Laughing Rats, Cuddly Octopi, Altruistic Humans and the Biology of Contentment 1
May 20, 2010
- How do the neurons and the synapses work together to help bring about a more positive attitude?
- What is a happiness set point?
How do the neurons and the synapses work together to help bring about a more positive attitude?
Joseph LeDoux's and Klaus Grawe's conception of the construction of the self is largely based on the principle of Hebbian plasticity, the building of synaptic circuits that generate the memories that constitute our self. As LeDoux notes, we do not enter life pre-assembled, "we are glued together by life." When we generate a thought, or hear a new idea, synaptic alterations occur—a jumble of them. Complex cascades of interrelated biochemical processes are unleashed, binary action potentials are triggered, and memories are formed or strengthened. The thought has acted like a stimulus to the brain and the memories generated cannot be completely erased. The mind is like a palimpsest. Vestiges of everything we think, though over-written by later thoughts, remain; we cannot unlearn them2. For this reason it is to our advantage to focus on joyful memories and projects, "memories of the future" as well as the past, and only minimally on sombre, depressive ones—these latter just to the extent necessary to gain a sense of their meaning for the future. The reader will appreciate that it takes the expertise of a neuroscientist (which I am not) to speak with authority on these matters.
What is a happiness set point?
When life unfolds "at a petty pace" from day to day and no salient events either negative or productive occur, one settles into one's customary baseline of contentment. One could call this one's temperamental level of contentment—a happiness set-point that is largely genetic in origin, like pessimism or optimism. I used the findings of the gifted researcher, Shelley Taylor, and her team at UCLA to illustrate how one gravitates to this habitual (baseline) level of happiness, normally within a year after a tragedy has struck. These levels vary widely for various individuals. More recently Dan Gilbert has demonstrated that less than a year following a euphoric or devastating event a person will return to a temperamental level of contentment. I mentioned in my talk that Hamlet is the classic example of a malcontent, a depressive, his mind filled with hatred and obsessed with revenge, driving Ophelia into a suicidal burst of insanity, and dragging a family into ruin. Falstaff, though stalked by betrayal and ill-fortune, is an equally brilliant figure who focuses on the positive aspects of life, human friendship, the joys of fellowship (and the bawdy-house) and the enjoyment of the moment. These are classic examples of different happiness set-points—at least as I construe them.
1. This is treated at length in: Dumont, F. (2010). A History of Personality Psychology, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
2. Of course, lesions, non-use, aging, and dementias can reduce the vividness of memories.