A Day of Authentic Happiness

For those who know me, I'm an extremely happy person, I love being the subject of focus groups or research studies, and I love arbitrarily defined Iron Man challenges. I'm also an Ivy League graduate. 

Naturally, when I saw the opportunity to sign up for the University of Pennsylvania's Authentic Happiness tests, for free, I figured: Why not complete all 26 tests in one day?

I completed 24 out of 26, as one is for children, and one requires a workplace profile that is impossible to approximate in these COVID times. Some tests are north of 100 questions, while others are under 10. There are no wrong answers, except when an answer is telegraphed to make you look worse. The lot of them took me almost 4 hours, with frequent meal/phone/bathroom/social media breaks.

Test Center link, for anyone interested in taking these tests themselves

Here are my results:

Key observations:

• I am apparently a happy person whose top strengths are Vitality and Love of Learning. I can get behind this.
• I found the Optimism Test the toughest to take. Often, there would be two options for a statement I would associate with an event, when I would associate neither with that event. On the plus side, I have a distinct lack of Permanence-Bad perspectives on life.
• I scored 41 out of 42 on Gratitude. I am a supremely grateful person, a reality for which I, to be circular, am quite grateful. (Admittedly, the low end is 6, not 0.)
• On the Grit Survey, measuring "perseverance and passion for long-term goals", I scored relatively high (3.92 out of 5), but right around the median for people of my education level. I wonder whether people with advanced degrees see those degrees as the long-term goals requiring perseverance and passion in the first place, making their answers relative to each other a batch of white noise.
• A few of the tests were so micro as to make me wonder about the extent of their usefulness. This was especially true with what I'll call parrot tests. A hypothetical parrot test question would be, "How happy are you on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being happiest?" Then, upon clicking the 5 button, the results page shows your happiness rating as a 5, based on that question alone.
• I've always found joy contagious and sadness repelling. In the absence of clarity, I was left to wonder: Do I have empathy? It turns out there is beneficial empathy and depleting empathy. I appear to have the former but not the latter, which syncs with my own self-observations.*
• The Approaches of Happiness test is interesting in that it divides meaning from pleasure. I tend to think more in terms of meaning, but I don't tend to turn down pleasure either. I had never made such a sharp distinction before. Then again, I tend to go light on creature comforts.
• My favourite tests were Jeremy Clifton's Primals tests, which assess individuals' core beliefs. Their general, interpretable, apolitical nature makes them more interactive than the typical political compass-type tests on these sorts of topics. The grueling process that went into designing the Primals tests is explained here.
• Speaking of Primals, I bristled a little at the idea that the world is either something that can constantly be improved, or else it is "inanimate [and] mechanical... without awareness or intent". What if a lot of things in this world are perfect just the way they are? I don't feel the need to improve a sunrise.

These were fun! I wish there were more...

Ease of Reading: 6

Educational Content: 8

*According to the results page for the Stress and Empathy Questionnaire,

If your score on this empathy assessment is positive, that means you have more beneficial than depleting empathy. Experiencing beneficial empathy maximizes a person’s health and well-being and predicts more charitable donations.

 

If your score on this empathy assessment is negative, that means you have more depleting than beneficial empathy. Experiencing depleting empathy has a negative effect on a person’s health and well-being and predicts less charitable donations