工作很愉快很有可能不是好事（雙語）

摘要：研究發現，快樂的員工並不一定就是具有創造力的員工。工作很愉快很有可能不是好事。

Ever since the founding fathers wrote "and the pursuit of happiness" into the Declaration of Independence, the elusive emotion has become a holy grail of sorts for Americans. We expect to be happy, even believe we are owed happiness by the gods, our work, our family, and our life. Unfortunately, the expectation can sometimes lead to a disappointing reality.

自從國父把“追求幸福”寫進《獨立宣言》之後，這種微妙的情感就已經成爲每一個美國人的“聖盃”了。我們都希望獲得幸福，甚至我們還相信幸福是上帝賜予的，是我們從工作，家庭和生活中獲得的。然而不幸的是，這些美妙的期待有時並不意味着與現實相符。

André Spicer, professor of organizational behavior at Cass Business School in London, and Carl Cederström, associate professor of organization theory at Stockholm University, have studied the impact of happiness in corporate settings. In a recent article in Harvard Business Review, they discuss their findings.

André Spicer是倫敦卡斯商學院的組織行爲學方面的教授，以及Carl Cederström，瑞典斯德哥爾摩大學的組織行爲學的副教授，共同研究了在職場環境下幸福感的影響。他們在最近的哈佛商業評論雜誌中論述了他們的研究發現。

Spicer and Cederström say the recent trend of companies harnessing "happiness as a way to boost productivity" dates back to the Hawthorne experiments in the 1920s, which involved changing employees' environments to increase productivity at a factory. Since then, this belief has been applied to almost every corporate philosophy--happy employees equal productive employees.

Spicer和Cederström提到，近年來的公司利用“幸福感作爲一種促進生產力的方式”的趨勢可以追溯至20世紀20年代的霍桑實驗，其中包括了改變職員工廠裏的工作環境以提高生產力的實驗。自此，這個理念幾乎應用於所有的公司理念中——快樂的員工就是有創造力的員工。

However, "When you look closely at the research, it's actually not clear that encouraging happiness at work is always a good idea," Spicer and Cederström write. "Most striking is that consciously pursuing happiness can actually drain the sense of joy we usually get from the really good things we experience." Below, find out how the authors' research has found the happiness theory on productivity is a "mere myth."

然而，“當你仔細閱讀這一次的研究結果，你會發現實際上提高員工的幸福感並不總能適用於所有的情況，”Spicer和 Cederström在文章中寫道。“最令人感到吃驚的是，有意識追求幸福感，實際上會磨光了那些平常讓我們真正感到快樂的事情的滿足感。”接下來，看一看兩位學者的研究是如何發現幸福感提供生產力“只是一個傳說”。

Happy workers do not mean productive workers.

發現1：快樂的員工≠有創造力的員工。

Here's the bombshell: "Happiness doesn't necessarily lead to increased productivity," Spicer and Cederström write. A study conducted in British supermarkets found that "the more miserable" employees felt, the greater profits reaped by the company. The study also found a negative relationship between job satisfaction and productivity. Other research has shown the opposite, suggesting that the effect on happiness on productivity remains murky.

這是最爆炸性的發現：“有幸福感不一定就意味着提高生產力。”Spicer和Cederström在文章中寫道。通過對英國超市的研究發現：員工們覺得“越痛苦”，公司所獲得的利潤就越多。研究還發現了工作滿意度與生產力之間呈負相關。但也有別的研究結果與這一結果相反，這就說明幸福感對生產力高低的影響仍然不明確。

推薦：四個好方法!讓你的創造力源源不斷

The pursuit of happiness is "exhausting."

發現2：追求幸福的過程“很累”。

Happiness is thought to energize people and make them more effective. But if you're not happy--certainly a normal emotional state--the pursuit of happiness can be taxing. The authors quote French philosopher Pascal Bruckner, who said, "Unhappiness is not only unhappiness; it is, worse yet, a failure to be happy." Setting yourself up for failure by expecting, or demanding, yourself to be happy will work against you.

幸福感常常被賦予了“給予人動力，做事更有效率”的內涵。不過如果你並不快樂——當然是一個正常的情感狀態下——追求幸福是很費勁的。兩位作者在文章引用了法國哲學家帕斯卡爾·布呂克內的話：“不快樂不僅僅是不幸的，更糟的是，它是一個失敗的幸福。”把自己推向失敗的邊緣，期待自己，要求自己，這樣的幸福只會讓你更痛苦。

Happiness is a tool.

