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Happiness, 2.02 (V) Week 2 Video 2 - Effects of chasing superiority on happiness

2.02 (V) Week 2 Video 2 - Effects of chasing superiority on happiness

[MUSIC] Hey there, great to see you again. In the last video I talked about how we are socially conditioned by teachers, parents, mentors, by media, etc, to seek superiority. I also talked about how this desire for superiority is very powerful because it fulfills so many other needs. The need for other's approval, the need for self esteem, the need for mastery, and the need for autonomy. In this video, I want to talk about the effects of chasing superiority on happiness. What do you think? Does chasing superiority lower or do you think it enhances happiness levels? Good, thanks for answering the question. As we will soon see, although the need for superiority can light up a fire under our backside and spur us to achieve things, it can also have a very big negative effect on our happiness levels. Let me walk you through the main reasons why the need for superiority has a negative effect on happiness. The first reason has to do with social comparisons. When you have a strong drive for superiority, you're naturally going to compare yourself and compete with other people. This is because you can't figure out whether you're superior or not unless you compare yourself to them, as I discussed in the last video. So, for example, if you have a strong need to be an attractive person, that is, you want to be superior in terms of looks. You're going to have to check out how attractive other people are, so that you know how attractive you are in comparison to them. Similarly, if you have a strong desire to be the richest person in town, you're going to have to compare your wealth and possessions with that of the others. Now, here's the kicker. As Sonja Lyubomirsky notes in her excellent book, The How of Happiness, although social comparisons can sometimes be useful. Much of the time she quotes, observations about how others are doing is pernicious. Here's another researcher, a psychologist from Cornell University, Tom Gilovich, with whom I had the pleasure of talking just a few days back. Pretty much, echoing what Professor Lyubominsky's conclusion was about the effect of comparing yourself with others on your happiness levels. Listen. » Whenever you have a competitive orientation outside of competitive sports, which we play for fun, that's not a road for happiness. There's always going to be people that are better than you, and trying to dominate other people separates you from them. And connections to other people is what makes people happy. » Stoll mentions one reason why social comparisons lowers happiness is because it separates you from other people. A related reason why it is pernicious for happiness is because it leads to envy and envy is, as you might imagine, a big happiness killer. Professor Lyubomirsky notes, again in the How of Happiness, that you can't be envious and happy at the same time. Here's a really sad part about envy, research by Abraham Tesser and his colleagues shows that we are most likely to feel envy when we compare ourselves to those who are closest to us. Say, for example, you're a very good singer and that you want to be on American Idol, and you come across somebody who's an even better singer than you are. What Tesser and his colleagues findings show is that you are likely to be more envious of this other person if he or she is from your same hometown than if he or she is from somewhere else in the country. And your envy is likely to be even more intense if this person happens to be from your own neighborhood, or worse yet, from your own house, your brother or your sister. Now, it turns out that we don't feel as envious to those who are close to us if they shine on a dimension in which we are not that interested. So, for example, you would not feel envious of your talented sister if she's a genius at street painting, let's say, and you're into singing. But she, and you of course, better watch out if she starts competing with you on singing, which is the dimension in which you are interested. This may be a big reason why sibling rivalry, like that between Cain and Abel, can become so much more intense and nastier than any other form of rivalry. Another reason why we need, why the need for superiority lowers happiness levels is because of materialism. Now, there's a good reason to believe that those with a high need for superiority are likely to be materialistic. Why? Because when you want to be superior to others, it's easiest to compare yourself to others on materialistic dimensions. Imagine that you're a drummer, and you have a high need for superiority, you want to be the best drummer in the world. How would you find out if you're the best drummer? It's difficult to find this out, because there are so many ways to assess your drumming prowess. You could look at the speed of drumming. [MUSIC] Or you could look at how technically expert you are in drumming. [MUSIC] Or you could look at better genres of music you could drum to, from jazz. [MUSIC] Rock. [MUSIC] [INAUDIBLE] Music. [MUSIC] It's the same thing for many other domains as well. It's very difficult to figure out who is the best painter, who is the best business man or woman, the best athlete, the best marine biologist, the best cricketer, well, actually, maybe cricket, the best cricketer is not so hard because it's obviously Sachin Tendulkar from India. But you get my point. In most domains, it's difficult to figure out how to assess superiority, which is why we often have this huge arguments about who's the best singer or painter, etc. And you can check out some of these arguments on YouTube, too. That, you know, somebody says that Britney Spears is the best and a whole bunch of negative comments under that particular post. So, what would you do if you have a high need for superiority but you can't compare yourself with others on talents or skills that matter to you because it's difficult to do this comparison? You, of course, do the next best thing available to you. You compare yourself with them in terms of your wealth, or other extrinsic yardsticks such as fame, or power, or status. That's why the need for superiority is likely to make you materialistic. It forces you to compare yourself with others on materialistic dimensions because you find it difficult to compare yourself with others on what actually truly matters to you, which is your skills and talents in the domain of your interest. And once you become materialistic, you're bound to also become unhappy. And there are many, many reasons why materialistic people have been found to be less happy. So, in the interest of