself. And, and I think a lot of the research suggests that like, yeah, money can, you know, the I, I think it would be foolish to. Disregard this kind of stable correlation that we see in the literature that, you know, money is associated with happiness, but it does on many measures of wellbeing start to flatten after a certain point. But also social relationships are an extremely important predictor of people's happiness. And so when these two kind of pursuits come in tension, it's worth it to think about, you know, am I really, am I missing all my time with friends and family? Am I missing ways to kind of give back to things that I think are important and bigger than myself? Mm. So,

Michael Bauman: 39:41

yeah. Yeah. Can you talk about, I mean, cuz again, you were like the, the chair of the mental health and wellbeing task force for covid. So we have a, you know, massive global challenge, struggle epidemic, um mm-hmm. and how that actually affected. Mental health kind of across the, across the world, both. And I'm curious both on an acute level and now with like the continued stressors of, you know, Russia, Ukraine, wars and recessions and yeah. What does that look acutely? And obviously you don't have as much data on the chronic side, but I'm, yeah. Answer the

Lara Aknin: 40:11

difference. Well, certainly I'll do my best to answer the question. So, yes. With the Lancet Task force. I was, yeah, fortunate to, not fortunate to work with a collection of amazing thinkers from around the world, from various disciplines who were kind of very intrigued by this question on how the pandemic maybe influencing people's mental health. And we wrote two reports on the matter and both of them might say we're focused primarily on the first year and a half. So that's where my biggest insights are. I can speak to that and kind of speculate on what has come since Long story short is not surprisingly, perhaps mental health did suffer during the early months of the pandemic. But I think there are some really important caveats there. And some important unpredictable outcomes. So, maybe it helps to kind of preface them with our approach, because what we did as a task force was, so first and foremost, it's helpful to maybe set the scene. These were the early days of Covid where there were papers coming up. I, I can't even tell you, it was. It, it was like, I can't imagine every time, you know, I would set these Google Scholar reports to get updates on papers that were coming out and there were dozens a day and there was just, there was a huge influx. And so I actually think one of, one of several bright spots of the pandemic was just the shared the, the investment in science and open science and sharing information as quickly as possible. The flip side of that was an inundation of it, and so we were really trying to sort through. Massive amount of information to try to make some sense from all this noise about what were the clear patterns. And so with this group of experts, basically what we did was we tried to survey. All the evidence to date as well as we could, and really there was no way to synthesize everything that was out there. So we decided to focus our efforts and our interest on the number of papers on a, a couple hundred papers that really did zero in on this question using kind of the. The best methods we could find with the highest quality data sources and highest quality methods. And so what that allowed us to do, we kind of focused in on several key kind of outcomes or measurements. So we looked at wellbeing, using kind of em emotions and life satisfaction. We looked at levels of social connection and loneliness, which was kind of the flip side of that. We looked at depression and anxiety as kind of the, the perhaps what many people think as like the psychological stress side of things. And then we also looked at what, unfortunately may, might be an offshoot of, of high levels of anxiety and depression, which is self-harm, which could include, you know, everything from inflicting personal pain to, to suicide. And so we looked at those four main outcomes using a variety of kind of different sources of data. All of which we thought were kind of high quality evidence. And we tried to look for consistencies, like I said, kind of in this noise. And what we found, I think was a pretty clear pattern of a spike in, of anxiety and depression kind of in those first few months of covid. So in March, April, may In almost every data set, almost everywhere. No matter where we looked, we saw there was this big increase in mental health, a decrease in positive affect and emotions. And you know, I don't I think anecdotally a lot of us felt that too, But what was surprising, I think for many of us on, on this commission was we expected to really just be cataloging the pain and really, you know, just trying to. Argue for, for more rigorous measurement, which I think we still did anyway. But what we were surprised to see was almost by the summer, or at least by North American summer, by June, July and August, in some places, not everywhere, but in some places, mean levels of these psychological distress variables. They were returning to almost baseline. So pre pandemic, which was really striking. We also saw Increase, but not a wild dramatic increase in loneliness and, and isolation. Not nearly. So it's not to say that this was not significant there, there wasn't a significant increase of like two to 3% of the population reporting higher levels of loneliness and isolation than they were before. But this was nowhere near this kind of avalanche that I think everybody expected that this, you know, everybody thought we'd be dealing with covid and then a wave of loneliness, a second epidemic of loneliness. And to, to our. That wasn't nearly as extreme as we would've imagined. And then there were data showing that at least in the early days, and I think this is still the case, mind you, I have not been keeping up with it as much as I. Could have suicide rates did not increase. And in fact, in many places, they held steady or even decreased. And life evaluations were steady in many places around the globe, which was, you know, made us scratch our heads and double check things. And so we were really surprised. Now, these are mean levels and that's worth acknowledging because there was. A lot of nuance hidden in these mean levels. And so while some groups were managing quite well and I think the majority of the population was actually handling things, Way better than expected. There were certainly some profile groups that were hit extremely hard, and so what our task force was trying to do was not to say like, Hey, hey, we're all doing fine. Don't worry about it. It was to say no. Like by and large, some, some people are doing really well, but there are some people that are really, really hurting. Mm-hmm. here's where we need to focus, what might be our limited detention and. and resources to really help. Those are struggling and in many places those tended to be young females and parents with kids at home. But so, especially like young mothers in particular were really struggling in many of the data sets. Mm-hmm. There were other markers of, of risk, but there were some groups that were struggling before and that remained, but young females with young kids at home, were not an at-risk group before their pandemic and all of. We're in, in a number of data sets.

