Are you looking for psychological research that you can immediately and directly use to improve your own life? Jonathan Hari has described some important research by Tim Kasser. The article in the LA Times is “We know junk food makes us sick. Are ‘junk values’ making us depressed?” The research explored what happens when we are primarily motivated by extrinsic goals rather than intrinsic goals.

Imagine you play the piano. If you play it in the morning because it gives you joy, that is an intrinsic motive — you aren’t doing it to get anything else out of it; you are doing it simply because that experience is worth doing, in and of itself. Now imagine you play the piano to impress your parents, or in a dive bar you hate to pay the rent, or to seduce somebody into sleeping with you. That would be an extrinsic motive — you aren’t doing it because you think the experience is worthwhile; you are doing it to get something out of it.

Kasser found that people who are motivated primarily by intrinsic goals are much happier than those motivated by extrinsic goals.

People who achieved their extrinsic goals didn’t experience any increase in day-to-day happiness. None. Your promotion? Your fancy car? The new iPhone? The expensive necklace? They won’t improve your happiness at all.

But people who achieved their intrinsic goals did become significantly happier, and less depressed and anxious. As they worked at it and felt they became, say, a better friend, they became more satisfied with life. Being a better dad? Dancing for the sheer joy of it? Helping another person, just because it’s the right thing to do? They do significantly boost your happiness.

Kasser discovered that people whose lives were dominated by extrinsic values had a worse time in almost every respect. They felt sicker, and they were angrier. They experienced less joy, and more despair. They had worse relationships, and they were more insecure. [T]he more materialistic and extrinsically motivated you become, the more depressed you will be. . . .

Junk food looks like food, but it doesn’t meet our underlying nutritional needs. In a similar way, junk values don’t meet our underlying psychological needs — to have meaning and connection in our lives. Extrinsic values are KFC for the soul. Yet our culture constantly pushes us to live extrinsically.

Hari discussed Kasser’s research with Joe Rogan in 2018: