The Happiness Hypothesis

Not sure why this one didn't grab me, but I found it just OK.

Some of his assertions about the scientific evidence backing meditation and attachment theory are questionable in my mind. From what I've read and heard elsewhere, the case is not nearly as clearcut as he makes it seem in this book.

I also feel like the “ancient wisdom” schtick is just a schtick to sell books. He pulls quotations from ancient/old texts and then talks about how they are supported by current scientific theory. The problem is that those quotations are taken out of context and although he tries to provide the broader context, he often leaves out notable elements such as superstition and other irrational claims.

I also think there are several points where one could take up serious philosophical quibbles with his argument.

In spite of these problems he makes a lot of thought-provoking arguments that are worthy of consideration if not application in one's own life. I really appreciate his support of meditation, positive psychology, and cognitive therapy. So, overall, I guess it's really a pretty interesting book... but for some reason I just did not love it.

4.5 stars.

I found very interesting the hypotheses described in this book, and will definitely study more some of the concepts that the author explained in order to improve my own “happiness level” and become more conscious of my own behavior. I fully recommend this book to anyone that wants to understand more clearly how our mind and emotions work together.

4.6 !

Very enjoyable insight on “the meaning of life” and happiness. I think the audio book version was perfect for the informational content - not bornong or dragging at all! Some of it was a little repetitive but still insightful.

And thus we move, logically, to The Happiness Hypothesis. Ben Tanaka, main character of Shortcomings, could use The Happiness Hypothesis. Ginger Pye and the rest of the Pye family apparently intuitively knew The Happiness Hypothesis.
Haidt looks at ancient wisdom and compares it to the result of the new science of positive psychology. Some of the things I learned from this book:

Reciprocity is the best guide to life. This is the classic “Do unto others” thought. There are three effective ways to happiness: meditation, cognitive therapy, and Prozac.

People have good insight about other people, but are terrible in judging themselves. They cannot see their own flaws.Instead of trying to improve weaknesses, we should work on our strengths. Often we can use a strength to get around a weakness.

The personality is now thought to have three components: (1) our basic and classic traits of neuroticism and extroversion, (2) the ways we characteristically adapt including openness to new experiences, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and (3) our life story, the way we have made sense of our lives.It takes adversity to reach our highest levels. Posttraumatic growth is rising to the challenges of problems, which reveals hidden abilities and changes our self-concept.

The Righteous Mind includes most of the information in this tome, but was definitely easier to read. I think he was able to synthesize his ideas more coherently in tRM than he did in tHH.

Jonathan Haidt is psychologist who primarily researches how people come to ethical opinions/actions. This book takes an evidence based look at some big ideas of philosophy and great thinkers through history about how to be happy.


It uses a pretty wide array of illustrations of ideas, referencing scenes from The Godfather to demonstrate social strategies, Edwin Abbott's Flatworld, and using the Bible, Buddha, and Machiavelli to present the history of ideas, then examines some of the experiments by modern psychologists that are applicable to those ideas. It's not a perfect book and I won't claim to agree with every conclusion made, but it's fairly easy to follow the difference between citing research and conclusions drawn from that research.


I have a hard time judging the approachability of this one because I've read a disproportionately high number of books in psychology, but it doesn't seem to assume that much knowledge. It does get somewhat dense and technical at points, and I intend to give it a second read, but I believe it's something you can follow without a strong background if you know what you're getting into.

It covers a wide range of ideas from structural elements of the brain, to childhood development, the role of trauma in personal growth, religious experiences, psychedelics, and how ideas about ethical decision making differ and contribute to happiness. It's a lot, packed through with citations, but it's reasonably well structured and presented. Overall, if you read everything printed in psychology you'll recognize a lot of the research, but might think about some of it in new ways. If you haven't read much, it might be a bit daunting but even if you miss details I think you could take away a lot of understanding of how our brains work by reading this book.