La búsqueda de la felicidad (II)

Hoy aparece en Boston.com un resumen curioso de un artículo, en la línea del trabajo de Gilbert: como en seguida nos olvidamos de los sucesos felices, tratemos de repetirlos lo más posible, aunque sean más pequeñitos. Una idea interesante para nuestros políticos en campaña: la devolución del impuesto sobre la renta, mejor hacerla en 12 pagos que en uno, la gente estará 12 veces más contenta...

IF THE PATRIOTS had won the Super Bowl last Sunday, would you be a happier person today? Probably not, studies suggest, because major happy events (a big promotion, winning the lottery, etc.) do not have an enduring effect. So how do we become happier? One answer may be to incorporate small, repeated positive events into our lives. Researchers randomly interviewed people going to a religious service, the gym, or a yoga class, asking them to answer, using a scale of 1 to 100, several simple questions: "How do you feel right now?," "How satisfied are you with your life in general?," and "How satisfied are you with your spiritual and religious life?" They found that people scored higher after the activity. But they also found that the people who went more often scored higher. This has broad economic implications, the authors write: "single-shot events such as a one time tax refund will probably have little lasting impact on the well-being of the country, while policies that lead to small but repeated gains are likely to succeed."

Mochon, D. et al., "Getting off the hedonic treadmill, one step at a time: The impact of regular religious practice and exercise on well-being," Journal of Economic Psychology (forthcoming).