EP45. 1 October 2004.
Copyright © 2004 by Kevin Sharpe. All rights reserved.
Accepted for Presentation at the Third Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, Sheraton Waikiki Hotel, Honolulu, Hawaii, 13-16 January 2005.

Religion and the Pursuit of Happiness[1]

Kevin Sharpe

Graduate College, Union Institute and University, Cincinnati, Ohio
Harris Manchester College, Oxford University, Oxford
10 Shirelake Close, Oxford OX1 1SN, United Kingdom
kevin.sharpe@tui.edu
www.ksharpe.com

ABSTRACT.

Scientific studies of happiness (as subjective well-being) provide a lot of information about it: a person’s level of happiness usually stays within a certain genetically determined range despite life’s ups and downs, happiness relates to activity in specific parts of the brain and to the presence or absence of serotonin and dopamine, and we have evolved to pursue happiness. Raising happiness within the set range can involve high self-esteem, a sense of control over life, and an outgoing, optimistic personality. In addition, the person’s view of the world influences his or her level of happiness. Flow, personal relationships, and having values and goals can also contribute.

Pursuing happiness and seeking to remove unhappiness appear to be primary human motivations, biologically based. The study of implicit religion, therefore, ought at least to look at happiness and ask about the relationship between it and implicit religion.

KEY WORDS.

Evolutionary psychology, happiness, implicit religion, neurochemistry, social psychology, subjective well-being.

CONTENTS.

The Happiness ‘Set Range’ 3

Happiness and the Ups and Downs of Life. 4

The Biochemistry and Neurology of Well-Being. 5

Pursuing Happiness. 6

Attitudes for Happiness. 7

Happiness and Religion. 9

Conclusion. 11

Endnotes. 11

References. 13

How might we secure a job that will satisfy and fulfill us? How might we find a partner with whom we can happily share the rest of our lives? How might we ensure that we spend our leisure time pleasurably and constructively? We all desire happiness and devote considerable time to seeking it.

On the other hand, surveys of 1.1 million people from all over the globe say, according to David Myers and Ed Diener, that 93 percent of people already feel happy (which includes very happy, pretty happy, and moderately happy) as opposed to sad or neutral. Most of us describe ourselves as ‘pretty happy.’^{^[2]} Does religion have anything to do with this? Research also shows that those who find salvation are some of the happiest people around:

Oh happy days, Oh happy days.
When Jesus washed all our sins away.

How does religion relate to happiness? In particular, how does implicit religion relate to happiness? This paper will explore the nature of happiness as various sciences see it, and then discuss its relationship with religion.

The Happiness ‘Set Range’

For each of us, our happiness (defined as subjective well-being) fluctuates within a small range called a ‘set point’ or ‘set range’ that our genes largely determine. So concludes Dean Hamer in his review of studies on the role of genes in happiness or misery.[3] The set range represents a kind of preset value with which we are born and to which our level of happiness inevitably returns. This notion resembles the metabolic set range that some scientists claim governs our weight; no matter how many cakes or chocolates we eat, the body’s metabolism readjusts to maintain its preset weight. This could explain why some people find it so hard to shed excess pounds, while others are lucky enough to have figures like supermodels Claudia Schiffer and Kate Moss. Studies showing that body mass is 70 percent heritable lend credence to the metabolic set range.^{^[4]} Some of us similarly always approach life full of hope and enthusiasm, while others seem permanently to experience the blues. Though we experience temporary mood swings, we soon readjust to our genetic set range for happiness in the same way as with our weight fluctuations.

Support for the genetic set range comes from a series of twin studies conducted by David Lykken and Auke Tellegen.[5] Twins provide an excellent base from which to study the degree of heritability of behavioral traits because identical twins share identical genes whereas fraternal twins share genes as do ordinary siblings (roughly 50 percent). Take a particular characteristic and find out how often identical twins share it and how often fraternal twins do. The greater the difference between these two percentages, the greater the characteristic’s heritability and the smaller the role played by external or environmental factors.

