How positive psychology and behavioral economics are the new frontiers of human achievement.

1. The Science of Being Human
Behavioral Economics,
Positive Psychology,
and Human Achievement

2. The Question
• 400 years from now, what will make people
say, “What were they thinking?”
• Almost 400 years ago, Galileo was branded a
heretic by the Inquisition for his observations
of the moon, which showed it was not a
perfect sphere

3. Hint: Not A Perfect Sphere

4. The Human Frontier
• How many people get excited about going to
Mars or discovering the Higgs Boson?
• The most important frontier today is our
understanding of being human
– Neuroscience
– Positive Psychology
– Behavioral Economics

5. Today’s Talk
• Background
• Principles
• Implications

6. Who Is This Guy?
• Alisha’s husband
• Entrepreneur, investor, blogger
• I’m not a scientist, I just read a lot of books
and like to talk

7. Positive Psychology
• Founded in 1998 by Martin Seligman
• The science of mental health, not illness
• Has crossed over to the mainstream
• Distinguished from self-help by scientific basis

8. Happiness

10. Optimism
• As we’ve become more self-centered and less
community-oriented, depression has increased
• Optimists (despite being less realistic) are
healthier, happier, and more successful
– Bad events have specific, temporary, external causes
– Good events have general, permanent, internal causes
• Pessimists can employ the ABCDE model
– Adversity, Belief, Consequences, Disputation,
Energization

12. Positivity
• The positivity ratio is the # of positive
statements to the # of negative statements
• High performing teams average 6:1; low
performing teams average 1:1
• Flourishing marriages average 5:1; failed
marriages fall below 1:1
• The tipping point is 2.9013
• Raise your ratio by decreasing negativity and
increasing positivity

14. Intrinsic Motivation
• The 6 basic aspirations
– Extrinsic
• To be rich
• To be famous
• To be good-looking
– Intrinsic
• Satisfying personal relationships
• Contribute to the community
• Grow as an individual
• People with extrinsic goals show more
narcisissm, anxiety, and depression—even if
achieved

16. Surrogacy
• We suck at knowing what will make us happy
• Your best bet is to ask a surrogate who has
undergone the experience how they feel
• We resist surrogacy because we don’t like to
see ourselves as average
– 90% of drivers consider themselves above average

18. The How of (Personal) Happiness
• Express gratitude • Learn to forgive
• Cultivate optimism • Increase flow
• Avoid overthinking experiences
• Practice acts of • Savor life’s joys
kindness
• Commit to goals
• Nurture social
relationships • Practice religion &
• Develop strategies for spirituality
coping • Take care of your body

20. Happiness Policy
• Happiness per country depends on 6 factors
– Feeling you can trust other people
– Belonging to social organizations
– Divorce rate
– Unemployment rate
– Quality of government
– Religious faith
• The hedonic treadmill: Money can’t buy
happiness because humans are so adaptable

21. Achievement

23. Flow
• Clear goals every step of the way
• Immediate feedback on actions
• Balance between challenges and skills
• Action and awareness are merged
• Distractions are excluded from consciousness
• No worry of failure
• Self-consciousness disappears
• Time “flies”
• Activity becomes done for its own state

25. Mindset
• Growth vs. Fixed mindset
• The mind is a muscle you can improve
• Failure is a chance to grow
• Just 2 50-minute interventions had a
significant impact 4 years later

27. Deliberate Practice
• Break down skills into their components
• Practice those components at the edge of
your ability
• Focus on immediate feedback and iteration
• Work hard to put in your 10,000 hours

28. Spirituality

30. Sacredness
• Self-transcendence is a basic part of being
human—we want to be uplifted
• The function of this instinct is to bind groups
together
• Most of us long to overcome pettiness and
become part of something bigger

31. Behavioral Economics
• Human beings aren’t rational economic actors
• Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize for this
work (partner Amos Tversky had passed away)
• Focused on “cognitive biases”

33. We are Predictably Irrational
• Heuristics (“rules of thumb”)
• Framing (“how information is presented”)
• Anomalies (“Man, that’s some weird stuff!”)

34. Heuristics
• We focus on what we can lose, not what we
can gain (loss aversion)
• We make decisions based on relative, not
absolute values (e.g. “the middle price”)
• Zero/free is a source of irrational excitement

35. Framing
• Anchoring has a major long-term effect on our
willingness to pay
• Market norms drive out social norms
– And consumers take offense if a relationship framed as a
social exchange turns out to be a market one
• We unconsciously act based on stereotypes (priming)
• The placebo effect works, and people get more impact
from an expensive placebo than a cheap one

36. Anomalies
• Humans procrastinate; using pre-commitment
can help overcome it
• We overvalue what we have (the endowment
effect)
• We hate to give up options—even if we should

37. So what does all this mean?
• The past 30 years have seen a revolution in
the science of being human
• We are moving beyond
religion, philosophy, psychology, and self-help
with evidence-based interventions
• We can be healthier, happier, and more
productive simply by changing our minds

38. The Big Summary (Part 1)
• Optimism is adaptive and can be learned
• Positivity (> 3:1) helps everything from teams
to marriages
• Only intrinsic motivations
(relationships, community, growth) can make
you happy
• Money can’t buy happiness for individuals or
nations—trust, belonging, and faith matter
• Surrogacy is the best way to estimate
happiness

39. The Big Summary (Part 2)
• Flow is productive, pleasurable, and systematically
achievable
• The mind is a muscle and failure is a just chance to
grow
• Deliberate practice, not natural ability, produces talent
• We long to transcend the self and become part of
something bigger
• We decide based on rules of thumb and framing, not
just facts and figures
• Only by admitting our irrationality can we take steps to
outwit our wrong-headed instincts

40. It all fits together
• Knowing we’re Predictable Irrational gives us the humility to use
tools like Surrogacy to find what makes us Happy
• Happiness stems largely from Optimism
• Optimism helps you achieve Positivity
• Positivity is the secret to successful relationships
• Relationships reflect a longing for Self-Transcendence
• Self-Transcendence is the core of Intrinsic Motivation
• Intrinsic Motivation reflects the desire to belong and grow
• The Growth Mindset gives you failure tolerance to test your
limits with Deliberate Practice
• Deliberate Practice is designed to achieve Flow
• Flow is one path to Self-Transcendence and Happiness

41. And of course, Jeremy Lin
• Deliberate practice trumps
“natural ability”
• Overcome failure with
optimism and positivity
• The predictably irrational
decisions of college coaches
and NBA GMs
• Self-Transcendence and
winning basketball

42. Where do we go from here?
• The science of being human is a growing
industry
– LifeHacker
– The Quantified Self
– TED
– Masters in Applied Positive Psychology (Penn)
• How can you tap these principles in your own
work?

43. Blatant Plugs
• You can read my blogs
– http://chrisyeh.blogspot.com/
– http://www.asktheharvardmba.com/
• Follow me on Twitter
– https://twitter.com/chrisyeh
• Follow up on the source material
– http://bookoutlines.pbworks.com