Aversion to happiness, also called fear of happiness, is an attitude towards
happiness
Happiness, in the context of Mental health, mental or emotional states, is positive or Pleasure, pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishin ...
in which individuals may deliberately avoid experiences that invoke positive emotions or happiness. Aversion to happiness is not a recognized mental health disorder on its own, but it can contribute to and/or exacerbate existing mental health issues.
Mohsen Joshanloo and Dan Weijers identify four reasons for an aversion to happiness:
* a belief that happiness will cause bad things to happen
* that happiness will cause you to become a bad person
* that expressing happiness is somehow bad for you and others
* that pursuing happiness is bad for you and others.
For example, "some people—in Western and Eastern cultures—are wary of happiness because they believe that bad things, such as unhappiness, suffering, and death, tend to happen to happy people."
[.] Emperical studies show that fear of happiness is associated with fragility of happiness beliefs, suggesting that one of the causes of aversion to happiness may be the belief that happiness is unstable and fragile. Research shows that fear of happiness is associated with avoidant and anxious
attachment styles
Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. The most important tenet is that young children need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for normal ...
. A study found that perfectionistic tendencies, loneliness, a childhood perceived as unhappy, belief in paranormal phenomena, and holding a collectivistic understanding of happiness are positively associated with aversion to happiness.
Cultural factors
One of several reasons why fear of happiness may develop is the belief that when one becomes
happy
Happiness, in the context of mental or emotional states, is positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishing and eudaimonia.
Sinc ...
, a negative event will soon occur that will taint that happiness, as if punishing that individual for satisfaction. This belief is thought to be more prevalent in non-Western cultures. In
Western cultures
Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''.
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, such as
American culture
The culture of the United States of America is primarily of Western, and European origin, yet its influences includes the cultures of Asian American, African American, Latin American, and Native American peoples and their cultures. The U ...
, "it is almost taken for granted that happiness is one of the most important values guiding people's
lives
Lives may refer to:
* The plural form of a ''life''
* Lives, Iran, a village in Khuzestan Province, Iran
* The number of lives in a video game
* '' Parallel Lives'', aka ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', a series of biographies of famous m ...
". Western cultures are more driven by an urge to maximize happiness and to minimize sadness. Failing to appear happy often gives cause for concern. The value placed on happiness echoes through Western
positive psychology
Positive psychology is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living, focusing on both individual and societal well-being. It studies "positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions...it aims t ...
and through research on subjective well-being.
These findings "call into question the notion that happiness is the ultimate goal, a belief echoed in any number of articles and
self-help
Self-help or self-improvement is a self-guided improvement''APA Dictionary of Physicology'', 1st ed., Gary R. VandenBos, ed., Washington: American Psychological Association, 2007.—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a subst ...
publications about whether certain choices are likely to make you happy".
Also, "in cultures that believe worldly happiness to be associated with sin, shallowness, and moral decline will actually feel less satisfied when their lives are (by other standards) going well", so measures of personal happiness cannot simply be considered a yardstick for satisfaction with one's life, and attitudes such as aversion to happiness have important implications for measuring happiness across cultures and ranking nations on
happiness scores.
Aversion to happiness can be thought of as a specific example of ''ideal affect'' (described by affect valuation theory),
whereby cultures vary in the extent to which they value the experience of different emotions.
See also
*
Display rules
Display rules are a social group or culture's informal norms that distinguish how one should express themselves. They can be described as culturally prescribed rules that people learn early on in their lives by interactions and socializations with ...
*
Emotions and culture
According to some theories, emotions are universal phenomena, albeit affected by culture. Emotions are "internal phenomena that can, but do not always, make themselves observable through expression and behavior". While some emotions are universal ...
*
History of emotions
The history of emotions is a field of historical research concerned with human emotion, especially variations among cultures and historical periods in the experience and expression of emotions. Beginning in the 20th century with writers such as Luc ...
References
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Positive psychology
Culture
Emotions
Happiness
Phobias