Identical twins attain the same level of happiness 44 percent of the time, while fraternal twins reach the same level only 8 percent of the time, according to Lykken and Tellegen’s research. Their study asked 1,380 pairs of twins raised together to rate themselves on claims like, ‘I am just naturally cheerful,’ and, ‘My future looks very bright to me.’ Similar results emerge from a smaller previous study with twins separated in infancy and raised separately. ‘This conclusion means that the variance in adult happiness is determined about equally by genetic factors and by the effects of experiences unique to each individual,’ say Lykken and Tellegen.[6] Sex, age, race, and marital status of the twins have only a slight (2 percent) impact. Hamer echoes these claims: ‘These data show that the broad heritability of well-being is 40 to 50%.’[7]

Heritability raises even higher for happiness in the long term. Lykken and Tellegen administered the same questionnaire to a subset of the twins five to ten years later and then performed cross-twin, cross-time calculations, comparing the score of one twin at 20 with his or her co-twin at 25 or 30. The correlation statistics show that, according to Lykken and Tellegen, the ‘heritability of the stable component of well-being is about .80.’^{^[8]} A twin’s self-report of well-being provides a good indicator of the state of the other twin. Thus, according to Hamer, ‘How you feel right now is about equally genetic and circumstantial, but how you will feel on average over the next ten years is fully 80 percent because of your genes.’^{^[9]}

With heritability this high, wealth, education, or social status says surprisingly little about a person’s happiness.

Different types of research similarly show that a person’s level of happiness remains stable over many years. In a study of 5000 adults carried out by the National Institute on Aging in America, people who felt happiest in 1973 showed up as relatively happy ten years later.^{^[10]} Christopher Lewis and Stephen Joseph more recently report that the Depression-Happiness Scale (which psychologists use to calculate levels of happiness) measures happiness as an underlying trait rather than, which researchers used to assume, as a transitory state. Lewis and Joseph’s work shows that scores on the scale remain relatively stable over two years. This in turn suggests that people’s happiness levels persist over the long term.^{^[11]}

Happiness and the Ups and Downs of Life

The study by the National Institute on Aging in America also shows that changes we naturally associate with major emotional upheaval – like starting a new job, getting married, or moving house – make no difference to happiness levels; scores for people who had experienced these changes remained as stable as for people whose situation stayed much the same.^{^[12]} Maybe our happiness sticks at roughly the same level in an average everyday life. So, the momentous events – winning the lottery or giving birth to a first child – and the desperately tragic events – losing a spouse or becoming permanently paralyzed – do these not have a long lasting effect?

Consider Rose Marie Lajoie, a Michigan Lottery winner. She says: ‘If you are a negative person to start off, if you are a dull person to start off, you’ll be the same way [after winning the lottery].’^{^[13]} Momentous events alter our level of happiness for a short time – the 50 percent non-genetic variation in happiness over the short term allows for this – but we quickly adapt and so the long term set range remains unaltered. We all recognize that euphoric feeling when we attain something precious – the coveted job or the university degree, perhaps – yet the feeling doesn’t stay with us long. All too soon we forget and move on, our eyes firmly fixed on the next target. ‘So many people plan their lives for a distant goal,’ Lykken explains. ‘They believe that if they become C.E.O. or win a gold medal, their lives will rise out of humdrum ordinariness. This isn’t so. There’s a rush of glory and then it fades.’^{^[14]}

The sting of tragedy disperses equally as fast. Research by Diener and Carol Diener indicates that even quadriplegics and others with severe disabilities describe themselves as happy. In their more objective reports, they can remember more good than bad events in their lives, and say they experience more positive than negative emotions day to day. Reports from friends, family, and interviewer ratings corroborate these findings.^{^[15]} A study of car accident victims reports that, only three weeks after suffering a paralyzing spinal cord injury, victims feel happiness as the overriding emotion.^{^[16]} Another study compares a sample of lottery winners, individuals who had suffered crippling accidents, and a control group that had escaped both fates. The lottery winners generally feel less happy than the control group, and that the disabled people feel much more happy than expected.^{^[17]} All this evidence supports Lykken’s prediction that, ‘Christopher Reeve [the movie star paralyzed by falling from a horse] is probably as happy now as he was before his accident.’^{^[18]}

