Popular Science Review

Home Authors Books Subjects Events Software Features Links Newsletter Gifts Blog Write Review What's New

Review - Happiness - Daniel Nettle

At first glance this could be one of those infuriatingly smug books of uplifting sayings. It's small (just 18cm by 13, smaller than a normal paperback), bright yellow and has a fun balloon on the front.

But resist the urge to yell "lead me to the sick bag" - this is not what it seems (though one has to wonder slightly why the highly respected academic publisher OUP has packaged it like this - hoping for some accidental crossover sales, perhaps?). The subtitle "the science behind your smile" is the first clue that this is, in fact, a serious scientific study of the nature of happiness.

As the author admits, this is quite a difficult concept to pin down, which has led many scientific studies to ignore it - but that's a mistake. Happiness in its different forms plays a major part in our life, one way or another. Daniel Nettle identifies three kinds of happiness - the immediate, short-lived buzz of joy, the feeling of well being and satisfaction, and the least directly expressed but long term feeling of achieving your potential.

Once Nettle dives into to the surprisingly detailed information available it's a delight. Important thought it is, happiness is something we rarely think about, and it's both interesting and entertaining to see how the various epithets on the subject of happiness (like money not being able to buy it) match up to reality. What is particularly fascinating is how easily influenced our sense of happiness is. Although most people in most countries (with a few miserable exceptions) would agree that only the whole they're more happy than not, an immediate response is strongly flavoured by everything from what the weather's like to recent success in a game. And bizarrely, this small immediate stimulus tends to colour our imagined picture to our whole life's happiness. When a teenage character on TV screams "my whole life is ruined" when they aren't allowed to see the latest movie, it's not so much an over-reaction as a more honest expression of the way we all feel in response to trivial issues. There's plenty more too (for such a small book) on the influence of personality, illness, desires and more.

A couple of small gripes. Although Nettle mostly writes well and engagingly, he can occasionally slip into jargon without noticing. It's a little unnerving to the general reader when he suddenly comments "each negative emotion is evoked by a particular situation type or schema, and each one potentiaties a particular class of remedy." Potentiates? Pretentious much. But then he doesn't raise a literary eyebrow at the existence of a trade publication called The Journal of Happiness Studies - UK readers may think this a contender for Have I Got News For You's guest publication slot. And I was a little surprised by his apparent acceptance of the statement from some psychologists that, given the way happiness levels drop back down however they're pushed up, nothing really matters much. This totally ignores the impact of memory, and the recollection of a happy moment that can be reused (admittedly at less extreme levels) time and again.

Overall, though, a very interesting little book.

Only in hardback

Reviewed by Jo Reed

DISCLAIMERS

This site has no connection with Popular Science magazine or other sites and publications with a similar name.

Much of the content of this site is written by popular science writers or friends of popular science writers. Inevitably many of the reviews in such a small community are written by or about someone we know. We always aim to be impartial in our reviews, but there is a connection which we need make clear, as there is no intention to deceive. The content of any review or article is solely the opinion of the author and should not be read or understood on any other basis. The site exists to promote popular science writing and popular science authors and for this reason should be considered promotional material, just as the editorial reviews in an online bookshop or the blurb on the back of a book should be considered promotional.

The website should not be eaten or used where it can come into contact with water.

Disagree with our review? Want to comment on a feature? Contact us at info@ popularscience.co.uk - have your say!

Part of the site