Project Description: 

 

This project was all about finding the Truth of Happiness. We started by reading a book called Brave New World and it was about a dystopian world where everyone was made to think that they were happy by using drugs and sensory tricks. Then we went on to present day happiness and what it looks like. We had a SAC or a Structured Academic Controversy about it technology was the main source of unhappiness in our world today. Then we started to look at how we were going to make our videos (linked below). This was all about us finding what really made us happy too so we also made some happiness experiments, also going to be linked. When we finished that, we all went on to Osprey week and then spring break!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Annotated Bibliography

 

Class Research

 

Happy

 

1. 1. Citation: Belic, Roko, director. Happy. Happy, 9 Apr. 2011.

 

1. 1. Summary: In the film “Happy” they looked at the brief history of the study of happiness, and how it wasn’t that popular until the 1980’s. The main argument of the covie “Happy” is caring about more than just money, image, and fame. The happiest people have close community and doing what they love to do. They talked about how the happiest people live longer than others that aren't happy. Flow is another topic that makes people happier, a regular routine. They put forth what makes people not happy too, like having too much, and keeping things for themselves.

 

1. 1. Assessment: This is a very credible source as far as we know, because they used a lot of evidence form universities. There will always be bias in this topic because everyone wants to be happy, even the people that made “Happy.” So they are going to want to focus on the good things because of that, but they did look into what makes people not happy and what we are doing right now that isn’t making us any happier.

 

1. 1. Reflection: This helps us look at the essential question because it tells us what we have to do and not do in order to be happy. In order for us to find the truth of happiness. Personally, this video helped me look at the differences between the world of happiness and pleasure because we want both, but we have to choose one. Most of the human population, has chose the pleasure and satisfaction side of it, and that leads to consumerism. But that might not be the best for our lives, and now we seek happiness.

 

1. 1. Evidence:

      1. Okinawa: Having long traditions that are carried out

      2. Dopamine is the equivalent of having some addictive drug

 

There’s More to Life Than Being Happy

 

1. 1. Citation: Smith, Emily Esfahani. “There's More to Life Than Being Happy.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 9 Jan. 2013, www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/theres-more-to-life-than-being-happy/266805/.

 

1. 1. Summary: The main argument of this article is there is more to life than being happy, so the title says too. It talks about this Jewish Psychiatrist and neurologist in Vienna. It talks about how he was dealing with these suicidal people that couldn’t find meaning in their lives. He wrote a lot of books on this too and kept his personal search for meaning in his life. He said in one of his books, “One must have a reason the ‘be happy.’” After his day, researchers cautioned people against trying to seek out happiness. They also saw a relationship between being not happy is being a “taker,” and being a giver makes you more happy. Also satisfying our drives and needs makes us happy, like eating when you have been really hungry. There were a lot of things that were said in “Happy” that were said in this article too. They concluded that “we are not only expressing our fundamental humanity, but are also acknowledging that there is more to the good life than the pursuit of simple happiness.”

 

1. 1. Assessment: I know that this is a credible source because they used a lot of evidence form universities. Again like in my other assessment, there will always be bias one way or another. It is the same thing with this one too, everyone wants to be happy, even the reporters and writers of this article. So, they might not have gotten the full spectrum of the situation. But overall I really enjoyed this article, even though I don’t like to read.

 

1. 1. Reflection: This, in the same way as “Happy,” helps us grasp our thoughts around the essential question. This time though, it is from a different point of view. It looks at why we don’t need any happiness and why it might not be the best idea. It looks at why we want to feel fulfilled and meaningful in our lives. Then that leads to happiness. So we are stepping back in this article and seeing what really want. Not happiness, but meaning.

 

1. 1.  

1. 1. Evendence:

      1. “We are not only expressing our fundamental humanity, but are also acknowledging that there is more to the good life than the pursuit of simple happiness.”

      2. “Leading a happy life, the psychologists found, is associated with being a “taker” while leading a meaningful life corresponds with being a “giver””

 

The New Era of Positive Psychology TED Talk

1. 1. Citation: Seligman, Martin. “The New Era of Positive Psychology.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, 10 Feb. 2004, www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.