Diener puts a time on how long it takes people to adapt to relatively minor events like gaining a promotion or losing a lover. ‘The effect on people’s mood is gone by three months, and there’s not a trace by six months,’ he says. Expect the effect to have dispersed within a year.[19]

For more serious events like divorce, bereavement, or unemployment, the effects can last longer, of course. This tends to indicate a clinical disease, such as depression, which overrides the customary set range. ‘It’s because in some sense,’ says Diener, ‘the bad event continues to happen – there are reminders every day.’^{^[20]}

‘The “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” clearly influence mood,’ summarizes Greg Carey, ‘but long-term equilibration to life’s ups and downs is partly a function of the slings and arrows of genetic fortune.’^{^[21]}

The Biochemistry and Neurology of Well-Being

The genetic view of happiness has implications for our understanding of the cause of our feelings of well-being, because our genetic code translates directly into how our neurology (nervous system) behaves.

Hamer directs our attention to two of the more than 300 known neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin. Dopamine acts as the brain’s chemical for pleasure. ‘It is what is released after a good meal, a pleasant sexual experience or a hit of cocaine,’ Hamer explains.^{^[22]} Recreational drugs like amphetamines prove so popular because they belong to the same family as dopamine and produce similar effects: feelings of happiness, contentment, and satisfaction.

Hamer describes serotonin as ‘the brain’s punishment chemical’; with its reduced activity, misery appears.[23] Scientists associate lack of serotonin with depression, suicide, and anxiety. These are symptoms of a modern malaise. As Elisabeth Wurtzel describes in her book, Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America, doctors now prescribe the drug Prozac (which prolongs the action of serotonin produced by the brain) as a matter of course to counter these negative emotions.[24]

Neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin work by passing information from the synapse or junction between a nerve cell and another nerve cell or a muscle. The nerve cell’s bulbous end releases them from storage when an electrical impulse moving along the nerve reaches it. They then cross the junction to dock at a receptor on the other nerve cell, like spacecraft docking at a space station, and either prompt or inhibit the impulses along the second cell. The first nerve cell reabsorbs excess neurotransmitters, but not necessarily all of them. Those that remain free-floating, according to biology, help create our happy or miserable states of being.

Genes carry the instructions for the construction of neurotransmitters, their receptor and reabsorption portals. They also impart information on such things as their storage and release rates. Hence, genes can influence the prevalence, scarcity, and activity of serotonin and dopamine, and, in turn, whatever behaviors and feelings these neurotransmitters induce. Researchers have found, for instance, that people who differ in the gene that produces part of the D4 dopamine receptor – the part that controls the amount of dopamine binding there – differ in a parallel way in their moods. People with the highest levels of dopamine report feeling the most positive. Richard Davidson comments: this is ‘the first time there’s been a specific connection between a molecular genetic finding and people’s levels of happiness.’^{^[25]}

Some scientists think they have located the part of the brain that registers happiness and where the set-range mechanism works. Davidson has found that people with more activity on the left prefrontal area of the brain experience greater happiness, while those with greater activity on the right prefrontal area experience more negative emotions.[26] People with the greatest right prefrontal activity suffer from clinical depression and claim that life holds no pleasure for them. Even very young children appear to fit the pattern: babies of ten months tend to cry less easily when separated from their mother for short periods if they exhibit more active left prefrontal lobes. Further evidence derives from the work of Richard Lane and his colleagues. Their preliminary research indicates that feelings of happiness, sadness, and disgust all co-occur with increased brain activity in the thalamus and medial prefrontal cortex. Greater activity near the ventral medial frontal cortex distinguishes happiness from sadness, while happiness correlates with significant increases in bilateral activity near the middle and posterior temporal cortex and hypothalamus. Lane concludes that ‘spatially distributed brain regions participate in each emotion.’^{^[27]}

Pursuing Happiness

The science of evolutionary psychology (also known as sociobiology) aims to explain human goals, beliefs, and theories in Darwinian terms…at least in part. The urge to survive and reproduce determines even the ways in which we think, the ways in which our minds work. Michael Ruse words the point bluntly: ‘Those proto-humans who believed in 2+2=4, rather than 2+2=5, survived and reproduced, and those who did not, did not.’^{^[28]} The belief that 2+2=4 proves advantageous for our survival, therefore we take it as true.

