Deck 7: Happiness

Question 1

What dopamine-driven human tendency is evolutionarily adaptive yet detrimental to modern-day well-being, and can be counteracted with intentional activities like expressing gratitude?

A)The tendency to always want more rather than be content with what one currently has; this is adaptive because it motivates resource acquisition and survival, but in the present day can lead to dissatisfaction
B)The tendency to settle for the status quo even if it is less than ideal; this adaptation is thought to allow for energy conservation but today results in laziness
C)The tendency to crave social interaction, which helped us survive prehistorically but now causes us to live in overwhelmingly populated environments
D)The tendency to base happiness on what one has in the absolute sense rather than relative to other people; this means that today, people are unlikely to engage in automatic social comparison

Answer 1

A

Question 2

Which of the following is not a proposed mechanism for why happiness relates to positive life outcomes?

A)Happiness signals that the environment is safe and needs are met, allowing for broadening of behaviors and building of cognitive and physical resources
B)Happy people emit signals, such as smiles, that make others want to be around them because they are rewarding and pleasurable
C)Being in a happy state has positive effects on the body, and physical health is related to other positive outcomes
D)Both A and B are correct
E)All of the above are correct

Answer 2

E

Question 3

Which of the following statements about the effect of money on happiness is accurate?

A)Having more money is positively associated with being happier, but only up to a certain income
B)Having more money is never associated with being happier, contrary to common beliefs
C)Having more money is associated with greater psychological well-being but not with greater subjective well-being
D)Having more money is associated with greater happiness if people spend it on material goods rather than experiences

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Which of the following statements about the effect of climate on happiness is accurate?

A)Across studies, people in warmer climates are generally found to be no happier than people in colder climates
B)The modest effect of sunlight on happiness is likely due to the increase in serotonin production
C)Studies that have actually found a relationship between weather and happiness have found the effect primarily in people who spend a significant amount of time outside
D)All of the above statements are true

Question 5

Most decisions people make about their lives involve predicting which choice will make them happier. This predictive process is called what?

A)Emotion prediction
B)Affective forecasting
C)Focalism
D)Optimism bias

Question 6

Sean believes that if he lands his dream job, his life will be perfect and he'll finally be truly happy. This belief could turn out to be an example of what fallacy?

A)The memory bias
B)The impact bias
C)The optimism bias
D)Hedonic bias

Question 7

What is focalism?

A)A phenomenon in which people focus on one element of their lives at the expense of others when engaging in affective forecasting
B)The tendency to focus on the importance of money and material goods for happiness at the expense of relationships and daily well-being
C)A bias in which people focus their energy on building up happiness for their remembered selves while neglecting their experienced selves
D)The tendency to have low expectations and anticipate the worst, which benefits some individuals because it motivates them to prepare for the future

Question 8

People often remember past events not as they actually were, but with the same emotional tone as the state they are currently in. This biased memory process is known as what?

A)Peak-end rule
B)Defensive pessimism
C)Emotional coloring
D)Emotion-congruent retrieval

Question 9

Samantha just finished giving an important presentation at work. She was quite nervous, and partway through the presentation forgot what she was supposed to say. She recovered and did really well and was feeling relaxed, until the end of the presentation when she had trouble answering a few questions. Everyone agreed that it was a good presentation, but Samantha remembered it as the most stressful work experience of her life. This is an example of what memory bias?

A)Defensive pessimism
B)Emotion-congruent retrieval
C)The peak-end rule
D)Emotional coloring

Question 10

What term refers to people's tendency to habituate to the impact of repeated emotional experiences?

A)Affective complacency
B)Hedonic adaptation
C)Focalism
D)The peak-end rule

Question 11

According to a classic study by Brickman and colleagues (1978), what do lottery winners and people injured in traumatic accidents have in common?

A)Although the life events had large initial effects on their emotions, over time both groups more or less returned to their baseline happiness levels
B)After the life events, all subsequent experiences paled in comparison and the people stopped being able to feel emotional responses
C)The major life events initially had very little impact on the people's emotions, but as the reality set in over the course of a few months, their well-being changed dramatically
D)Unlike people's affective forecasting for smaller, daily-life events, people make accurate predictions about how extreme life events will impact their emotions

Question 12

Which of the following cognitive processes is most likely to increase happiness, at least temporarily?

A)Mind wandering
B)Upward social comparison
C)Downward social comparison
D)None of the above can ever increase happiness

Question 13

What accounts for about 50 percent of the variability in people's trait-level happiness, according to Lyubomirsky et al., 2005?

A)Social comparison
B)Income
C)Genes
D)Demographics like gender and race

Question 14

Of the following predictors, which explains the least amount of variability in people's ability to experience happiness?

A)Biological factors (genetics)
B)Life circumstances, including demographic factors, socioeconomic status, and geographic location
C)Daily life, including social interactions, daily work activities, and the other things that make up one's day-to-day life
D)A and B explain equally little variability in happiness

Question 15

In building a psychological theory, what do we mean when we ask what the mechanism is?

A)What defensive reactions does the brain have to conflict?
B)What evolutionary pressures resulted in an adaptation?
C)What causes the relationship between two or more variables?
D)How will we measure the construct we are interested in?

