From William von Hippel at Behavioural Scientist:
Happiness is actually a super interesting and complicated emotion, and there’s lots of answers about why evolution gave it to us, but I would say that the simplest answer is that happiness is a wonderful motivator. Our ancestors who were happy when they got sugar, salt, and fat in their diet, which were all in short supply, are the ones who survived and reproduced, whereas the ancestors who were happy when they ate faeces or dirt are not, because that wasn’t beneficial to them. So evolution uses happiness to guide us towards what’s in our genes’ best interest, giving us the best chance of reproduction...
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