Evolutionary psychology has something to say about happiness too. Donald Campbell describes us as condemned ‘to live on a hedonic treadmill.’^{^[29]} We fanatically pursue happiness yet, no sooner do we reach one goal, than the satisfaction fades away and we commence reaching for the next rung on the ladder of enjoyment. ‘As the environment becomes more pleasurable, subjective standards for gauging pleasurableness will rise,’ he explains, adding, ‘habituation will produce a decline in the subjective pleasurableness of the input.’^{^[30]} This, of course, restates the idea of a genetic set range for happiness, as discussed earlier. We’ve seen the scenario before: we feel ecstatic on gaining a pay rise, but soon find that our material situation feels little different from before. We no longer feel happy. Perhaps we can live the high life more frequently, but we soon get used to that. We want another rise. We’ve habituated and feel the need to strive once more.

In an evolutionary scheme, what adaptive advantage did seeking happiness bring to our forebears, if frustration and dissatisfaction constitute the net outcome? Campbell suggests the beginnings of an answer: maybe only those people who live in oppression and without hope of motivation have given up entirely on the search for happiness.[31] Other proponents of evolutionary psychology take Campbell’s suggestion further: ‘We are built to be effective animals, not happy ones....Of course, we’re designed to pursue happiness; and the attainment of Darwinian goals – sex, status, and so on – often brings happiness, at least for a while. Still, the frequent absence of happiness is what keeps us pursuing it, and thus makes us productive.’ So argues Robert Wright in his book, The Moral Animal.^{^[32]}

The search for happiness, therefore, plays the key role. From the point of view evolutionary psychology, our desire for pleasure keeps us on our toes. The activity expands our horizons, our resources, and our skills. Parents employ much the same catch-it-if-you-can psychology when encouraging their offspring to walk; brandishing a favorite toy lures the child into stepping toward it, moving the toy further away means that the child progresses a few steps nearer. As the toy recedes ever further, the child’s walking ability improves proportionally.

A limit blocks how far the pursuit of happiness benefits us, though, just as a limit prevents how far the child can chase the toy before keeling over. As Steven Pinker points out in his book, How the Mind Works, ‘The problem is, how much fitness is worth striving for? Ice Age people would have been wasting their time if they had fretted about their lack of camping stoves, penicillin, and hunting rifles, or if they had striven for them instead of better caves and spears.’^{^[33]} We need to decide what we can reasonably attain. We can gauge this in two ways, according to Pinker: by noticing what others have attained and by noticing how well off we are at the moment. What others have attained provides an insight into what we might attain for ourselves. This kind of comparison gives rise to the ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ mentality: when Mrs. Smith glances over the fence and sees that Mrs. Jones has a glittering new Mercedes, she feels she must have a vehicle just the same or better. We want what others have. The second way that helps us gauge what we can reasonably attain involves our taking stock of how well off we are. We can then aim to achieve just that little bit more, and more, and more....These two standards of comparison help ground evolutionary theory’s forecast that our reach should exceed our grasp, ‘but not by much.’^{^[34]}

Attitudes for Happiness

Other sciences beyond behavioral genetics, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology contribute to this discussion. Social psychology explores activities that activate our happiness: sharing in stellar sex or consuming delicious dinners, perhaps. Myers lists four character traits that make for happiness:[35]

1. Happy people have high self-esteem; they like themselves. Eighty-five percent of US residents voted ‘having a good self-image or self-respect’ as very important, and zero percent voted it unimportant, according to a Gallup poll.^{^[36]} These kinds of feelings help cushion us against the demons of anxiety and depression, and so bolster our happiness levels.

2. Happy people feel optimistic; they exude hope and feel able to succeed at tasks they undertake. Increased optimism means better health, which in turn leads to greater happiness. A study of Harvard University graduates shows that those people who felt the most pessimistic in 1946 were the least healthy in 1980.

3. Happy people are extroverts; they feel self-confident and mix easily with others. Extroverts are more likely to marry, find good jobs, and make close friends, according to research by Diener and Keith Magnus. These achievements lead to greater satisfaction with life.

