More to us than our biology? Perhaps not as much as we'd like to think.
Happiness is an attribute of our personalities.
Personalities evolved because they are an advantage (to the group, as all genetic advantages are...).
We are SOCIAL PRIMATES and our very "pecking order" is maintained by how personalities interact, and probably forms the basis for personality in the first place.
Our different personalities give us different perspectives on reality.
When making decisions with group input, potential pitfalls and or courses of action may be shared by those whose perceptions differ thanks to their personalities.
The optimist looks at the glass and says: "The glass is half-full!"
The pessimist looks at the glass and says: "The glass is half-empty!"
The engineer looks at the glass and says: "The glass was mis-specified!"
(...since it is obviously the wrong size for the task...I purposely "broke role" by explaining the joke, since, for Engineers, and their ilk, spelling things out is important. For those of us with a higher tolerance to ambiguity, well, we make it up if we don't know for sure and we laughed too!)
Happiness, Optimism, Pragmatism they are all aspects of personality and our genes too.
Read an article today regarding how little Prozac and Paxil and other attempts at keeping more Serotonin within the brain's interstices actually do to solve people's depression.
