sander & Scherer Sander-AlphaH Page Proof page 203 28.2.2009 10:08am H happiness The emotion of happiness is a subjective, for optimism. Recent research has found that an individ- valenced reaction to a positive experience or event (Ort- ual’s experiences of happiness can be significantly bol- ony et al. 1988). Happiness can be conceptualized as an stered by the regular, committed practice of activities umbrella term that encompasses a variety of positive such as counting blessings, expressing optimism, and per- feelings, ranging from the low-intensity states of *con- forming acts of kindness (Lyubomirsky et al. 2005b). In tentment, *enjoyment, serenity, and *amusement to the sum, frequent happiness is a highly valued goal that is high-intensity states of elation, *joy, and euphoria. partially a function of *temperament, but can also be These positive states are typically experienced when a attained through effortful intentional activity. person is making progress towards the realization of SONJA LYUBOMIRSKY AND JAIME L. KURTZ *goals (Carver and Scheier 1998), and, notably, signal that the environment is benign and safe for both relax- hatred Hatred, the noun, and to hate, the verb, do not ation and exploration (Schwarz and Clore 1983). As such, completely coincide in their semantic ranges. Hatred researchers had originally conceptualized a happy emo- carries with it more intensity and greater seriousness tion as producing a form of ‘free activation’ that is than many of our most common uses of the verb. conducive to creativity and divergent thought (Frijda Hatred is unlikely to apply aptly to one’s feelings about 1986, Isen et al. 1992). Extending this idea, Fredrickson’s broccoli, though it would be perfectly normal to register (2001) broaden-and-build model argued that feelings of one’s aversion to it by saying ‘I hate broccoli’. In daily happiness are functional, such that they open people up speech, hate can be used to indicate a fairly strong but to creative endeavours and novel approaches to prob- not very serious aversion to a film, novel, or food, all the lem-solving, as well as building social, physical, and way to desiring, with varying seriousness, the extermin- intellectual resources that prepare them for future chal- ation of an entire people. The word hate can thus mark a lenges (see positive emotions). Consistent with this rea- powerful moral/immoral *sentiment, or merely register soning, the frequency of happy emotions has been found a negative *preference. In this it tracks Latin usage, to be positively related to approach-related motivation, where the verb, odi, and the noun odium, can be used effective coping, physical health and longevity, strong to register both simple aversion and also an intense social support, satisfaction with social relationships, pro- passion of all-consuming detestation. social behaviour, productivity in the workplace, and Attempts to get at the substance of hatred in the other markers of success (Lyubomirsky et al. 2005a). In philosophical tradition focus mostly on how to distin- short, happiness is more than a hedonically pleasant guish it from *anger. Both anger and hatred accompany state. It is the means to a variety of positive ends that and inform relations of hostility, but not in quite the have value for both the individual and the society at same way. Following Aristotle, the usual view is that large. anger is tied up with claims for redress against a par- In the light of these benefits, it is natural to wonder ticular person for particular wrongs, whereas hatred whether the frequency with which people experience need no personal involvement; we can hate a person happy emotions can be increased and maintained. Some for what or who he or she is even without knowing cite evidence suggesting that people have a genetically them. Thus whole groups can be hated. Aristotle (384– determined set point for experiences of happiness— 322 bc) gives thieves and informers as examples. The namely, a baseline to which they gravitate following tri- grim history of the 20th century would add whole umphs or setbacks (Lykken and Tellegen 1996). In add- peoples based on religion, ethnicity, or race. Anger, ition, temporally stable and cross-situationally consistent Aristotle says, is curable and can be repaired via com- personality traits such as *extraversion and *neuroticism pensation, revenge, or apology. Unlike anger, which can are highly predictive of a person’s reports of happiness exhaust itself within moments, hatred decays slowly if at (Costa and McCrae 1980). Although these observations all; it endures. The angry man might feel pity, says highlight the futility of pursuing lasting improvements in Aristotle, but not the hater; for the angry man wants the frequency of happy emotions, there are also reasons the person he is angry at to suffer, while the hater wants 203 sander & Scherer Sander-AlphaH Page Proof page 204 28.2.2009 10:08am health/clinical aspects (of affect) him not to exist. Roughly then, anger is about acts, altogether impossible to give