For example, happy individuals are more likely to positively rationalize the outcomes of personally significant decisions (Lyubomirsky & Rose, 1999). After rejection of their applications to certain colleges, chronically happy studies were found to value those colleges less and to value even more the college that accepted them. They thus created an evaluative contrast between positive and negative outcomes of their choice. That form of postdecision rationalization was less usual for unhappy individuals, with both the accepting and rejecting colleges being similarly evaluated. As a result, unhappy students were more likely to remain disappointed about being rejected by certain of the colleges
Other research has contrasted more broadly the way that happy and unhappy people evaluate and think about events in their life. Longitudinal comparisons indicate that happy individuals tend to have more positive memories and more pleasant thoughts about previous events than do people who are unhappy (Lyubomirsky & Tucker, 1998). In a similar vein, happy individuals are less likely to engage in reflection and rumination about previous failures and possible shortcomings. Such rumination can lead to a wider concern about one’s negative experiences and perhaps to still greater unhappiness A downward spiral of that kind has been implicated in the self-sustaining nature of clinical depression, as extended rumination deepens a person’s negative feelings (Ingram, 1990).