 

1. 1. Summary: The main argument of this TED Talk was that we don’t necessarily need to focus on the miserable people to get a better outcome, even though they are important, we forget about making the good people great. He started off with talking about some background of what he does and why he got to this stage of psychology. He talked about his education and how he learned about the 11 reasons to be optimistic, but the professor doesn’t tell them the 11th reason. (at the end he answers what he thinks it is.) He talks about how positive psychology. He talks about the three happy lives, the pleasant life, the good life, and the meaningful life. People with the good life have a good sense of flow and really work well when there is flow. Then, the meaningful life uses their sources really well, and finds meaning in what they do. Then the Pleasant life is like the cherry on top for either one of those. It also includes the downfall of these people that are heritable and don’t get use to things very well.

 

1. 1. Assessment: I have a feeling for each one of these that there is going to be bias and in the same way, but this one seemed to have less because most of the content that he was going over did not apply to him. This seemed to be a credible source, but it wasn’t as rock solid as the other ones because he didn’t specifically quote anything. Over all this was a good ted talk and I enjoyed watching it because it stepped into a different place of happiness that wasn’t really in the front of my mind.

 

1. 1. Reflection: This TED talk didn’t apply quite as much to the essential question as the others did, but it still was definitely there. I was on a different side of it though, it was looking at the people that study it. Looking at why they wanted to find all of that information. He really narrowed down what we are looking forward to, like the pleasant, meaningful, and the good life styles.

 

1. 1. Evidence:

      1. “So in conclusion, the eleventh reason for optimism, in addition to the space elevator, is that I think with technology, entertainment and design, we can actually increase the amount of tonnage of human happiness on the planet.”

      2. “I mentioned that for all three kinds of lives -- the pleasant life, the good life, the meaningful life -- people are now hard at work on the question: Are there things that lastingly change those lives? And the answer seems to be yes. And I'll just give you some samples of it. It's being done in a rigorous manner. It's being done in the same way that we test drugs to see what really works. So we do random-assignment, placebo-controlled,long-term studies of different interventions.”

 

What's one of the WORST ways to motivate someone? Hint: You see it all the time!

 

1. 1. Citation: Kelley, Megan. “What's One of the WORST Ways to Motivate Someone? Hint: You See It All the Time.” Upworthy, 11 Feb. 2015, www.upworthy.com/whats-one-of-the-worst-ways-to-motivate-someone-hint-you-see-it-all-the-time?c=ufb2.

 

1. 1. Summary: He starts off talking about how these four professors wanted to see how good money is as a motivator. He explains that they got a group of people together and has three levels of motivation. They concluded with the tests they gave the group, that as long as the challenge is physical. Money is a great motivator, but once the chalang just gets to where they have to use the slitted amount of mind power. The higher the reward, the worse the outcome is. Shocked by this they try it in India, and the outcome is the same, when offered a lower to middle reward, they did the same no matter what. But when the reward was raised, they fell through the floor. They concluded that there were three main motivators for humans, autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Autonomy was the thought that we get to run our own lives, and have choice. Mastery is that we want to be good at something. Purpose is that we want to make an imprint in society.

 

1. 1. Assessment: This source seemed to be credible, but I can't be sure because we don’t know where he is getting his data from. He claims it is coming from M.I.T and other colleges and it probably is, but I can't be sure. And, again, there will always be bias, but there seemed to be more in this one than in the others because we don’t know exactly where is sources are from.

 

1. 1. Reflection: This wasn’t really on the topic of happiness in this, but it looked at motivation for happiness. So in the end it did help me answer the essential question because of that. I really kept think back and forth about what my answer was for this and I don’t really think I have come to a conclusion quite yet.

 

1. 1. Evidence:

      1. “As long as the task involved only mechanical skill, bonuses worked as they would be expected. The higher the pay the better the performance.”

      2. “This time around, the people offered the top reward, they did worst of all. Higher incentives lead to worse performance.”

 

Research Question: Does motivation on a daily basis make the average person happier?

 

Individual Research

 

1. Alexander Wager: What really motivates people to be honest in business?

 

1. 1. Citation: Wagner, Alexander. “What Really Motivates People to Be Honest in Business.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, 10 Nov. 2016, www.ted.com/talks/alexander_wagner_what_really_motivates_people_to_be_honest_in_business#t-589709.

