JH: Yes exactly! Would you like any snacks or any? Participant 2: Yes all of them!

JH: By all means!

[title music]

JH: In order to be happy, you need to be successful. Thank you. If you work hard, if you're good

enough eventually your efforts are going to be recognized and rewarded. Well what if I

told you you had it backwards.That being successful doesn't make lead to happiness, but rather,

happiness leads to success. You need a minute to process that? It's fine. I'll wait.

It's true! Happy people are better at problem solving, figuring out new options, and being creative!

Statistically happy people perform better with marriage, friendships, income, work performance,

and health! I kid you not, someone somewhere figured that out. I don't know them, but here.

We wanted to see if we could prove it ourselves here in our lab. We gathered a selection of

volunteers and we split them into two groups, a control group and an experimental group.

For the experimental group we tried to change their mood with something called positive affectivity.

That's science for we affected them positively. JH: Would you like some snacks? Would you

like some snacks or any. Participant 1: Yes, all of them! [laughs]

JH: By all means! We have a video queued up for you that we'd like you to check out.

JH: We'd also like to thank you for coming in and sharing your time with us so we'd like

to offer you a gift card. Participant 3: Sweet!

JH: Yeah! JH: A gift card for you as another token of

our appreciation. JH: For our control group we gave them nothing.

[crickets chirping] JH: Then we gave everybody the same problem

solving exercise. We gave everybody ten minutes. JH: We have a little puzzle for you.

P1: Okay! JH: So we have this cork board and a candle,

and a box. Inside this box are tacks and matches. Your puzzle, should you choose to accept it,

is keeping this cork board upright, you have to somehow affix this candle to the board

in such a way that when you light it and let it run down completely none of the wax will

drip on the table, on the support, on the floor, anything like that. Does that make

sense? Participant 4: Yeah

P3: Anywhere on the cork board? JH: Mhm.

P2: Am I okay to still eat? JH: Absolutely! Good luck!

Participant 5: When should I begin? JH: Now! So would the group we put in a good

mood perform better than the control group? Let's find out!

P2: I don't know how long this is gonna take. P1: There's not gonna be wind or anything

like it's just..nothing crazy like that? JH: No, we're not gonna submit it through

like structural test or anything no it's okay. P4: I need like Jeopardy music or something like that.

P5: But it's okay to drip on the board.

JH: The board itself? The cork board? No. P5: No?

JH: No P5: What it's gonna dissipate?

P1: Can I tear this? JH: Yup!

P5: What's going on right there? P2: I can use the box too right?

P2: Yay! JH: Success! Let me see that candle burning!

Yeah you got it! Way to go! JH: You melted the wax and stuck it directly

on the cork board. It's creative, I will give you that. It's not the answer.

P6: What do you mean? JH: Well if you were to light this and the

candle were to meltdown. P6: Eventually, yeah but that's gonna happen

however you do it. JH: Not necessarily!

P6: Okay. JH: You got it!

P5: I got it? JH: Woah, that was close. That was a buzzer

beater! JH: It's definitely interesting.

JH: I think it's safe in saying, the simplest solution we've seen all day.

JH: This satisfies all the requirements we gave you!

P1: Yes! JH: Definitely!

JH: Congratulations let me very carefully. P4: I don't want to burn the place down!

JH: Well, what do we have here? P7: Nothing. [laughs]

JH: I wouldn't say that! JH: Do you feel like you're better at coming

up with options, different options, when you're in a good mood?

P4: I would say so, my mind is just more expanded when I'm in a good mood. It kinda helps me

to just breathe and think about it more instead of just trying to force it to get done.

JH: Do you think success leads to happiness or happiness leads to success.

P5: Ah, the age old question. Success is when preparation meets opportunity, so to answer

your question I think its not relevant in terms of success. Everybody has their own opinions

on what success is! JH: Does success lead to happiness or does

happiness lead to success. P1: Obviously if you're happy then you're

probably gonna be more successful and everybody has different definition of success. So if

you're happy and you're doing what you love, hey you're successful. So it just depends

on your own definition of success, so I think happiness has to come first.

JH: Do you think success leads to happiness or happiness leads to success?

P8: If you're happier, you probably think more clearly, more optimistically and then

you have better chances at success. JH: What are the results? We found that the

group we subjected to positive affectivity on average solved it 14% faster than the control

group. Now there's no way to know for sure if the people we brought in for our experimental

group were just naturally better problem solvers to begin with. Plus we had a very small sample

size, so the results aren't bulletproof. But, take it for what it's worth! In fact I'll

even let you in on a little secret. I'm not a real scientist! Felt good to get that off

my chest. So, go on then, be happy! [off camera]: What if we're not happy?

JH: Well it's funny you should ask that because I actually have four episodes down here that

can help you flip the switch. I'm Julian and this has been The Science of Happiness.

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