5 Things That Will Make You Happier

By Clara Moskowitz, LiveScience Senior Writer
SAN DIEGO – The pursuit of happiness is sometimes easier said than done.

Some scientists have argued that happiness is largely determined by genetics, health and other factors mostly outside of our control. But recent research suggests people actually can take charge of their own happiness and boost it through certain practices.

"The billion-dollar question is, is it possible to become happier?" said psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, Riverside. "Despite the finding that happiness is partially genetically determined, and despite the finding that life situations have a smaller influence on our happiness than we think they do, we argue that still a large portion of happiness is in our power to change."

Lyubomirsky spoke here Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She and colleagues last year reviewed 51 studies that tested attempts to increase happiness through different types of positive thinking, and found that these practices can significantly enhance well-being. The results were published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Here are five things that research has shown can improve happiness:

1. Be grateful – Some study participants were asked to write letters of gratitude to people who had helped them in some way. The study found that these people reported a lasting increase in happiness – over weeks and even months – after implementing the habit. What's even more surprising: Sending the letter is not necessary. Even when people wrote letters but never delivered them to the addressee, they still reported feeling better afterwards.

2. Be optimistic – Another practice that seems to help is optimistic thinking. Study participants were asked to visualize an ideal future – for example, living with a loving and supportive partner, or finding a job that was fulfilling – and describe the image in a journal entry. After doing this for a few weeks, these people too reported increased feelings of well-being.

3. Count your blessings – People who practice writing down three good things that have happened to them every week show significant boosts in happiness, studies have found. It seems the act of focusing on the positive helps people remember reasons to be glad.

4. Use your strengths – Another study asked people to identify their greatest strengths, and then to try to use these strengths in new ways. For example, someone who says they have a good sense of humor could try telling jokes to lighten up business meetings or cheer up sad friends. This habit, too, seems to heighten happiness.

5. Commit acts of kindness – It turns out helping others also helps ourselves. People who donate time or money to charity, or who altruistically assist people in need, report improvements in their own happiness. 

Lyubomirsky has also created a free iPhone application, called Live Happy, to help people boost their well-being.

Does an MBA Make You a Better CEO?

by Herminia Ibarra and Morten T. Hansen  

Are CEOs with MBAs actually stronger leaders? The answer might depend on the age of the CEO.

Inspired by the raging debate last year over the role of MBAs in the financial crisis, we tried to analyze whether having an MBA influences overall CEO performance. In a large-scale study of CEO performance since they took office, we found that other things equal, MBA CEOs had a slight performance edge over their non-MBA peers. In our analysis and ranking of the performance of 2,000 CEOs around the globe, CEOs who had an MBA on average ranked 40 places higher than CEOs who didn't have an MBA (a statistically significant effect).

Why the positive effect? Is it as simple as CEOs with MBA training are, in fact, better equipped to lead companies? Does this, in effect, vindicate MBAs programs battered by criticism in the past year about their role in the ethical and strategic lapses that, in turn, led to the current economic crisis?

Perhaps it's not that simple. Thinking through this question, we reflected on changes in MBA programs over the past couple of decades. As eloquently documented by Rakesh Khurana, there was a massive influx into MBA programs over the past 20 years. And, curriculum and faculty foci underwent a transformation from generalist topics taught by faculty grounded in the world of business to a specialized (read: analytic) curriculum taught by a research faculty increasingly disconnected from the practice of management.

So, we wondered if the MBA would be different for different age cohorts of CEOs. One hypothesis is that having an MBA might have given an edge to CEOs getting them when it was less of a commodity, and when business education was more of a generalist, "art rather than science" course of study. Has the performance value of an MBA decreased over time? That's one hypothesis. The competing one would be that over-time the value of the MBA has increased: thus, the tens of thousands of students rushing to business schools are reading the market signals right. Which one is your guess?

Let's take a look at age. The median age of becoming CEO was 52 years old. When we restricted the sample to CEOs who started when they were less than 50 years old, the ranking advantage for having an MBA increased: it was an even bigger advantage of having an MBA in the sub-50 group (from 40 to 100 places higher on our list). That is, in this "younger" crowd, CEOs who had an MBA tended to perform better than those who didn't have the degree.

We also divided the sample by year that the CEO took charge, splitting the sample at the year 2000 (i.e., ranking of CEOs who started before versus in or after 2000). We find that the MBA advantage is bigger for CEOs who started before year 2000 (from 40 to 108 places higher in the ranking). That is, in the pre-2000 group, CEOs who had an MBA tended to perform that much better than those who didn't have an MBA.

So, if you were "young" (less than 50 when becoming CEO) and started the chief job before 2000, you got more bang for the buck for your degree.

For older CEOs, the benefit of an MBA was there before 2000, but not after 2000.

The year-effect raises an important question: Is the value of the MBA for aspiring leaders declining? Or is it more important than ever as we dive into a highly global and uncertain business world this new decade?

Morten T. Hansen (morten.hansen@insead.edu) is a management professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Information, and at Insead. Herminia Ibarra (herminia.ibarra@insead.edu) is a professor of organizational behavior and the Cora Chaired Professor of Learning at Insead
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