Michael Bauman: 45:50

I mean, it makes sense cuz I have young, young kids at home and you know, normally you can have an escape right? They're lovely. But

Lara Aknin: 45:57

when it's 24 7, literally all the

Michael Bauman: 46:00

time and you're stuck in your house and you're like, I am gonna go crazy

Lara Aknin: 46:04

Yeah, yeah. It's not an easy time. And, and you know, and I think a lot part of it was being stuck at home and this, I mean, those early months were. oftentimes for many places were schools closed and parents had to negotiate and figure out new arrangements. But also a lot of people who fell into some of the highest risk profiles were those who had very precarious employment. And so there was a lot about the uncertainty of the future. There's a lot of research showing or predating the pandemic. There was a lot of evidence showing that life satisfaction tends to follow a U curve where. Like in our teens where we start tracking a lot of life satisfaction or life evaluations, people are quite happy. It starts to dip as people move through their thirties and forties, hits a low point in low forties and fifties oftentimes because people are dealing with the stresses of, you know, children getting older and, and they, you know, they're trying to support their kids emotionally. In many ways, but also parents are getting older. There's a lot of stressors kind of on both ends, if you will. And then as people age through their fifties and sixties and seventies and app life satisfaction increases. Hmm. One thing the data changed or, or the one major and significant way the data changed through Covid was that this u the, the bottom tail of the, you just collapsed. Where all of a sudden youth were no longer reporting these higher levels of happiness. There was a high level of uncertainty. Older individuals remained. At higher levels of life satisfaction and which is intriguing because physically they were some of the most at risk, if you will, for covid related things. But in many ways their lives were perhaps more stable more predictable, whereas youth who are te often working in these more precarious. Short term employments and, and had no idea like the rest of us, when this was gonna end, kind of saw their future crumbling. And, and yeah, I think there were many reasons, but also this is a point where in people's lives where they wanna go out and meet new people and do social things, perhaps even more so than we feel this urge throughout the rest of our. And they're asked to stay home Yeah. And stay away. So I, I think there were many challenges, but one intriguing, repeatable finding was that younger adults were really struggling.

Michael Bauman: 48:16

Fascinating. And, and do you know like, kind of extrapolating, like you said, you haven't kept up with it as much. Mm-hmm. because I'm curious. It's a similar thing that happens physi physiologically, like you mentioned, right? You have a fear response, you know? Mm-hmm. cortisol spikes, your adrenaline spikes, all that kind of stuff. Heart rate goes up, you, you meet the response and then it goes back down. But we have, you know, these chronic stressors in our life mm-hmm. that cause them the low levels of systemic inflammation and contribute to all these kind of things. I'm curious is. it was a similar thing on that level and mm-hmm. again, you might not even be able to answer this cuz you have that response anxiety, you know, an like, things like that go up during that time to meet the, to meet the stressor and then it goes back down. But when there's a continual, you know, sort of thing with the Russian of Ukraine or with, you know, recession and inflation and things like that, I'm curious whether that changes that on a chronic kind of response level and the data's probably not in, I'm just curious, your.

Lara Aknin: 49:13

Yeah, I mean, I, I think you're right. I, I, I think generally speaking, the pattern that you're referencing, you know, is what we've seen time and time again, at least from short term stressors, kind of induced in the lab and, and kind of studied in real life. But I don't think. you know, for, for many of us, for many of us, of us alive these days, this is one of the most global and sustained stressors that we've ever experienced. And so I don't know if we have a perfect analog. But yeah, short, my, my short answer is I don't think we have the data to really answer those questions. We, our, our task force did write a paper on the the psychological. And physiological consequences of contracting covid. But it's, it, it didn't have to do with the extended stressors of not nearly the same timeframe as I think what you're asking. So I, I think it remains to be seen whether people are walking around or experiencing some extended physical or mental anguish from having this looming sense of uncertainty for a very long period of.

