This new study, however, found that people’s unhappiness is not caused by their search for happiness but by their constant concern about not being happy or achieving what they believe they need to feel joy. Therefore, it isn’t about what people do to find joy but rather how much they judge themselves for not experiencing it.
The study methods and results
The study pulled its results from surveys conducted with various participants, some in the United States and others in Canada. The survey asked people to answer truthfully about how they perceived happiness, their beliefs surrounding the emotion, and self-reported scores of their own psychological well-being. The presence or absence of depressive symptoms was also a part of the collected data.
The researchers aimed to determine whether the societal pressure of “good vibes only,” or the need to feel constantly happy to experience better well-being, held any weight regarding true happiness.
As it turned out, from the scores from the 1,800 people who participated, the more people tried to force themselves to be happy, or the more they thought and judged themselves for not feeling happy, the worse off they were.
Feeling concerned about one’s feelings of joy was also directly correlated with a lower score in life satisfaction and psychological well-being and a higher score for depressive symptoms.