time, I'll just cover a couple of reasons here. If you're interested in knowing more about the other reasons why materialism lowers happiness, you should check out this really neat book by Tim Castle called The High Price of Materialism. One reason why materialism makes you unhappy, is because it makes you lonely. When you surround yourself with luxury goods, a big house, a lovely fence around it, etc., you isolate yourself from other people. And it turns out that being isolated from others makes you unhappy. Another reason is because of adaptation. When we move into a bigger house, or buy a fancier car, we feel happy, but this happiness doesn't last that long. Soon, within a few months, or even a few weeks we won't even notice that we are living in a bigger house or that we are driving a fancier car. And we'll need to move into an even bigger house or get an even fancier car to derive the same boost in happiness, and the story of course continues like that. Here's a really funny video clip of a stand-up comedian called Louie C.K. who you might have heard of. But he talks about how quickly we adapt to things. Listen. » I was on an airplane and there was internet, high speed internet on the airplane. » Yes. » That's the newest thing that I know exists. And I'm sitting on the plane and they go open up your laptop you can go on the internet and it's fast and I'm watching YouTube clips. I'm in an airplane. And then it breaks down. And they apologize, the internet's not working. The guy next to me goes [NOISE] this is bull [BLEEP]. » [LAUGH] » How quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only ten seconds ago. » I love Louie C.K., he's one of my favorite stand up comedians. And the point that he makes about how we so quickly adapt to things that we knew existed only ten seconds back, is a big reason why materialism lowers happiness. So we've talked about why the need for superiority lowers happiness. We've talked about two reasons, social comparisons and materialism. In addition to these two, there's a third reason why the need for superiority makes us unhappy. It's because others like us less when we seek superiority. When we chase superiority, we become more self-centered and we end up caring less for others and because of this, others naturally care less for us. This is why as Adam Grant notes in his really great book, Give and Take, those who operate in a self-centered manner and want to desperately be recognized by others as being better than everybody else, like Frank Lloyd Wright for example, are often not liked by others. So, in all, there are at least three powerful reasons why chasing superiority lowers happiness levels. Social comparisons which lowers happiness, you become materialistic which lowers happiness, and you also end up being disliked by others, which also lowers happiness. So, if you want to be happy, it seems that you're better off getting rid of the need for superiority. It's better not to want to be superior to everybody else. Better not to want to be the richest, fastest, strongest, prettiest, etc. But how can you get rid of the need for superiority? Also, and this may be a question that is bothering you right now, particularly if you are from, let's say, an MBA school. What would happen to your chances of success if you got rid of the need for superiority? Those are the topics that I will be covering in the next few videos. Adios my friend and see you soon. [MUSIC]


2.02 (V) Week 2 Video 2 - Effects of chasing superiority on happiness

[MUSIC] Hey there, great to see you again. In the last video I talked about how we are socially conditioned by teachers, parents, mentors, by media, etc, to seek superiority. I also talked about how this desire for superiority is very powerful because it fulfills so many other needs. The need for other's approval, the need for self esteem, the need for mastery, and the need for autonomy. In this video, I want to talk about the effects of chasing superiority on happiness. What do you think? Does chasing superiority lower or do you think it enhances happiness levels? Good, thanks for answering the question. As we will soon see, although the need for superiority can light up a fire under our backside and spur us to achieve things, it can also have a very big negative effect on our happiness levels. Let me walk you through the main reasons why the need for superiority has a negative effect on happiness. The first reason has to do with social comparisons. When you have a strong drive for superiority, you're naturally going to compare yourself and compete with other people. This is because you can't figure out whether you're superior or not unless you compare yourself to them, as I discussed in the last video. So, for example, if you have a strong need to be an attractive person, that is, you want to be superior in terms of looks. You're going to have to check out how attractive other people are, so that you know how attractive you are in comparison to them. Similarly, if you have a strong desire to be the richest person in town, you're going to have to compare your wealth and possessions with that of the others. Now, here's the kicker. As Sonja Lyubomirsky notes in her excellent book, The How of Happiness, although social comparisons can sometimes be useful. Much of the time she quotes, observations about how others are doing is pernicious. Here's another researcher, a psychologist from Cornell University, Tom Gilovich, with whom I had the pleasure of talking just a few days back. Pretty much, echoing what Professor Lyubominsky's conclusion was about the effect of comparing yourself with others on your happiness levels. Listen. » Whenever you have a competitive orientation outside of competitive sports, which we play for fun, that's not a road for happiness. There's always going to be people that are better than you, and trying to dominate other people separates you from them. And connections to other people is what makes people happy. » Stoll mentions one reason why social comparisons lowers happiness is because it separates you from other people. A related reason why it is pernicious for happiness is because it leads to envy and envy is, as you might imagine, a big happiness killer. Professor Lyubomirsky notes, again in the How of Happiness, that you can't be envious and happy at the same time. Here's a really sad part about envy, research by Abraham Tesser and his colleagues shows that we are most likely to feel envy when we compare ourselves to those who are closest to us. Say, for example, you're a very good singer and that you want to be on American Idol, and you come across somebody who's an even better singer than you are. What Tesser and his colleagues findings show is that you are likely to