Michael Bauman: 50:17

Yeah. And that'll be, that'll be interesting to see in, in the World Happiness Report. And I'll put put links to that in the show notes. Mm-hmm. And you know, as we mentioned, we had another guest on the, on the show, John Helliwell and he'll goes into phenomenal depth on that, so. Mm-hmm. check out that episode if, if you missed it, but it'll be interesting to see, cuz you know, he talked about that pandemic of benevolence and you have more donations to charity and that's kind of your, your avenue. Mm-hmm. of, of things. But I'm curious to see whether. That maintains or what the mental health, you know, data as we start to see these ones coming in 20 23, 20 24. Mm-hmm. I don't know. It's just gonna be fascinating. Fascinating

Lara Aknin: 50:52

to see. Yeah. I'm sure it'll be a major focus of this year's coming report. I know John will be working long and hard on it, but we, we, we won't know until March. So stay tuned.

Michael Bauman: 51:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll be, yeah, it'll be interesting. So, Cool. Well, I, I wanna wrap up with a question I usually ask the, the guests. I'm curious for, for you, how would you, I mean, with all the research and everything that, you know, how would you define success?

Lara Aknin: 51:16

I think for me, and I think perhaps more broadly for many people, is I, I think success is meaningful. Helpful relationships with other people. I think my kids, my students, my family, you know, I, I feel like that's where I get to give, but I get so much from it. And so for me, kind of successes in the meaningful, helpful exchange of, you know, support and information and, and just care and concern.

Michael Bauman: 51:41

Mm-hmm. That's, that's awesome. And as, as we, as we wrap up here, is there anything else that you want to kind of leave with the audience?

Lara Aknin: 51:49

Maybe two, two things that have struck me of late one. One is like an early finding we observed in the data, but I, and, and I think it's a helpful reminder because I think broadly when we speak about. Helping other people making us happy. I think many of us are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that, you know, like I've felt it before. And I, and I, I recognize it and I think often we, we appreciate it in this distance sense and we felt it ourselves. But I also think that when push comes to shove, many of us in the moment don't often make our decisions informed by that. And so I think even though it might sound corny and it might sound familiar already, I, I, you know, we've asked hundreds of students what they think will make them happier. And although in a broad sense, they kind of appreciate, you know, giving is good. When push comes to shove, the majority of them lead to the, the personal preference where they'll take money for themselves instead. And so I think kind of sometimes it requires maybe a more active rewiring of our choices to kind of enjoy these things more often. And the other, I think. Is aligned with that, that I've been reading a lot lately about this really new and exciting kind of area of work where it, it, it's not all that surprising, but I think it's a very refreshing reminder that I think other people are one of our biggest sources of joy in this world. I think, and we often go through the world in this little bubble with our, with these blinders on where we go from one task to another and assuming that just getting our to-do list done is, is really where the main purpose of our days and our lives are. But often, you know, there's this fantastic work coming out of a bunch of different labs from from Jillian Sandstrom and Nick Epley and Juliana Schroeder, and a whole bunch of people just showing that we often underestimate just how much influence we have on other people and how connecting with other people, even complete strangers and quick conversations we have with others can, can make us feel great and is enjoyable for them too. And so I I, I think kind of a reminder of how social and pro-social we are is a really

Michael Bauman: 53:41

powerful. Yeah, I think you bring up a good point, right? You know, so you have that, the research level, and you have the theory like, like you said, but the question to ask is like, how can you develop a habit of, of generosity or a habit of connection? Like you talked about the, you know, talking to strangers, it's just like, Okay. How can I develop a habit of doing that if I know that's good for me? Mm-hmm. how can I develop a habit of it, or how can I develop a habit? It was like the tiny, small ways, like whatever it is. Mm-hmm. of giving to other people. And that pro-social behavior is, is kind of the question, I guess. Mm-hmm. so I appreciate you, you having that insight to, to leave to the audience. So thank you so much. It was a lovely conversation. I, I, I thoroughly enjoyed

Lara Aknin: 54:19

it, my pleasure. Me too. Thanks for the invitation. Absolutely.

Michael Bauman: 54:24

Before you go, I would love it if you actually just shared this episode with a friend. I'm sure while you were listening, someone just popped in your head and you're like, oh, they would probably like this as well. So it's really easy. You just click the share button on either the website or whatever podcast platform you're on and send it over to'em, and chances are they'll probably like it too. Until next time, keep engineering your success.