4. Happy people feel in control of their lives. Allowing prisoners, nursing home patients, and employees to make decisions about their environment and its running results in increases in happiness. Controlling our own time also leads to happiness. Michael Argyle comments that happy people ‘are punctual and efficient,’ while unhappy people ‘postpone things and are inefficient.’^{^[37]} Good time management provides a sense of control.

The ‘happy farms’ scattered across the US provide commercial counterparts to psychological descriptions of what leads to happiness. Here you can learn about ‘inner wisdom, self-confidence, personal empowerment, motivation, reconciliation with the past, and greater vitality,’^{^[38]} all for a substantial weekly sum. Our determination to find true happiness has turned it into a multi-million dollar industry.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discusses another road to happiness. In his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, he writes of when we find ourselves absorbed in an activity and time flies.[39] We then experience flow, he says. Life flows when we engage our skills and talents optimally, avoiding underchallenge (which results in boredom) and overchallenge (which results in stress). When in a state of flow, we feel happy, satisfied, a sense of meaning, purpose, and control. Csikszentmihalyi first observed this state when studying artists who spent hours absorbed in their work. They concentrated purely on their creation, toiling for the sake of the art alone, not for money, fame, or other extrinsic reward. Numerous other activities besides artistic creation can result in flow: climbing a mountain, writing a book, weaving a rug, playing tennis, for example. Any of us can experience flow, so long as a challenging activity absorbs us. We report more positive feelings when in this state than when we laze around, bored, doing nothing much. Flow promotes happiness.

Other factors, like cultural worldview, can affect happiness. Some cultures look at the world as a friendly and manageable place. Some cultures approach the world with negative emotions, like guilt, anxiety, and anger. Different cultural frameworks contribute to differing levels of happiness, even in the face of similar life situations.[40]

Values and goals also contribute to happiness levels. Possessing objectives, progressing toward them, and avoiding conflict among them…all occur with higher happiness, according to Robert Emmons.[41] Diener and Frank Fujita also found that assets like money, intelligence, and ability to get along socially go along with high happiness if they bear on an individual’s goals.[42] (This helps explain why income levels predict happiness in poor countries and why self-esteem levels predict happiness in wealthy countries that prize individualism.) Happiness isn’t a passive reaction to an amiable situation; it arises from engagement in worthwhile activities and from striving to achieve personal objectives.

Individualistic cultures allow personal control, a chance to enact the inner self in the outer self, and to express opinion, ability, and feeling. These possibilities encourage happiness, but risk isolation and detachment. Martin Seligman contends that the current epidemic of depression stems in part from poor social bonds. Twenty-five percent of U.S. residents now live alone as compared to eight percent 50 years ago.[43] Robert Bellah agrees with Seligman: ‘Part of what’s missing…is a sense of connectedness, belonging, mutuality, being part of a people.’[44]

More than nine out of ten people find marriage still the best alternative to living alone. Three in four married people profess their spouse as their best friend, and four in five would choose the same person were they to marry again. These facts illuminate the National Opinion Research Center’s finding that 39 percent of married adults – as opposed to 24 percent of never-married adults – report being ‘very happy.’[45]

This result doesn’t depend on the gender of the married person. European surveys and a review of 93 other studies show that difference in levels of happiness between married and never-married people is almost the same for women and men. Married men and married women in the west feel happier than people who have never married, those who have separated, and divorcees.[46]

The link between marriage and happiness can work the other way, not just from marriage to happiness. Those of us who are happy make for more attractive partners and so become better marriage candidates. Perhaps happier people tend to marry more than less happy people.

Marriage can also lead to unhappiness; says Henry Ward Beecher: ‘Well-married a person is winged; ill-matched, shackled.’[47] Marriages that break up can cause much misery too. Even afterwards, only 12 percent of divorcees consider themselves ‘very happy.’[48]

Overall, the plusses of close relationships with family and friends tend to outweigh the stresses and strains that such relationships can produce. A close, stable relationship provides strong support, and brings joy. Happy people characteristically have close personal relationships.

What, therefore, does a higher level of happiness come from? It involves high self-esteem, a sense of control over life, and an outgoing, optimistic personality. In addition, our view of the world influences our level of happiness. Flow, personal relationships, and having values and goals can also contribute.

