Contrary to popular belief (chuckle), I am generally quite a happy person; happy with life overall, but for a few, small spots of discontent. Indeed, I’d say happier than most, all things considered.
Tonight, having awakened to the sounds of a somewhat rambunctious domestic on the next floor, after phoning the local enforcement to deal with it, I (awake for the day, most likely), took to cruising “teh interwebz”. I’m glad I did. I found this study, courtesy of an online friend, that validates something I’ve long theorized and done a smattering of analysis/research on (albeit informally):
People who have “deep”, “meaningful” conversations tend to be happier than those who have “inane”, “shallow” ones.
Thus, a happy validation. I’ll end with a quote of the summary/conclusion:
Together, the present findings demonstrate that the happy life is social rather than solitary, and conversationally deep rather than superficial. What makes these findings especially compelling is the lack of method overlap between the well-being measures (self- and informant reports) and the interaction measures (direct observation). Also, the replication of findings across measures of well-being and across weekday and weekend behavior is encouraging.
Naturally, our correlational findings are causally ambiguous. On the one hand, well-being may be causally antecedent to having substantive interactions; happy people may be “social attractors” who facilitate deep social encounters (Lucas & Dyrenforth, 2006). On the other hand, deep conversations may actually make people happier. Just as self-disclosure can instill a sense of intimacy in a relationship, deep conversations may instill a sense of meaning in the interaction partners. Therefore, our results raise the interesting possibility that happiness can be increased by facilitating substantive conversations (Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006).