Результаты исследования обучающихся в проекте How to Enjoy Your Life
Содержание
Авторы и участники проекта
Участники группы "Оптимисты"
Тема исследования группы
Секреты оптимизма: почему одни люди умеют радоваться жизни? (The Secrets of Optimism: Why can some people enjoy life?)
Проблемный вопрос (вопрос для исследования)
Why do some people know how to enjoy life, while others do not? Почему одни люди умеют радоваться жизни, а другие — нет?
Гипотеза исследования
Мы считаем, что умение наслаждаться жизнью зависит не от количества денег или отсутствия проблем, а от привычки замечать хорошее вокруг, наличия любимого хобби и поддержки близких друзей.
Цели исследования
1. Изучить мнения одноклассников и статьи в интернете о том, что делает людей счастливыми. 1. To study the opinions of our classmates and online articles about what makes people happy.
2. Выяснить, какие ежедневные привычки отличают оптимистов от пессимистов. 2. To find out what daily habits make optimists different from pessimists.
3. Создать памятку на английском языке «How to Enjoy Your Life» с практическими советами для подростков. 3. To create a guide (leaflet) in English called "How to Enjoy Your Life" with practical tips for teenagers.
Результаты проведённого исследования
To achieve our first and second goals, we created a Survey and asked all 9th-grade students in our school about their happiness and daily habits. The results were very interesting: 78% of students said they feel happiest when they spend time with friends and family, 65% chose doing their hobbies, 42% chose getting good marks, and 38% chose eating tasty food. Only 15% of students chose money and expensive things as the main source of happiness. This proves that simple things really make us smile.
Our research is based on the studies of four famous psychologists: Robert Emmons, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, John Cacioppo, and Jean Twenge. Thanks to them, we learned why some people enjoy life while others do not. For example, Robert Emmons studied a special term called gratitude. According to the APA Dictionary of Psychology, gratitude is “a sense of thankfulness and happiness in response to receiving a gift, either a tangible benefit (e.g., a present, favor) given by someone or a fortunate happenstance (e.g., a beautiful day)”. Emmons proved that optimists practice gratitude every day — they always notice good things, even small ones. Our survey showed that only 25% of students practice gratitude every day, while 60% do it sometimes, and 15% never do it.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's research describes another important term — flow. The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines flow as “a state of optimal experience arising from intense involvement in an activity that is enjoyable… Flow arises when one’s skills are fully utilized yet equal to the demands of the task, intrinsic motivation is at a peak, one loses self-consciousness and temporal awareness”. In simple words, flow is the feeling when you are so interested in your hobby that you forget about time and problems. Our survey showed that 70% of students have a hobby that helps them relax, but only 40% do it regularly.
John Cacioppo studied loneliness and communication. He explained that friends and family are very important for enjoying life. Optimists try to spend time with people who support them and avoid negative people who always complain. Our survey confirmed this: students who spend more time with friends reported feeling happier than those who spend most of their time alone.
Nobody has a perfect life without problems. But optimists understand that bad times pass. However, modern people have new challenges. Jean Twenge's studies show that spending too much time on smartphones and social media makes teenagers more stressed and sad. Our survey found that 55% of 9th-graders spend more than 3 hours a day on their phones, and 35% often compare themselves to others on social media. This is a serious problem for our generation.
So, why do some people know how to enjoy life? Because it is a choice and a habit. They choose to be positive, they have hobbies, and they appreciate simple things. We realized that anyone can learn to enjoy life if they want to.
Based on our research and the scientific studies of these four psychologists, we created a guide for teenagers with practical tips. Here are 6 simple tips on how to enjoy life every day:
To clearly show all the reasons and factors that we found out during our research (positive attitude, hobbies, communication, and attitude to difficulties), we made a "Fishbone" diagram. In the fish's head is our main problem question, on the top bones are the things that help people enjoy life, and on the bottom bones are the things that prevent it. In the tail, we wrote our main solution.
Вывод
Our hypothesis was confirmed. We found out that the secret of happiness is not in money, but in our habits, hobbies, and attitude to life. We answered our problem question: optimists know how to enjoy life because they always notice good things, do what they love, and do not give up when things are difficult. We also achieved all our research objectives: we studied different opinions, found out the daily habits of happy people, and created a guide with tips to help other teenagers become happier.
Полезные ресурсы
Статья «Люди которые любят жить»
