A study has demonstrated that it’s better to be right than happy. Because, in short, trying to be happy – rather than trying to be right – quickly makes you unhappy.

Being right or being happy: pilot study

The short form is this: some scientists in New Zealand wanted to see if marital happiness could be increased by the husband simply giving up his urge to be right, and instead simply agreeing with his wife at every turn. No matter what dumb, pointless or otherwise wrong thing she had to say or order to give, the husband was to simply go along with it. Obviously, the husband was in on the study; the wife was not. So, how’d it turn out?

Disaster.

The pair were asked to rate their general happiness at the beginning… he was 7 out of ten, she was 8. By day six, she was at 8.5…  and by day 12 he was down to 3, quite depressed. Why? Because as he acquiesced to her every demand, she lost respect for him, and she became increasingly critical.  So on day 12, the husband simply gave up, terminating the experiment.

It seems that being right… is a cause of happiness, and agreeing with what one disagrees with is a cause of unhappiness. …

The availability of unbridled power adversely affects the quality of life of those on the receiving end.

Well, duh.

Now, a word of warning: this study seems to be rather tongue-in-cheek… it might not be entirely on the up-and-up. Example:

The study has some limitations. There was no trial registration, no ethics committee approval, no informed consent, no proper randomisation, no validated test instrument, and questionable statistical assessment. We used the eyeball technique for single patienttrials which, as Sackett says, “more closely matches the way we think as clinicians.”

Were this not in the British Medical Journal, one might be forgiven for thinking it came from the Journal of Irreproducible Results.  Still, the results should not be surprising: for many (I’m guessing most) people, suppressing what you believe to be right just to avoid disagreement is grating. And this extends well beyond one-on-one relationships, on up to international politics: appeasement is a disastrous policy when facing power-mad opponents, whether it western powers facing off against Nazi Germany or the USSR or Iran, or whether it’s weak-spined Republicans facing off against the Democrats. Agreeing with what you know to be wrong might avoid confrontation for a while, but it weakens you and emboldens the other guy… while making them lose respect for you.

In my own case, I’ve always found it at best difficult to be “diplomatic” in the face of nonsense or falsehood. Makes me fun at parties. And at church.

Sadly, society is such that “No, you’re wrong” is something that a lot of people just can’t stand to hear.

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