veryday life, conflicts arise that pose the decision of whether or not to tell the truth. In the New York Times article titled “How Honesty Could Make You Happier”, Judi Ketteler explores the effect being truthful has on her own morale and happiness/satisfaction. Ketteler’s 6-year-old daughter once claimed that telling truths made her feel “gold in her brain”. Inspired by this, Ketteler decided to test her daughter’s theory by keeping a truth journal. For several months, she recorded any instances that prompted a choice between truth and lie, and then noted how telling the truth made her feel. She observed that often, neither the truth nor lie was particularly favorable. Telling the harsh truth or lie would both fail to increase happiness.
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She also noticed that small instances were also difficult with relationships, such as deciding whether or not to voice disagreement with her husband’s parenting techniques every time, especially when the issue was very small. Ketteler found solace in creating a third category of simply “not sharing everything”. This article relates to Health Psychology because it explores the relationship between the decisions we make and the emotional state that results from those choices. If the relationship between being honest and dishonest and the consequences on mental health can be determined, then people can make use of the findings to achieve higher levels of happiness through their actions.I can relate to the ideas presented in the article. I have personally felt that most of the time, the minor decisions between truth and lies are more stressful because they are more ambiguous, and that having a relationship with the person adds more ambiguity. If someone dropped their wallet on the street, I would have almost no hesitation in returning the wallet to that person because the consequences of my actions would be huge. I would gain money from that wallet, but my conscience would not be able to bear the guilt of that decision, which would ultimately outweigh the positive gain of money. …show more content…
The results and use of ANOVA showed that there was significant (p<0.001) also allowed for the rejection of the null hypothesis that no prosocial lying occurred in general, regardless of compassion. The strength of this studied was in its experimental design– the relationship and causality between the two tested variables could be determined, as opposed to a correlational study. The limitations in this research are that it does not explore more intricate interpersonal relationships and the varying levels of compassion between different people. Should that be further explored, we could learn more about relationships and lying that could further improve our relationships and psychological health. The article by Ketteler does an adequate job of communicating the research conducted by Lupoli, Jampol, and Oveis on compassion and prosocial lying. Ketteler simply reported the ultimate and general finding of the research, which was conducted soundly and had quantitative results to back up the conclusion. She used the terminology of “prosocial” found in the paper, and promptly defined it in layman terms as essentially being “white lies”. Although Ketteler did not explore the research in much depth, she in no way misrepresented or skewed the research findings to accommodate her article. She simply
She also noticed that small instances were also difficult with relationships, such as deciding whether or not to voice disagreement with her husband’s parenting techniques every time, especially when the issue was very small. Ketteler found solace in creating a third category of simply “not sharing everything”. This article relates to Health Psychology because it explores the relationship between the decisions we make and the emotional state that results from those choices. If the relationship between being honest and dishonest and the consequences on mental health can be determined, then people can make use of the findings to achieve higher levels of happiness through their actions.I can relate to the ideas presented in the article. I have personally felt that most of the time, the minor decisions between truth and lies are more stressful because they are more ambiguous, and that having a relationship with the person adds more ambiguity. If someone dropped their wallet on the street, I would have almost no hesitation in returning the wallet to that person because the consequences of my actions would be huge. I would gain money from that wallet, but my conscience would not be able to bear the guilt of that decision, which would ultimately outweigh the positive gain of money. …show more content…
The results and use of ANOVA showed that there was significant (p<0.001) also allowed for the rejection of the null hypothesis that no prosocial lying occurred in general, regardless of compassion. The strength of this studied was in its experimental design– the relationship and causality between the two tested variables could be determined, as opposed to a correlational study. The limitations in this research are that it does not explore more intricate interpersonal relationships and the varying levels of compassion between different people. Should that be further explored, we could learn more about relationships and lying that could further improve our relationships and psychological health. The article by Ketteler does an adequate job of communicating the research conducted by Lupoli, Jampol, and Oveis on compassion and prosocial lying. Ketteler simply reported the ultimate and general finding of the research, which was conducted soundly and had quantitative results to back up the conclusion. She used the terminology of “prosocial” found in the paper, and promptly defined it in layman terms as essentially being “white lies”. Although Ketteler did not explore the research in much depth, she in no way misrepresented or skewed the research findings to accommodate her article. She simply