Studies show that there is a darker side to happiness, writes Marta Zaraska

The happier you are, the better, right? Not necessarily. Studies show that there is a darker side to feeling good and that the pursuit of happiness can sometimes make you less happy. Too much cheerfulness can make you gullible, selfish, less successful — and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Happiness does have benefits (beyond feeling good, of course). It can protect us from stroke and from the common cold, makes us more resistant to pain and even prolongs our lives. Yet, June Gruber, a professor of psychology at Yale University who has studied happiness, warns that it’s important to experience positive moods in moderation.

She compares happiness to food: Although necessary and beneficial, too much food can cause problems; likewise, happiness can lead to bad outcomes. “Research indicates that very high levels of positive feelings predict risk-taking behaviors, excess alcohol and drug consumption, binge eating, and may lead us to neglect threats,” she says.

How else can excessive joy and a relative absence of negative ones, hurt you?

First, it may hamper your career prospects. Psychologist Edward Diener, renowned for his happiness research, and his colleagues analysed a variety of studies, including data from more than 16,000 people around the world, and discovered that those who early in their lives reported the highest life satisfaction years later reported lower income than those who felt slightly less merry when young. What’s more, they dropped out of school earlier.

Included in the studies was one involving a group of American college freshmen who in 1976 claimed to be very cheerful. Surveyed again when they were in their late 30s, they earned, on average, almost $3,500 a year less than their slightly less cheerful peers. Why? Diener suggests that people who don’t experience much sadness or anxiety are rarely dissatisfied with their jobs and therefore feel less pressure to get more education or change careers.

Psychologists point out that emotions are adaptive: They make us change behaviour to help us survive. Anger prepares us to fight; fear helps us flee. But what about sadness? Studies show that when we are sad, we think in a more systematic manner. Sad people are attentive to details and externally oriented, while happy people tend to make snap judgments that may reflect racial or sex stereotyping.

Even just striving to feel cheerful might make us less happy. Jonathan Schooler, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and his colleagues asked a group of 120 people to listen to Stravinsky’s Rites of Spring, a complex composition that is not that easy on the ear.

He discovered that those who listened to the music with a specific intent to make themselves happy or constantly monitored how much they were enjoying themselves ended up enjoying themselves less than those who just focused on the experience.