any definition of the pas- hatred about the mere existence of the hated. sions of love and hatred’. Folk wisdom, not incorrectly, sees a link between W. I. MILLER *love and hate, each tied up with the other, not just as opposites but also as marking the roil and turmoil of close health/clinical aspects (of affect) see addiction; relations. It is disputed whether both can be co-experi- alexithymia; anhedonia; antisocial behaviour; anxiety; enced, though a good portion of the world’s best known apathy; autism; bipolar disorder; cognitive behaviour literature and not a little of our own experience would be therapy; cognitive bias; denial; depression; disinhibition; incomprehensible if they could not be. Their relation is disorder (affective, emotional); dysphoria; eustress; not symmetrical: hatred does not bring about the condi- health and emotion; hypomania; illness cognitions and tions for love, though love (spurned, betrayed) can read- emotion; impulsivity; inflammation (and mood); mania; ily supply the conditions for hatred. Both hatred and love mood disorders; narcissism; obsessive–compulsive dis- share a focused intensity; both, strangely, involve caring. order; pain (biological perspectives); pain (philosophical Both love and hatred are held to be character defining for perspectives); panic disorder; paranoia; phobias; post- those who feel them, with hatred maybe beating out love traumatic stress disorder; psychopathy; psychoneuroen- in this regard, for it seems we derive as much (or more) of docrinology; psychoneuroimmunology; psychosomatic our sense of who we are from our hatreds as from our disorders; repression; resilience; risk factors for emo- loves. Thus it may be that though haters want their tional disorders; risk-taking; rumination; separation anx- objects dead, they may find they need to resurrect them iety; stress; unipolar disorder; violence; vulnerability; or reinvent them in order to maintain their own sense of well-being. self: to wish, in Othello’s idiom, the hated one a thousand lives so he can keep on killing him. health and emotion According to the World Health Many of the distinctions between anger and hatred Organization health is defined as ‘a state of complete break down on closer inspection. We can hate individ- physical, mental and social well-being and not merely uals no less than groups. Consistently being angered by the absence of disease or infirmity’. While the regulation someone can lead to hate, and hate can easily trigger or dysregulation of emotion has clearly been identified anger. as a key factor in mental health (see disorder (affective, Darwin (1809–82), with his usual perspicuity, recog- emotional)), whether or not emotion plays a role in nized that hatred mixes and mingles with other closely determining physical health outcomes is more contro- related sentiments depending on the relative status of versial. References to the idea that emotions influence the parties. Hatred for the lowly is not just tied up with physical health can be found in the Bible and repeatedly disgust and contempt but disgust and contempt may in throughout history. While many aspects of early ideas fact be the form hatred of the low takes. Hatred of the about how emotion influences physical health have been high by the low, he says, is closely annexed to fear, if not refuted, there is suYcient evidence of linkage that the also a form of it. Nietzsche’s (1844–1900) well-known relationship continues to be actively investigated (Kub- account is that morality itself owes its very being to a zansky 2005). As research methods and technologies particular form of hatred the weak have for the strong: have improved, investigators have been able to explore ressentiment. But the genocides of the 20th century have the question with more compelling and methodologic- shown that hatred has an even more remarkable trans- ally rigorous studies than was previously possible. formative power: it allows the strong to invest the weak Emotion might be related to physical health in a with magical and phantasmal powers of control, insinu- variety of ways. Emotions might influence the develop- ation, infection, and pollution. A true history of hatred ment of disease. Alternatively, emotions may exacerbate would have to come to terms with anti-Semitism. symptomatology or trigger acute disease-related events. Much routine hatred is experienced less as an emo- Additionally, emotion may affect the progression of tion than as a quasiformal attitude of opposition, of disease. Emotions may also affect compliance with med- obligatory enmity. And, when experienced as an emo- ical regimen and disease management. Disease may also tion, hatred may never exist uncoloured variously by influence emotion states, since being ill is distressing. anger, disgust, contempt, fear, envy, competitiveness, To understand how or why emotions influence and all-consuming love. For this reason too it has not health, it is important to know how the term ‘emotion’ been studied systematically in the scientific way anger is conceptualized.