Psychologically Sound & Social

Introduction In The myths of happiness: what should make you happy, but doesn't, what shouldn't make you happy, but does, Lyubomirsky (2013) breaks down common misconceptions about happiness. She explains why we are not affected by major life events in the ways we believe we should be (Lyubomirsky, 2013). Without using the term itself, she suggests that impact bias, how we imagine the effects of a positive or negative event will affect us more strongly and for a longer duration than it actually will, is partially to blame (Gilbert et al., 2002.; Lyubomirsky, 2013).   Lyubomirsky (2013) approaches a broad range of the most common self-help topics, such as romantic relationships, parenthood, loneliness, career dissatisfaction, financial issues, terminal disease diagnosis, aging, and death. She centers the book around these situations, rather than on specific psychological concepts (Lyubomirsky, 2013).  She also adds more specific thought exercises, suggestions, and anecdotes for...

  According to   Zajonc’s Solution to Social Facilitation , being around other people excites our bodies, and that leads us to behave in the way that comes to us most automatically, our dominant response (Zajonc, 1965).     This behavior tends to lead to greater success with simple or familiar activities (Zajonc, 1965). However, this immediate reaction also tends to hinder our abilities in difficult or novel activities (Zajonc, 1965).     Triplett (1898) studied how the presence of other people could affect the speed at which one does an activity. In this study, he asked children to wind up fishing spools, either on their own, or together, and the results suggested that the paired-up children rolled up the spool faster than those on their own (Triplett, 1898). This supports part of Zajonc’s solution, that social facilitation tends to help with easy tasks (Zajonc, 1965).  I was taught how to swim at a young age and participated in teams on and off throu...