Happiness From A Neurobiological Standpoint
Happiness cannot exist without unhappiness. There must be a standard from which the idea of happiness is derived. If a person felt happy their entire life, they would not know that they were "happy"; they would consider their emotional state to be simply "normal." If this same person, one day, felt a loss, and felt saddened, only then would they be able to discriminate between their new feeling, unhappiness, and the previous feeling, happiness. By this rationale, however, one might suggest that happiness is merely the absence of unpleasant feelings. This is true to a certain extent; when people are happy they rarely acknowledge their well-being, whereas those who are unhappy cannot think of anything but a way that they might remedy their state and become happy once more. This probably explains why so few studies have been done in psychology to define happiness. There is a more pressing need to cure those who are angry or depressed. However, without a clear cut definition of what happiness is, how can researchers determine what state they would like to return their depressed patients to, perhaps through use of drugs? More often than not, psychotropic medication disables its users to feel severe emotions, both negative and
positive. The symptoms of depression are removed, but is the result happiness? Emotions are influenced by a person's subjective feelings about things, events, and people, and people behave a certain way based on these emotions. There is difficulty in objectively defining particular emotions, and scientists tend to identify how emotions are expressed than to say exactly what emotions are. The expression of emotions includes physiological changes, such as changes in heart rate, blood pressure, and hormone secretions (Kolb 432). One might hypothesize that humans have evolved in such a way that predisposes them to be happy at some times and sad at other times. Humans might have adapted to feel happy when they have partners, because this would result in reproduction to ensure survival, and humans might have adapted to feel unhappy when they have a poor diet, because this works negatively against the body, and hence, would be a signal for the person to remedy their state. The amygdala is required for species survival; it influences autonomic and hormonal responses through its connections to the hypothalamus. It influences our conscious awareness of the positive and negative consequences of events and objects through its connections to the prefrontal cortex. The amygdala helps us differentiate between right and wrong, especially with regards to social conduct (Kolb 435). Can this really explain, however, the myriad of feelings that humans have, reactions to the smallest detail and to major events? In the 21st century, is self-preservation still the leading cause that dictates our emotional responses? In this age, people are willing and encouraged to change their neurochemistry to better adapt to society. A person might feel sad or angry due to biological switches that were created to help the humans avoid danger, but today they are encouraged to feel "happy," or at least "un-depressed," so that they might continue their life as a productive member of society. This is accomplished many times by the use of anti-depressants. Other research into the biological foundations of happiness has shown the neurotransmitter dopamine to play an important role. Richard Depue, a professor of human development and family studies and director of the Laboratory of Neurobiology of Personality and Emotion at Cornell, has conducted research that shows that the higher the level of dopamine, or the more responsive the brain is to dopamine, the more likely a person is to be sensitive to incentives and rewards (Lang 1). According to Depue, when the dopamine system is activa
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Approximate Word count = 1743
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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