"Cognitive Trap" -As as long as you succeed, can you be happy?

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Do you have such an experience in life? When brushing the circle of friends, we often see friends showing up their promotion, education, abroad, luxury consumption, houses, cars, and children's information, and then we will enviously sigh, he is so happy. At the party after graduation, we will silently judge which students are now successful people, who earn more, who's position is high, and who has a happy life? We often associate success with the most material, the greatest wealth, and the higher status and fame and fortune.

But at the same time, we will also hear such a voice: to wear crown, it will be heavy. Although his career is successful, he is also very tired. He cannot take care of family and individual leisure, and does not feel how happy you are. Some "successful people" are insatiable, and they are increasingly unable to fill the private bags of material desires. In fact, this is caused by different materialist values.

CSIKSZENTMIHALE and ROCHberg-Halton (1978) divide materialism into two types: one is the ultimate materialism. Such people will get material wealth as the ultimate goal of success. I hope to gain a higher social status through the accumulation of material wealth accumulation Winning the praise and envy of others; the other is instrumental materialism. Personal obtaining material wealth is only to achieve personal value and basic life needs. They believe that the previous materialism is more harmful.

Tixed -tier materialist values ​​will indeed bring us happiness.

Maslow's needs level theory can be explained. People's needs are divided into five types: physiological (material), safety, social needs, self -esteem, and self -realization. The lower the level you need, the greater the strength and the greater the potential. People's needs for material need not only maintain the basic needs of life, but also the basis for development of advanced psychological needs. Before high -level needs, you must meet the low -level needs. If people's material wealth is missing in real life, and cannot meet people's basic needs, happiness will not be able to talk about. With the needs of different levels, from material to self -esteem and self -realization, people's subjective happiness will continue to increase.

Many studies have confirmed the effectiveness of instrumental materialism. Landry et al. (2016) divided the motivation to make money into self -integration motivation and non -integrated motivation. Studies have found that self -integration motivation for self -integration can help improve personal value, self -esteem, charity, freedom, promote personal growth, and improve happiness. Non -integrated motivation to make money has the opposite impact. Kasser and Ryan (1993) also pointed out that self -implementation is an indicator of happiness. If our motivation for success is to seek inner pure happiness or achieve our own value and goals, then we are more likely to realize ourselves and gain happiness.

In addition, Burroughs and Rindfleisch studied in 2002 that 20%of the 373 American adults have high levels of happiness at the same time. Most of these "happy materialists" are men with high -income and high education. They value material very much to achieve the set materialist goal as the standard of success, and such instrumental materialism will not damage happiness (Li Jing et al., 2017).

Saxe and HAUSHOFER (2008) research on brain science can also make a certain explanation of this. Studies have found that the positive evaluation and positive social feedback of others, high social status and money rewards have similar brain activation, such as pattern and brain island. This shows that the pursuit of money, etc. can make people have a happy and happy experience.

However, if we use the pursuit of material success as the ultimate goal of personal life, then materialist values ​​will damage our sense of happiness.

Researcher Veenhoven (1999) believes that the relationship between wealth and happiness is curved. When wealth reaches a certain saturation point, as personal income increases, happiness will not increase accordingly, and even reduce reduction. Happiness. Domestic scholars Li Jing and Guo Yongyu (2010) also believe that after the demand for money is met, the increase in wealth will not increase the happiness brought by it. It can be said that in the short term, materialism can improve personal happiness, but in the long run, materialism does not play a positive role.

A large number of studies have discovered the negative impact of materialism on individual happiness or satisfaction. For example, the results of Park and others in 2017 show that the acquisition of money can buy happiness or happiness to a certain extent. But if you value money too much and make money as the basis of self -success, individuals will face greater psychological pressure and trouble. Limited by money, there is less autonomy, and the increase in negative emotions will increase, and it will become more negative and try to escape when dealing with problems. Nagpaul and Pang (2017) have also confirmed this view through questionnaires and experimental methods. Materialism can reduce happiness to be explained through autonomy. Specifically, the pursuit of material success is essentially an external pursuit. It is usually to meet the social status, identity and reputation of individuals, and pay attention to external rewards, praise and recognition. In the process of external pursuits, the attention of internal pursuit such as fun, joy and challenge will gradually lose. And these inner pursuits need to be involved in autonomy. Therefore, materialism people usually do not experience this sense of pursuit of interest and self -choice. In addition, they often have higher requirements for themselves, unable to accept their shortcomings, and have more negative emotions such as pain and anxiety. So, how should we overcome the negative impact of materialism values, establish a rational concept of success, and pursue a happy life?

On the one hand, create positive values ​​and social atmosphere. Reduce the spread and contact of information media such as consumerism and money. According to the training theory (Gerbner, 1998), television and social networking platforms will subtly affect the user's world view. In the process of daily information browsing and consumption, users will continue to strengthen the training effect through information coding and memories (Johar et al., 2006), further promoting users to pursue material wealth. In addition, the information of the public showing off material wealth on social media can easily lead to individual social comparison, negative self -evaluation and jealousy of others, reduce individual happiness and lead to more impulse purchases. Therefore, we must improve the social environment, resist the spread of information such as extreme materialism and vicious consumerism in the media, and promote the improvement of individual happiness.

On the other hand, strengthen personal pursuit of social spirit and the construction of spiritual civilization. Entering social relations, participate in social activities, strengthen the support and spiritual exchanges of interpersonal society; in -depth research, enhance the positive personality traits such as self -confidence, self -acceptance, and self -esteem, learn appropriate response strategies, enhance your internal value, enrich your spirit The world; meditation is also a way to enhance happiness. When focusing on meditation, you will feel the existence of heart flow, narrow the gap between the material condition and improve the sense of subjective happiness; strengthen physical exercise, promote the secretion of endorphins, and obtain a continuous and long -lasting sense of happiness and happiness.

In general, we must establish the correct view of success, money, and life. It is not only to obtain material wealth and social status to be a real success. Everyone can have their own standards of success. It is amazing to achieve your ideal value and contribute to society. The 20 -year -old life has just begun, and a 40 -year -old life can just start. Do not let the secular standards limit our potential. Happiness is not limited to "success".

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Content comes from: Chinese Psychological Society Psychology Popularization Working Committee

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