Leadership training can benefit from paying more attention to connection between time and happiness
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Posted On :
Feb-23-2011
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Article Word Count :
507
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Our happiness is related to what kind of people we spend time with. Our well-being increases if we we are allowed to hand around friends, family or others who we are socially involved with.
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Can money buy you happiness? The instinctive answer is that it can, as long as you understand it as financial stability or the ability to purchase goods and services you require to sustain a lifestyle that you want to have. But beyond this precious peace of mind that millionaires or families of millionaires enjoy, there is not much else you can achieve by throwing cash at the problem. On the other hand, there are countless examples of people getting richer and richer, but at the same time their sense of security being hurt or their ability to appreciate what they possess being eroded as their aspirations never seem to be met. Is it any different with time and happiness? In the end, it is a precious resource, very tightly restricted by natural limitations. But, as researchers prove, the correlation between these two is not as straightforward as many people expect.
Two psychology professors, Jennifer L. Aaker and Melanie Rudd published an article entitled “If Money Doesn't Make You Happy, Consider Time” in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, where they argue that the feeling of perceived happiness does depend on the way we handle time we have at our disposal. They identify five key mechanisms working in this combination.
First, our happiness is related to what kind of people we spend time with. Our well-being increases if we we are allowed to hand around friends, family or others who we are socially involved with. This emotional connection that underlies these relationships charges us up in terms of how content we are with ourselves and our environment. Needless to say, being around strangers, clients or workmates all the time usually has the opposite effect, causing more anxiety, more instability and more emotional strain.
The second category they have investigated is what type of activities we indulge in. Again, the findings, which can be useful for leadership training professionals, indicate that the more social we are in our actions, the more pleasure they bring to us. In one study commuting to work was voted the least enjoyable activity while going out with friends was treated as the most pleasurable. Importantly, they are appealing largely by being contrasted with their opposites, which means that both are equally important, if levels of enjoyment produced are varying.
Three other areas important for mapping out the connection between happiness and managing time are less obvious. Apparently, researchers say, the human brain can be positively agitated by simply thinking about an activity, not just experiencing it. Also interestingly, we can try to expand our subjective perception of time by focusing on here and now and trying to gain a better control over how we spend it. This is vital for leadership development experts. Finally, quite understandably, people tend to see happiness differently at different stages of their lives, as their expectations change with age. When younger, they value excitement more than anything else, which seems to give way to stability and peace of mind as they grow older.
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Article Source :
http://www.articleseen.com/Article_Leadership training can benefit from paying more attention to connection between time and happiness_53562.aspx
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Author Resource :
I am a leadership development specialist and a passionate writer. I write articles about business education and leadership training programs. I am also a web designer working part-time for a computer repair Miami firm.
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Keywords :
leadership training, leadership development,
Category :
Self Improvement
:
Happiness
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