 

1. 1. Summary: He starts of by building some background knowledge that doesn’t really apply to what I am talking about. Then he moves into what makes individually people motivated. He used an example of a dog, if there is a sausage at the top of a cabinet and he wants to get it, but there are plates and cups that are in his way. He could go get the sausage, but then he would be scolded by his owner because of the broken plates. He talked alot about that and then moved onto an experiment when people land a coin of on tails, they get money. But there isn’t a person watching them when they input the amount of tails they got. So about 65% were honest and the rest got all of the coins on tails. He related this to motivation by bringing back the dog metaphor. If the dog gets the sausage off the counter, but breaks the plates, the sausage is less valuable, but if he gets the sausage without breaking anything, he values it more.

 

1. 1. Assessment: This sources seems to be creatable and is very clear on his evendance. I don’t know where he got his sources so that makes it a little less credible. This one didn’t seem to have any bias at all, he was very neutral and not wanting to share opinions. He was just there to relay information in an entertaining way.

 

1. 1. Reflection: This did help me get to my research question more than it did get to the essential question because he didn’t talk a lot about happiness directly. It did relate to happiness, but it helped me more with my question (as it should.) It was a different point of view of motivation, and really did help me look deeper into my question.

 

1. 1. Evidence:

      1. “Adam smith talked about the baker, who’s not producing good bread out of his benevolence, for those people that consume the bread. But because he wants to sell more future bread.”

      2. “It seems people are motivated by certain intrinsic values, and in our research we look at this. We look at the idea that people have so called “protected values.” A protected value isn’t just any value, a protected value is a value where you are willing to pay a price to uphold that value.”

 

1. The Puzzle of Motivation

 

1. 1. Citation: Pink, Dan. “The Puzzle of Motivation.” TED: Ideas Worth Spreading, www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation/transcript.

 

1. 1. Summary: He started of by describing his personal education, which I don’t really care about, but then he started talking about some experiment about problem solving that doesn’t pertain to what I am looking for. He restated the experiment that was mentioned in “What’s one of the WORST ways to motivate someone?” He talked about how money is such a terrible reward for people unless it is physical work. He has an example of this that he uses a lot which is a candle, a box of tacks, and matches. The test subjects were told, "Your job is to attach the candle to the wall so the wax doesn't drip onto the table." They had two groups going one at a time, one was told they were being timed, and the others were told that they would get 5 dollars if they did well, and 20 dollars if they did the best out of everyone. The people offered the money reward, did absolutely terrible compared to the people being timed.

 

1. 1. Assessment: This does seem to be credible because it came from sources that I know are cretalbe, like universities, and “.gov” sites. This had a TON of bias in it because he Dan Pink was getting really worked up over this and had a lot of opinion in this. But since he had credible sources, I am using him anyway.

   2. Reflection: This helped me a lot to get to my question, but not so much for the essential question. He talked more about what I wanted, and he also touched on what makes us happy. So this did help me more than I think on the essential

question. It told me that motivation comes in different forms for each person. My personal drive is things that I like to do and that have a reward in the mastery section of motivation.

 

1. 1. Evidence:

      1. “To the second group he offered rewards. He said, "If you're in the top 25% of the fastest times, you get five dollars. If you're the fastest of everyone we're testing here today, you get 20 dollars." Now this is several years ago, adjusted for inflation, it's a decent sum of money for a few minutes of work. It's a nice motivator. How much faster did this group solve the problem? It took them, on average, three and a half minutes longer. 3.5 min longer. This makes no sense, right?I mean, I'm an American. I believe in free markets. That's not how it's supposed to work, right?”

      2. “Is this some kind of touchy-feely socialist conspiracy going on here? No, these are economists from MIT, from Carnegie Mellon, from the University of Chicago. Do you know who sponsored this research? The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States. That's the American experience.”

      3. And here's the best part. We already know this. The science confirms what we know in our hearts. So, if we repair this mismatch between science and business, if we bring our motivation, notions of motivation into the 21st century, if we get past this lazy, dangerous, ideology of carrots and sticks, we can strengthen our businesses, we can solve a lot of those candle problems, and maybe, maybe -- we can change the world.

