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ShardPhoenix comments on Open thread, July 21-27, 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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This seems to me like learned helplessness, which is probably a "farmer" adaptation. In my opinion, hapiness is always good for the individual, but sometimes my unhappiness may benefit the rest of the tribe, so there can be a cultural norm against happiness. And if other people punish you for happiness, you will learn that happiness is actually bad for you, and rationalize some wise reasons for it, or the culture will already provide you with ready rationalizations.
How is individual happiness bad for society? While people are enjoying sex at their homes, churches and supermarkets are empty.
If your first paragraph was true, wouldn't people continue to feel happy but just not show it? I feel like unhappiness must be adaptive (even without considering social effects) at least in some cases.
That gets into Hansen's theories about hypocrisy-- sometimes it's easier to believe the mask one is wearing is one's real self. And this overlaps what Vassar has said (as I understand him) about some people trusting what society says about what a person ought to be, rather than taking the light and flexible approach to language that the majority of people do. (Translation: being a geek can be being a sucker.)
I think that secret happiness is a real thing. Some people take pleasure in complaining, enjoy being passively aggressive about something, etc., but of course they would publicly deny it.
On the other hand, I agree that in some situations, unhappiness may be adaptive. Evolution does not care about our values.
There are other categories of secret happiness-- enjoying low status or otherwise deprecated pleasures and schadenfreude about high status people. Either of those could have social support, but sometimes they don't.
We could also say that the rewarded by it. Like most addictions enjoyment doesn't tend to be a part of it (after enough time).