The secret weapon of happiness: Smile your way to success for yourself and your client

Compared with sad, depressed or anxious lawyers, are happy lawyers more successful? Do happy lawyers enjoy greater health? Are happy lawyers better able to represent their clients? Some studies would lead me to answer all three in the affirmative. In an article from Psychological Bulletin "The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success?" (autoresponder for PDF format or download PDF directly) the authors looked at the relationship between happiness and success, and did a comprehensive survey of studies researching the relationship between happiness and several factors, including health, work life, social relationships, likeability, physical well-being and coping, altruism, and creativity and problem-solving.

The authors conclude (cites removed and space added for ease of online reading)

In this article, we reviewed cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental data showing that happy individuals are more likely than their less happy peers to have fulfilling marriages and relationships, high incomes, superior work performance, community involvement, robust health, and a long life.

The three classes of evidence also indicated that positive emotions, as well as chronic happiness, are often associated with resources and characteristics that parallel success and thriving -- that is, desirable behaviors and cognitions such as sociability, optimism, energy, originality, and altruism.

The article addresses many ramifications of happiness and I would invite you to read all 53 pages if you are interested in the whole gamut; the authors are very thorough and the information is extensive. I was particularly interested in the impact of mood on negotiation and conflict resolution and bring it to your attention since it is directly related to the practice of law. The authors write (cites removed and space added for ease of online reading):

The experimental evidence supports the argument that pleasant moods boost people's abilities at resolving conflict. In one study, those with [a positive mood] showed a decreased preference for resolving conflict through avoidance and an increased inclination for reducing conflict through collaboration. . . . 

[One study] found that an induced positive mood had a beneficial influence on bargaining across a variety of negotiation tasks, with individuals in pleasant moods revealing a marked penchant to be more cooperative and less competitive.

Similar results have been obtained when investigating groups . . . a group put in a positive mood was more likely to reach an optimal agreement and less likely to break off negotiation and to use aggressive tactics.

(I suspect that they are using terminology similar to that of the Thomas-Kilmann modes of conflict resolution in which collaboration is exhibiting behavior high in both assertiveness and cooperativeness, competitive is acting with high assertiveness and low cooperativeness, and avoidance is low in both assertiveness and cooperativeness. Collaboration usually yields the best results for all parties to a negotiation.)

Next time you are not happy and yet must head off to a

negotiation, you may want to induce a positive mood. Of course, the stimulus for such inducement is individual. Me? This or this version of "Don't Worry, Be Happy" always gets me smiling (usually dancing, too).

A lawyer's level of happiness and mood are a factor in professional performance. Are you happy? How's your mood today? Anything need changing? Your happiness is in your best interest and in the best interest of many other people, too. May the force of happiness be with you.

Note (added November 9, 2006, 8:05 AM Mountain): An article yesterday  "Happy People Are Healthier, Psychologist Says" in ScienceDaily leads with

Happiness and other positive emotions play an even more important role in health than previously thought, according to a study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine by Carnegie Mellon University Psychology Professor Sheldon Cohen.

Note (added November 11, 2006, 11:50 AM Mountain): An article today "Happy People Catch Fewer Colds" from LiveScience.com in which the author looks at the same study. The article begins

Happy people are healthier people, research suggests.

People who are happy, lively, calm or exhibit other positive emotions are less likely to catch colds and report fewer symptoms of the illness when they are under the weather.

The new finding held true regardless of personality traits such as optimism, extraversion and self-esteem. A person’s age, race, gender, education and body mass also did not make a difference.

Comments

[ritergal]

Stephanie,

Thanks so much for reminding us of the obvious. Haven't we all had those sublime days when everything went right and we thought we were happy because they went right? Now we know, it's the other way around.

Those music links are terrific. Bobby McFerrin is my hero, and I love watching him cut up.

Be happy now -- and write about your happiness to pass it along to posterity.

[Starbucker]

Great post, and thanks for leading me to this via your comment on my blog. Ritergal is right - this all seems so obvious, but as they say, "the devil is in the details". We have to dig into our soul and create the intent to be happy and positive. It can't just "be" - we have to make it "be". Thanks again, and I look forward to digging into your archives and future posts.

[Michele Moore, CEO Happiness Habit]

Super posting and questions, many thanks!

Habitually happy people choose their moods and their attitudes. They are also emotionally independent, they don't readily hand control of their thoughts, actions or feelings over to outside forces that threaten to depress or control them.

They decide how they like to feel, and that goal becomes an authentic role for them. You never feel better by focusing on how badly you feel.

For more insights, see www.HappinessHabit.com

Michele Moore, Author of
How To Live A Happy Life -
101 Ways To Be Happier

[Julie Fleming Brown]

Stephanie, thanks for this terrific post! It's common experience that being in a good mood makes it much less likely that little moments of tension that happen everyday will expand into problems, and I appreciate your sharing this research that indicates that the same is true in the professional context.

Here's an interesting question for practitioners: if a client is approaching a negotiation from the negative, fully expecting that her "opponent" is going to be impossible to deal with, preparing to take advantage of her, etc., can a lawyer help to shift that mood? And if so, how? Even though I completely agree with your premise, I'd find it tough to imagine sharing this research with such a client. My instinct is that a client would look askance at that kind of suggestion and then at the lawyer who made it. (Says something about hardball litigation tendencies, doesn't it?) Clearly, we're all responsible for our own moods, but taking the next step as an advocate for a client might be challenging.

I am always pleased to find more support for the premise that happiness is good personally and professionally!