Question 16

According to multiple correlational studies, what is the causal relationship between happiness and circumstances like success, health, and strong relationships?

A)Happiness causes positive life outcomes
B)Positive life outcomes cause happiness
C)Both happiness and positive life outcomes are entirely caused by a third variable, namely genes
D)Both A and B are correct
E)All of the above are correct

Question 17

People tend to focus more attention on the bad than the good. This tendency is known as what?

A)Focalism
B)Hedonic adaptation
C)The memory bias
D)The negativity bias

Question 18

House, DeVoe, and Zhong (2013) found an inverse relationship between the number of fast food restaurants in a person's neighborhood and their experience of pleasure. This suggests that when people are cued to be impatient and rush through enjoyable activities like eating, they will be less happy. What word describes the behavior these participants are failing to practice?

A)Meditation
B)Social comparison
C)Savoring
D)Gratitude

Question 19

What is the basic goal of most mindfulness practices?

A)To push away negative thoughts and replace them with happy thoughts
B)To direct attention to the present moment without judgment
C)To think about nothing, which resets your emotions
D)To improve work performance and efficiency

Question 20

Diener and Biswas-Diener (2008) conducted an experience-sampling study examining the relationship between social context (whether or not the participant is interacting with others) and well-being. What conclusion did they draw about introverts and extroverts?

A)Both introverts and extroverts reported more positive emotions when they were with others compared to when they were alone
B)Counterintuitively, being around others made introverts happier compared to being alone, but had no effect on extroverts
C)Extroverts' well-being increased when they were socializing with others, but introverts' well-being decreased when they were with other people
D)Both introverts and extroverts reported feeling more stressed out and fatigued when they were around others compared to when they were alone

Question 21

Which of the following statements about the relationship between money and happiness is true?

A)Above a certain income level, more money will not make people happier, yet many people believe it does
B)Giving away money or spending it on someone else will increase your happiness more than spending it on yourself
C)Spending money on objects will result in greater and more prolonged happiness than spending it on temporary experiences
D)Both A and B are true
E)All of the above are true

Question 22

Individuals high in optimism tend to adjust better to life challenges, have better moods, and report lower stress compared to people low in optimism. What is one ""dark side"" of optimism, according to Sieber et al. (1992)?

A)Optimism can set people up for disappointment when their high expectations for the future are not met
B)When faced with a difficult situation, optimistic people keep persevering while pessimistic people give up
C)Optimism is associated with reduced risk taking
D)People who identify as optimistic often actually score as pessimists on implicit measures

Question 23

Why is defensive pessimism a good strategy for some people?

A)Individuals who are innately unlikely to succeed in a given task tend to be defensive pessimists, which adaptively lowers their time investment
B)It prevents people from becoming overly invested in doing well, which protects their happiness
C)Anticipating the worst motivates them to work hard and buffers them against disappointment
D)All of the above are true

Question 24

Aknin, Hamlin, and Dunn (2012) looked at giving behavior in children. What did they find?

A)Toddlers express more happiness when they get to keep a toy, but by first grade, giving the toy away appears to make them happier
B)Giving a toy to others who express an interest in the toy makes toddlers happier than playing with the toy themselves
C)Toddlers will share an unwanted toy with others, but keep desirable toys for themselves
D)Toddlers will imitate the sharing behaviors of others, but do not seem to get any joy out of it

Question 25

Most psychological definitions of ""happiness"" are based on how a person evaluates their own life. Happiness is therefore often referred to as what?

A)Individualized positivity
B)Personal life evaluation
C)Subjective well-being
D)Qualitative happiness perception

Question 26

What is the definition of psychological well-being?

A)A person's regular experience of pleasure in daily life
B)A person's perception of being engaged with and able to manage the challenges of life
C)An absence of mental illness or the ability to overcome mood disorders
D)The ability to name, express, and identify emotion states, and make decisions that are guided by those emotions when appropriate

Question 27

What ancient Greek concept is most closely related to psychologists' conceptualization of psychological well-being?

A)Eudaimonia
B)Hedonia
C)Platonic idealism
D)Epicurianism

Question 28

Kahneman divides the concept of happiness into which two ideas connected to different aspects of the self?

A)Eudaimonic happiness and hedonic happiness
B)Psychological happiness and subjective happiness
C)Momentary happiness and forecasted happiness
D)Experienced happiness and remembered happiness

Question 29

Tammy is a new mother and is sleep deprived, stressed, and overwhelmed. Yet she believes having a child is the most meaningful thing that has ever happened to her. Kahneman would describe Tammy as low in ____ happiness and high in ____ happiness.

A)Temporary; long-term
B)Experienced; remembered
C)Actual; imagined
D)Hedonic; maternal

Question 30

Which of the following is a true statement about gratitude and its effects on happiness?

A)In research on gratitude, people who regularly list things they are grateful for report fewer physical complaints such as headaches and congestion
B)Studies examining the efficacy of gratitude have found that it does not impact happiness unless people spend at least 30 minutes a day writing in a gratitude journal
C)The people who benefit from gratitude are primarily those who express gratitude to some higher power, like God
D)While gratitude is effective at increasing happiness when used correctly, if people are not sincere in their gratitude exercises, it will decrease their happiness