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Study: Happiness Improves Developers' Problem Solving Skills
itwbennett writes "Researchers at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in Italy have found that happier programmers (or, more specifically, computer science students at the university) were significantly more likely to score higher on a problem solving assessment. The researchers first measured the emotional states of study participants using a measure devised by psychologists called the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience Affect Balance (SPANE-B) score. They then tested participants' creativity (ability to write creative photo captions) and problem-solving ability (playing the Tower of London game). The results: happiness didn't affect creativity, but did improve problem-solving ability."
People good at solving problems are happier.
Or students with better problem solving skills are happier.
From TFA "It seems obvious to say that happy developers will perform better than unhappy ones"
Then FTFA goes on and on explaining ... the obvious.
Gently reply
Aren't happier people better at pretty much everything? Isn't that sort of the problem with depression?
See the semi-obligatory XKCD here.
I'm not really sure this is applicable to the real world since most software developers don't live/work in Silicon Valley so the concept of taking a break to go play volleyball or hackeysack is pretty much a "non-starter". I think they should really evaluate the productivity of developers in the two scenarios that most apply to the real world: 1) Your managers are incompetent when it comes to what it is that you do, how you do your job, and what makes you happy. They do, however, understand obnoxious "development methods" resulting in a countless number of ways for them to waste your time doing everything BUT developing software. 2) Your managers DO understand your job and work very hard to give you a productive environment and support you in what you do. They keep everything other than software development off your plate so that you can focus on doing what's best.
a cock fight. Predictable. Repeatable. Highly likely backdoor access. Avoidness recommended.
OFFICIAL so proven
At first, that this would make it obvious: improve worker conditions, they will produce more.
But let's face it; there's a simpler, more market-friendly approach to this.
Happiness is Mandatory.
Hmmmmm. I think I remember that feeling.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Yes! with an AND and NO with a BUT!!! LOL! WOO HOO!!!
Beatings will continue until...
Now hand me that baton...
How about being good at solving problems makes you happy? Or maybe people who are good at problem solving exams are good and happiness exams (and wanted to appear happy). Or maybe people who hated the study were both pissed off, and didn't try very hard. Or maybe everyone there was happy and good and problem solving, but people only those who filled it our seriously appeared so, and those who just did random shit (why not?) often appeared sad, and really bad at problem solving (but fine at creativity obviously).
Not only is the out come of this study "obvious", but there are several other (conflicting) "obvious" explanations for the same results.
Really you can't do this study without proper random assignment and blinding. You must randomly select from the sample group people to make happy vs sad, and do so without them (or the researchers) knowing which they are. Then you can measure their problem solving skills and see how it comes out. (Good luck with that...)
I've been saying all along that the schools should get the geeks laid instead of the jocks. Even with this study they still won't listen.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Another useless 'study' that falls into the 'duh' category for me. Who funds this rubbish and why?
I've worked 2 stints at Qualcomm, 4 years as a consultant in the late 90s, and 4 years as an employee in the mid 00's. I've never worked so hard, put in more hours, got more stuff done, cranked out more code, etc, as I have in my QCOM time. Why? In meetings my ideas were listened to. I had a ton of freedom in my job to Get Things Done. I was recognized for Stuff I Got Done. I was not bogged down in daily staff meetings, weekly department meetings, etc. I had input on who to hire for my team. Most of all, I Had A Door I Could Close (but never did). Treat your employees like intelligent people, give them the tools they need, get out of the way, and they will not only be happy, but productive as fuck. And why the fuck can't I format this in any way except for 1 paragraph? Cuz that ain't how I wrote it, none of my html tricks are doing squat, and I'm prolly off to Soylent News soon anyway.
Duh!
They're programmers. They'll get fired anyway. This is America.
Duh.
It's the SPANE, but they're in ITALY?
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Slartibartfast: Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what's actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, "Hang the sense of it," and keep yourself busy. I'd much rather be happy than right any day.
Arthur Dent: And are you?
Slartibartfast: Ah, no. [laughs] That's where it all falls down, of course.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
All the unhappy coders seem to be able to crank out is:
while (1): print 'What's the point, we are all going to die anyway';
Monstar L
This guy.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
"You didn't build that"
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
This is why drugs work.
Just wondering how does that or this happiness improves anything in life of a common nerd who has to struggle with his/her own communication ineptitude and social awkwardness? Or how does that apply to poor neurologically typical sods that work in IT and have to struggle with the nerds around them as well as with the awkwardness of working with code? In other words: how long will they stay happy (if they ever were)? Just wondering. A nice set of questions for a start of a drinking session. Come to think of it I may even get up, go out and start drinking now....
If a certain problem was there my mind is really working in the process! Once it's solved! That skill is a skill to solve a problem. That would make me happy either.
Problem solving is a skill you develop - it should not depend on your emotional state. You may have some sort of trauma like dueling your best friend at a volcanic river and waking up in an iron lung, and that might impact your problem-solving ability, but the general ups and downs of life should not. Happiness comes and goes. Sadness comes and goes. But you still have to make a living.
Be happy or you'll get fired!
From the Center of Completely Fucking Obvious
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
This is reminiscent of another study which found that asking people how they'd deal with a big car repair bill - just getting them to think about it - lowered their IQ by an average of 13 points, "comparable to the cognitive difference that’s been observed between chronic alcoholics and normal adults".
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/08/how-poverty-taxes-brain/6716/
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6149/976
The advantage of the car-repair-bill study is that people were randomly assigned to the control and experimental groups, as opposed to being an observational study like the one in the story (with all the complications that brings). Same basic conclusion, though.
I thought Microsoft were all prostitutes already anyway ...
It's not happiness that helps problem solving skills, it's using their penis (for sex) that helps.
They tested people that want to solve problems for a living. If I am good at what I want to do, I will be happier in general.
If all I see is money, and nothing but obstacles between me and money, I won't be as happy.