Who knew?!

A radical and ground-breaking study has discovered—Eureka!—that people cope better and are more happy when they have meaningful relationships, good conversations, and a reason to live:

It may sound counterintuitive, but people who spend more of their day having deep discussions and less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier, said Matthias Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona who published a study on the subject.

“We found this so interesting, because it could have gone the other way — it could have been, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ — as long as you surf on the shallow level of life you’re happy, and if you go into the existential depths you’ll be unhappy,” Dr. Mehl said.

But, he proposed, substantive conversation seemed to hold the key to happiness for two main reasons: both because human beings are driven to find and create meaning in their lives, and because we are social animals who want and need to connect with other people.

“By engaging in meaningful conversations, we manage to impose meaning on an otherwise pretty chaotic world,” Dr. Mehl said. “And interpersonally, as you find this meaning, you bond with your interactive partner, and we know that interpersonal connection and integration is a core fundamental foundation of happiness.”

I don't know which is more disconcerting: that it required a study to learn the obvious, or that the author actually wrote, "It may sound counterintuitive..." Oh, wait, I guess the latter explains the former.

Comments

[Laura]

One for the "DUH!" department. It's amazing to me that anyone would find this idea counterintuitive.

[Brian J. Schuettler]

"... if you go into the existential depths you’ll be unhappy,” Dr. Mehl said." Maybe it's counter-intuitive for him because he associates the existential depths with Fear and Trembling!

There is a kind of learning which would presumptuously introduce into the world of spirit the same law of indifference under which the world of matter groans. It is thought that to know about great men and great deeds is quite sufficient, and that other exertion is not necessary. And therefore this learning shall not eat, but shall perish of hunger while seeing all things transformed into gold by its touch. And what, forsooth, does this learning really know? There were many thousands of contemporaries, and countless men in after times, who knew all about the triumphs of Miltiades; but there was only one whom they rendered sleepless. There have existed countless generations that knew by heart, word for word, the story of Abraham; but how many has it rendered sleepless?

[Stephen J.]

Suggest you need one vital caveat: the deep discussions have to involve at least some element of mutual respect and at least partial agreement or acknowledgement of merit.

I've seen plenty of arguments over the most profound of topics like the meaning of sexuality, the definition of life and the source and value of morality, but they are not reinforcing or satisfying at all if they're hostile and contemptuous on both sides. (At least, I've always found them dissatisfactory.)

[Jackson]

Studies confirming the obvious are part of modern scientism, under which nothing is truly real unless confirmed scientifically. By extension, under this ideology, that which isn't subject to scientific calculation isn't truly real.

[Norah]

Deep, substantive conversations are not usually with strangers but with good friends. Maybe those who report being happy and having deep, substantive conversations are actually those people who have good friends where those whose conversation is short and shallow may have more acquaintences than friends. Maybe it is the good friends vs acquaintences which is the determinign variable here. I can see the need for another study.