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tags: #psychology #happiness #motivation #hub-note

The drive to be superior is a powerful human motivator, but it often comes into direct conflict with our ability to achieve lasting happiness. This hub explores the reasons for this drive and its detrimental effects on well-being.

Core Concepts

• Why We Seek Superiority: Examines the evolutionary and psychological reasons we are drawn to status, admiration, and winning.
• Harmful Effects of Superiority Seeking: Details how the pursuit of superiority leads to negative outcomes like social comparison and materialism.
• Superiority Seeking and Performance: Discusses the surprising research showing how a focus on superiority can actually decrease performance on complex cognitive tasks.

Understanding this conflict is key to shifting our motivational framework from one of competition to one of connection and growth, which is more conducive to a happy life.

Reference

Coursera, "A Life of Happiness and Fulfillment"