Happiness and Religion

The above tells us what constitutes happiness (as subjective well-being) and on what it may depend. Research on happiness and implicit religion might next address the following questions:

1. How important is the search for happiness in our lives? Studies suggest that it’s very important, that most of us pursue happiness (and shy away from unhappiness) more than just about anything else.

2. How do contemporary religious beliefs and practices function with regard to the pursuit of happiness?

3. How do contemporary implicit religions function with regard to the pursuit of happiness?

I will briefly address the second and third of these questions. If we do pursue happiness more than just about anything else, it should show up, blatantly or subtly, in religions both explicit and implicit.

Contemporary orthodox Christianity loses sight of the here and now, focusing instead on happiness lying someplace else – a land of original bliss and innocence (the Garden of Eden) or of future joy (Heaven, our eternal and happy home where we will see God face-to-face, or the Promised Land where we will find happiness and complete satisfaction). ‘Heaven is destination and reward,’ writes David van Biema, ‘succor and relief from earthly trials.’^{^[49]} Adds Jeffrey Russell, ‘[Heaven] is an endless dynamic of joy.’^{^[50]} A friend with a staunch Roman Catholic upbringing talks of her constant sinning because she fails to say grace before every meal, pray every night, and attend church as often as possible. She feels she must overcome this tendency through acts of penance to achieve happiness in the afterlife.

Modern spiritual leaders like Robert Schuller prefer to focus on happiness in the present. He writes about The Be Happy Attitudes: Eight Positive Attitudes that Can Transform your Life.[51] Such charismatic and Pentecostal movements assume that the spiritual intends for happiness. Happiness is nearness to God. We move close to God through the ‘happy clappy’ world of human togetherness, epitomized by hallelujah crying and hymn singing.

And today’s believers do stand out as prime examples of happy people. The highly spiritual declare themselves very happy at twice the rate of those with the lowest spiritual commitment, according to a recent Gallup survey. A study of 166,600 people in 14 countries demonstrates that happiness and satisfaction with life increase with frequency of attendance at worship services.^{^[52]}

Why do religious people feel so happy? Not only does Christian doctrine emphasize the state of happiness, but its practices help make its adherents feel happy. The various factors mentioned above that can promote happiness point to this: flow, relationships, values, and goals. The social aspect of the religious group may provide relationships, for instance, and both the beliefs and practices may provide a sense of meaning and purpose. Thus, espousing certain religious beliefs and following certain religious practices can and do help believers feel happy. No wonder religious people so often declare themselves very happy.

How do implicit religious beliefs function with regard to happiness?

Social psychology tells us about things that fail to make us happy. As related above, happiness doesn’t rely significantly on external factors: economic class, age, gender, education, or race. Wealth doesn’t correlate with happiness, except in the very poorest countries. Despite the fact that, ‘Compared with 1957, [people in the US] have twice as many cars per person – plus microwave ovens, color TVs, VCRs, air conditioners, answering machines, and $12 billion worth of new brand-name athletic shoes a year,’ they feel no happier now than in 1957; 35 percent declared themselves ‘very happy’ in 1957 compared to the slightly smaller figure of 32 percent nearly four decades later.^{^[53]} Money doesn’t buy us happiness.

Yet, popular culture teaches us otherwise. Our cultural myths or implicit beliefs and values want us to believe that money buys us happiness. We ought to move up the social ladder, make ourselves look younger, gain further education, and obtain more money and possessions. Such things, the deep beliefs and values of our culture tell us, constitute the road to happiness. But they are wrong; these behaviors don’t usually lead to greater happiness. Buying a wide screen TV will probably not, after a short time, make us feel happier. Much in implicit religious belief systems is wrong headed when it comes to happiness.

Where does this leave implicit religion? The pursuit of happiness appears to be a if not the primary human quest.[54] Implicit religion probably ought, therefore, to move us toward greater happiness and not in the reverse.

Conclusion

Pursuing happiness (as subjective well-being) and seeking to remove unhappiness appear to be primary human motivations, biologically based. The study of implicit religion, therefore, ought at least to look at happiness and ask about the relationship between it and implicit religion. A rich study and critique may await.