Fast, happy, and impulsive I: Speed makes you happy

I went to see the movie Duplicity a while back. That's the one starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen as spies who get involved in corporate espionage. The movie is not brilliant, but it is fun. Part of the fun comes from scenes of rapid-fire dialogue between the stars. In that way, it reminded me of the old show Moonlighting (with Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd) that also involved these rapid exchanges.

In retrospect, the plot of the movie was filled with holes and logical gaps. There was probably one plot-twist too many. Yet, the movie was undeniably fun. Why is that?

One reason why the movie was fun is that there is growing evidence that fast thinking can actually cause happiness. Intuitively, of course, we know that speed and happiness are related. When you are sad, you tend to drag around physically. Happy people have lots of energy, and they tend to be bright bubbly people. But a correlation like that could go both ways. Maybe sadness makes you tired, and that slows down your thinking. Perhaps happiness energizes the body, which speeds up thinking.

Emily Pronin and Elana Jacobs discuss the relationship between speed of thinking and happiness in a 2008 paper in Perspectives on Psychological Science. They review a lot of evidence suggesting that there are two aspects of thinking that combine to influence happiness.

First, there is raw speed of thinking. Situations and factors that make people think faster improve their mood. People who are asked to listen to fast music rate themselves as happier than those who are asked to listen to slow music. People who are asked to generate ideas quickly rate themselves as happier than people who are asked to generate ideas slowly. People who are asked to make fast decisions rate themselves as happier than those who are asked to deliberate.

Second, there is the variability of thinking. That is, you are happier when you think about many different things than if you think about the same thing over and over. In particular, people who are depressed and anxious tend to ruminate. That is, they chew over the same set of thoughts repeatedly. Thinking about many different things, though, tends to lift mood. Indeed, manic states, which involve a highly positive mood, also involve a rapid alternation among thoughts.

On the one hand, these results suggest a straightforward way to lift your mood when you need to. If you want to feel a bit better, play some fast music, watch a show with rapid-fire dialogue. Talk to friends who also think fast. Generally speaking, do things to speed up your thinking, and your mood will improve.

If it were that easy, of course, we'd all have tools to make us think fast all the time, and presumably we'd all be happy (or at least happier). But there is a downside to thinking fast. Thinking fast increases impulsive behaviors. But you'll have to wait to hear about that until my next post.