發現3：幸福感只是工具。

Happiness, like any other promise of an elusive emotion or spiritual achievement, can be used as a tool for manipulation. Companies use happiness to get more out of their employees, not because they want their employees to be happy. Spicer and Cederström believe that companies continue to rely on the happiness myth because of aesthetics and ideology. "Happiness is a convenient idea that looks good on paper (the aesthetic part). But it's also an idea that helps us shy away from more serious issues at work, such as conflicts and workplace politics (the ideological part)," they write. When happiness is slated as a choice, unhappy employees can be characterized as dysfunctional, which ignores the problems that are actually making the employees unhappy.

快樂的感覺，正如其他難以捉摸的情緒或精神成就的滿足感一樣，都可以作爲工具被利用。公司利用滿足感從員工身上獲取更多利益，並不是因爲他們真的希望員工們獲得快樂。Spicer和Cederström認爲，公司們之所以一直依賴於“幸福感信念”，是出於對美感與意識形態的追求。“幸福感是一個很方便的紙上概念(美感的部分)。但同時也是一個讓我們逃避更多工作上嚴肅問題(如衝突，辦公室政治)的藉口(意識形態的部分)。”他們寫道。當幸福感被設計成一個選擇，不快樂的員工就會被歸類爲不正常的員工，這樣就忽略了員工不快樂的真正原因。

Happy people lose negotiations and get duped.

發現4：快樂的人兒輸了爭辯還會被騙。

Another study Spicer and Cederström cite found that people in a good mood were less effective at reading deceit in other people. And in corporate settings, research has found that when people are angry they are more effective in negotiations. "This suggests that being happy all the time may not be good for all aspects of our work, or jobs that rely heavily on certain abilities," they write. "In fact, for some things, happiness can actually make us perform worse."

Spicer和 Cederström在文中提到了另外一個研究，結果發現，心情愉快的人們辨別他人說謊的能力相對較弱。在職場的環境下，研究還發現當人們的情緒越易怒，他們在談判中更遊刃有餘。“這就證明了隨時保持愉快的心情並不利於工作的所有方面，還可能不適用於需要某種技能的職業崗位。”他們在文章中說道。“實際上，對於處理某些事情，快樂感會讓我們表現得更糟糕。”

The expectation trap.

發現5：預期陷阱。

When you expect work to make you happy, it makes you expect your boss to cater to your emotional needs. The writers mention a study by researcher Susanne Ekmann, which found that employees who had an expectation that work would make them happy were confused psychologically about the role their boss played in their lives. Instead of looking at their bosses for who they really were, they viewed them as "surrogate spouses or parents." When the employees did not receive the "expected emotional response" from their managers, "these employees felt neglected and started overreacting."

當你期待自己能從工作中獲得幸福感，這就讓你不自覺產生“老闆迎合你的要求”的情感需求。兩位作者在文章中提到了Susanne Ekmann的一個研究，研究發現，期待從工作中獲得幸福感的員工在心理上混淆了老闆在現實中的真正角色。他們並沒有正視老闆實際的角色，而是把他們看作“代理配偶或父母”。當員工們沒有從上司身上獲得“預期的情感迴應”，他們就會覺得自己被忽視甚至會產生過度的反應。

推薦：和老闆愉快玩耍不難 9個方法供嘗試

The truth will set you free.

發現6：真相會讓你解脫。

All of this forced happiness is a bad thing, Spicer and Cederström say. If you're not happy, it's fair to feel that way. "In reality, work--like all other aspects of life--is likely to make us feel a wide range of emotions," they write. "Happiness, of course, is a great thing to experience, but nothing that can be willed into existence." The duo write that the less we actively pursue happiness through our jobs, the more likely we are to experience a sense of "joy which is spontaneous and pleasurable, and not constructed and oppressive."

所有的這些強迫性的幸福感都不是好的事情，Spicer和Cederström說道。如果你覺得不開心，其實也很正常。“實際上，在工作中——甚至生活中的方方面面——或多或少都會讓我們產生不一樣的情感。”他們寫道。“當然，幸福感是很棒的體驗，但是我們不能強求。”兩位學者都認爲，我們從工作中追求的幸福感程度越少，我們就更容易體驗到那種“無意識的，愉悅的，非人爲的無壓迫的快樂。”