One might assume that Gold Medal winners are the happiest.
And that following this, the most happiness comes to Silver medalists and then Bronze medalists etc…
But happiness isn’t that simple; and “winning” isn’t everything!
Read on to learn what we can learn from these “winners” and how we can use it to maximise our happiness…
via Inc.com by Jessica Stillman
If you’ve been watching the Winter Olympics at all, you know the medal podium is an emotional place. There is triumph and joy, but there are also tears and envy. What sets happy champions apart from miserable ones? Not, apparently, the color of the medal around their neck.
Why bronze medalists are happier
In one classic study, psychologists asked people to look at medalists and rate their level of joy based on their facial expressions. You might think this is a silly exercise — clearly gold medalists are going to win the happiness stakes too, followed by silver and then bronze, right? But that’s not what scientists found.
Instead, the numbers clearly showed that bronze medalists are generally significantly happier than silver medalists, despite having finished behind them. Other studies using slightly different methods (and sports) have confirmed the findings.
So why are silver medalists more unhappy? It comes down to what scientists call “counterfactual dreaming” and what the rest of us know as “daydreaming about what might have been.”
“The most obvious counterfactual thought for the silver medalist might be to focus on almost winning gold… The bronze medalist, however, might focus their counterfactual thoughts downward towards fourth place. She would focus on almost not winning a medal at all,” explains Scientific American’s write-up of this line of research.
Thinking about narrowly missing out on something better obviously makes people less happy than imagining having missed out on glory entirely. Hence the unexpected victory of bronze medalists in the happiness championships…
…keep reading the full & original article HERE
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