be more envious of this other person if he or she is from your same hometown than if he or she is from somewhere else in the country. And your envy is likely to be even more intense if this person happens to be from your own neighborhood, or worse yet, from your own house, your brother or your sister. Now, it turns out that we don't feel as envious to those who are close to us if they shine on a dimension in which we are not that interested. So, for example, you would not feel envious of your talented sister if she's a genius at street painting, let's say, and you're into singing. But she, and you of course, better watch out if she starts competing with you on singing, which is the dimension in which you are interested. This may be a big reason why sibling rivalry, like that between Cain and Abel, can become so much more intense and nastier than any other form of rivalry. Another reason why we need, why the need for superiority lowers happiness levels is because of materialism. Now, there's a good reason to believe that those with a high need for superiority are likely to be materialistic. Why? Because when you want to be superior to others, it's easiest to compare yourself to others on materialistic dimensions. Imagine that you're a drummer, and you have a high need for superiority, you want to be the best drummer in the world. How would you find out if you're the best drummer? It's difficult to find this out, because there are so many ways to assess your drumming prowess. You could look at the speed of drumming. [MUSIC] Or you could look at how technically expert you are in drumming. [MUSIC] Or you could look at better genres of music you could drum to, from jazz. [MUSIC] Rock. [MUSIC] [INAUDIBLE] Music. [MUSIC] It's the same thing for many other domains as well. It's very difficult to figure out who is the best painter, who is the best business man or woman, the best athlete, the best marine biologist, the best cricketer, well, actually, maybe cricket, the best cricketer is not so hard because it's obviously Sachin Tendulkar from India. But you get my point. In most domains, it's difficult to figure out how to assess superiority, which is why we often have this huge arguments about who's the best singer or painter, etc. And you can check out some of these arguments on YouTube, too. That, you know, somebody says that Britney Spears is the best and a whole bunch of negative comments under that particular post. So, what would you do if you have a high need for superiority but you can't compare yourself with others on talents or skills that matter to you because it's difficult to do this comparison? You, of course, do the next best thing available to you. You compare yourself with them in terms of your wealth, or other extrinsic yardsticks such as fame, or power, or status. That's why the need for superiority is likely to make you materialistic. It forces you to compare yourself with others on materialistic dimensions because you find it difficult to compare yourself with others on what actually truly matters to you, which is your skills and talents in the domain of your interest. And once you become materialistic, you're bound to also become unhappy. And there are many, many reasons why materialistic people have been found to be less happy. So, in the interest of time, I'll just cover a couple of reasons here. If you're interested in knowing more about the other reasons why materialism lowers happiness, you should check out this really neat book by Tim Castle called The High Price of Materialism. One reason why materialism makes you unhappy, is because it makes you lonely. When you surround yourself with luxury goods, a big house, a lovely fence around it, etc., you isolate yourself from other people. And it turns out that being isolated from others makes you unhappy. Another reason is because of adaptation. When we move into a bigger house, or buy a fancier car, we feel happy, but this happiness doesn't last that long. Soon, within a few months, or even a few weeks we won't even notice that we are living in a bigger house or that we are driving a fancier car. And we'll need to move into an even bigger house or get an even fancier car to derive the same boost in happiness, and the story of course continues like that. Here's a really funny video clip of a stand-up comedian called Louie C.K. who you might have heard of. But he talks about how quickly we adapt to things. Listen. » I was on an airplane and there was internet, high speed internet on the airplane. » Yes. » That's the newest thing that I know exists. And I'm sitting on the plane and they go open up your laptop you can go on the internet and it's fast and I'm watching YouTube clips. I'm in an airplane. And then it breaks down. And they apologize, the internet's not working. The guy next to me goes [NOISE] this is bull [BLEEP]. » [LAUGH] » How quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only ten seconds ago. » I love Louie C.K., he's one of my favorite stand up comedians. And the point that he makes about how we so quickly adapt to things that we knew existed only ten seconds back, is a big reason why materialism lowers happiness. So we've talked about why the need for superiority lowers happiness. We've talked about two reasons, social comparisons and materialism. In addition to these two, there's a third reason why the need for superiority makes us unhappy. It's because others like us less when we seek superiority. When we chase superiority, we become more self-centered and we end up caring less for others and because of this, others naturally care less for us. This is why as Adam Grant notes in his really great book, Give and Take, those who operate in a self-centered manner and want to desperately be recognized by others as being better than everybody else, like Frank Lloyd Wright for example, are often not liked by others. So, in all, there are at least three powerful reasons why chasing superiority lowers happiness levels. Social comparisons which lowers happiness, you become materialistic which lowers happiness, and you also end up being disliked by others, which also lowers happiness. So, if you want to be happy, it seems that you're better off getting rid of the need for superiority. It's better not to want to be superior to everybody else. Better not to want to be the richest, fastest, strongest, prettiest, etc. But how can you get rid of the need for superiority? Also, and this may be a question that is bothering you right now, particularly if you are from, let's say, an MBA school. What would happen to your chances of success if you got rid of the need for superiority? Those are the topics that I will be covering in the next few videos. Adios my friend and see you soon. [MUSIC]