New Year reset: Seven things to add or subtract for happiness, according to science

Then, around 2012, the happiness bubble burst. Psychology researchers came to the unsettling realisation that many of their findings were wrong. Published studies had often relied on faulty, but common, publishing practices. There was p-hacking, or manipulating data analyses until statistically significant results were squeezed out, and HARKing (Hypothesizing After Results are Known), or changing one’s hypotheses after-the-fact to match obtained results.

When carefully scrutinised, the findings did not hold up. For instance, priming people with stereotypes about older people does not cause them to walk more slowly. Encouraging people to think about smart professors instead of…