 

1. What's one of the WORST ways to motivate someone? Hint: You see it all the time!

 

1. 1. Citation: Kelley, Megan. “What's One of the WORST Ways to Motivate Someone? Hint: You See It All the Time.” Upworthy, 11 Feb. 2015, www.upworthy.com/whats-one-of-the-worst-ways-to-motivate-someone-hint-you-see-it-all-the-time?c=ufb2.

 

1. 1. Summary: He starts off talking about how these four professors wanted to see how good money is as a motivator. He explains that they got a group of people together and has three levels of motivation. They concluded with the tests they gave the group, that as long as the challenge is physical. Money is a great motivator, but once the chalang just gets to where they have to use the slitted amount of mind power. The higher the reward, the worse the outcome is. Shocked by this they try it in India, and the outcome is the same, when offered a lower to middle reward, they did the same no matter what. But when the reward was raised, they fell through the floor. They concluded that there were three main motivators for humans, autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Autonomy was the thought that we get to run our own lives, and have choice. Mastery is that we want to be good at something. Purpose is that we want to make an imprint in society.

 

1. 1. Assessment: This source seemed to be credible, but I can't be sure because we don’t know where he is getting his data from. He claims it is coming from M.I.T and other colleges and it probably is, but I can't be sure. And, again, there will always be bias, but there seemed to be more in this one than in the others because we don’t know exactly where is sources are from.

 

1. 1. Reflection: This wasn’t really on the topic of happiness in this, but it looked at motivation for happiness. So in the end it did help me answer the essential question because of that. I really kept think back and forth about what my answer was for this and I don’t really think I have come to a conclusion quite yet.

 

1. 1. 1. “This time around, the people offered the top reward, they did worst of all. Higher incentives lead to worse performance.

      2. “As long as the task involved only mechanical skill, bonuses worked as they would be expected. The higher the pay the better the performance.”

      Evidence:

1. 1. 1.  

 

 

                                                  Happiness Experiment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflection:

 

1: What have you discovered your truth of happiness is?

 

, they say World Happiness ReportIn my research and journey through this project, I believe that the truth of happiness is that we all are searching for the wrong things to make us happy. An example of this is an article by that, "The closeness of the two rankings shows that the happiness of immigrants depends predominantly on the quality of life where they now live, illustrating a general pattern of convergence." I agree with this because I have seen that people want to be happy, and they try to find happiness through buying things. That does make them happier but not for long. If people want to find true happiness, they need to do what makes them happy. In my case, I love to fly drones. I don't care what kind, I just want to fly a drone. It makes me really happy to be a part of the growing community of drone pilots. That brings me to my other point, community. Humans are social beings and we all want to be part of a community or to be noticed. And that makes us happy to know that people look up to us or know us or love us or recognize us and so on. 

 

 

2: What was the greatest challenge you faced in this project and how did you work through it?

 

The greatest challenge that I faced in this project was time management and a close runnerup of procrastination. An example of poor time management in this project is the fact that we didn't have our happiness video done by the due date, but then Sara extended the project due date by a week. So we could finish and make it better than we ever thought it would be. I know there isn't any physical evidence of this, but you are just going to have to take my word. This was a challenge because my partner and my standards were so high that it was hard to complete something like we were wanting. It did end up like we wanted and more, it was just a struggle. 

 

 

3: How have you grown as a group worker in this project? If you did this individually, why did you choose to and how did this choice impact your project

 

I have grown as a group worker in this project because I have had to learn and use a lot of the skills and techniques that were necessary to our success. Some examples of these skills include how to use a high-performance camera, video editing, effective communication, problem solving, and lots more. I think that all of these skills are very important to learn and use because we are growing up in a day and age where these skills are becoming more important and relevant. I did have to use these skills and techniques a lot more than I would on my average day. I also learned some new things that I can apply them to my average day. I learned a lot in this project and I am really happy to have done it.

 

 

4:  If you could refine any part of this project, thinking back through the entire project, Brave New World through experiments to videos, what would you refine, and how would you define it?

 

If I were to refine this project in any way, I would say that I would refine the time we spent on each part of the project. For example, we had about one and a half months to build background knowledge, and I think that is too long. Then we spent only 2 weeks to design, film, edit, and refine our videos. I would change this because most of the groups could have had a better final product in the end. I would also like to have less building background knowledge, not because it was wasted time, but because it we needed time spent in other areas.