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Happiness

May 10, 2023

Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see Happiness (disambiguation), Happy (disambiguation), Gladness (disambiguation) and Jolly (disambiguation).
"Enjoyment" redirects here. For the 2005 video album by Kaiser Chiefs, see Enjoyment (video).
"Cheerful" redirects here. For Royal Navy destroyer, see HMS Cheerful (1897).

Happiness, in the context of mental or emotional states, is positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.[1] Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishing and eudaimonia.[2]

A smiling 95-year-old man from Pichilemu, Chile

Since the 1960s, happiness research has been conducted in a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including gerontology, social psychology and positive psychology, clinical and medical research and happiness economics.

Definitions

"Happiness" is subject to debate on usage and meaning,[3][4][5][6][7] and on possible differences in understanding by culture.[8][9]

The word is mostly used in relation to two factors:[10]

Some usages can include both of these factors. Subjective well-being (swb)[21] includes measures of current experience (emotions, moods, and feelings) and of life satisfaction.[nb 1] For instance Sonja Lyubomirsky has described happiness as "the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one's life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile."[22] Eudaimonia,[23] is a Greek term variously translated as happiness, welfare, flourishing, and blessedness. Xavier Landes[24] has proposed that happiness include measures of subjective wellbeing, mood and eudaimonia.[25]

These differing uses can give different results.[26][27] Whereas Nordic countries often score highest on swb surveys, South American countries score higher on affect-based surveys of current positive life experiencing.[28]

The implied meaning of the word may vary depending on context,[29] qualifying happiness as a polyseme and a fuzzy concept.

A further issue is when measurement is made; appraisal of a level of happiness at the time of the experience may be different from appraisal via memory at a later date.[30][31]

Some users accept these issues, but continue to use the word because of its convening power.[32]

Changes of meaning over time

Happiness may have had a different meaning at the time of drafting of the US Declaration of Independence compared to now.[33][34]

Measurement

 
Worldwide levels of happiness as measured by the World Happiness Report (2023)

People have been trying to measure happiness for centuries. In 1780, the English utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed that as happiness was the primary goal of humans it should be measured as a way of determining how well the government was performing.[35]

Today, happiness is typically measured using self-report surveys. Self-reporting is prone to cognitive biases and other sources of errors, such as peak–end rule. Studies show that memories of felt emotions can be inaccurate.[36] Affective forecasting research shows that people are poor predictors of their future emotions, including how happy they will be.[37]

Happiness economists are not overly concerned with philosophical and methodological issues and continue to use questionaries to measure average happiness of populations.

Several scales have been developed to measure happiness:

  • The Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) is a four-item scale, measuring global subjective happiness from 1999. The scale requires participants to use absolute ratings to characterize themselves as happy or unhappy individuals, as well as it asks to what extent they identify themselves with descriptions of happy and unhappy individuals.[38][39]
  • The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) from 1988 is a 20-item questionnaire, using a five-point Likert scale (1 = very slightly or not at all, 5 = extremely) to assess the relation between personality traits and positive or negative affects at "this moment, today, the past few days, the past week, the past few weeks, the past year, and in general".[40] A longer version with additional affect scales was published 1994.[41]
  • The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) is a global cognitive assessment of life satisfaction developed by Ed Diener. A seven-point Likert scale is used to agree or disagree with five statements about one's life.[42][43]
  • The Cantril ladder method[44] has been used in the World Happiness Report. Respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale.[45][44]
  • Positive Experience; the survey by Gallup asks if, the day before, people experienced enjoyment, laughing or smiling a lot, feeling well-rested, being treated with respect, learning or doing something interesting. 9 of the top 10 countries in 2018 were South American, led by Paraguay and Panama. Country scores range from 85 to 43.[46]

Since 2012, a World Happiness Report has been published. Happiness is evaluated, as in "How happy are you with your life as a whole?", and in emotional reports, as in "How happy are you now?," and people seem able to use happiness as appropriate in these verbal contexts. Using these measures, the report identifies the countries with the highest levels of happiness. In subjective well-being measures, the primary distinction is between cognitive life evaluations and emotional reports.[47]

The UK began to measure national well-being in 2012,[48] following Bhutan, which had already been measuring gross national happiness.[49][50]

Academic economists and international economic organizations are arguing for and developing multi-dimensional dashboards which combine subjective and objective indicators to provide a more direct and explicit assessment of human wellbeing. There are many different contributors to adult wellbeing, that happiness judgements partly reflect the presence of salient constraints, and fairness, autonomy, community and engagement are key aspects of happiness and wellbeing throughout the life course.[51] Although these factors play a role in happiness, they do not all need to improve simultaneously to help one achieve an increase in happiness.

Happiness has been found to be quite stable over time.[52][53]

Philosophy

 
A smiling butcher slicing meat
Main article: Philosophy of happiness

Relation to morality

Philosophy of happiness is often discussed in conjunction with ethics.[54] Traditional European societies, inherited from the Greeks and from Christianity, often linked happiness with morality, which was concerned with the performance in a certain kind of role in a certain kind of social life.[55]

Happiness remains a difficult term for moral philosophy. Throughout the history of moral philosophy, there has been an oscillation between attempts to define morality in terms of consequences leading to happiness and attempts to define morality in terms that have nothing to do with happiness at all.[56]

Connections between happiness and morality have been studied in a variety of ways in psychology. Empirical research suggests that laypeople's judgments of a person's happiness in part depend on perceptions of that person's morality, suggesting that judgments of others' happiness involve moral evaluation.[57] A large body of research also suggests that engaging in prosocial behavior can increase happiness.[58][59][60]

Ethics

Ethicists have made arguments for how humans should behave, either individually or collectively, based on the resulting happiness of such behavior. Utilitarians, such as John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, advocated the greatest happiness principle as a guide for ethical behavior.[61] Critics of this view include Thomas Carlyle, Ferdinand Tönnies and others within the German philosophical tradition.[62]

Aristotle

Aristotle described eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία) as the goal of human thought and action. Eudaimonia is often translated to mean happiness, but some scholars contend that "human flourishing" may be a more accurate translation.[63] Aristotle's use of the term in Nicomachiean Ethics extends beyond the general sense of happiness.[64]

In the Nicomachean Ethics, written in 350 BCE, Aristotle stated that happiness (also being well and doing well) is the only thing that humans desire for their own sake, unlike riches, honour, health or friendship. He observed that men sought riches, or honour, or health not only for their own sake but also in order to be happy.[65] For Aristotle the term eudaimonia, which is translated as 'happiness' or 'flourishing' is an activity rather than an emotion or a state.[66] Eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία) is a classical Greek word consists of the word "eu" ("good" or "well-being") and "daimōn" ("spirit" or "minor deity", used by extension to mean one's lot or fortune). Thus understood, the happy life is the good life, that is, a life in which a person fulfills human nature in an excellent way.[67]

Specifically, Aristotle argued that the good life is the life of excellent rational activity. He arrived at this claim with the "Function Argument". Basically, if it is right, every living thing has a function, that which it uniquely does. For Aristotle human function is to reason, since it is that alone which humans uniquely do. And performing one's function well, or excellently, is good. According to Aristotle, the life of excellent rational activity is the happy life. Aristotle argued a second-best life for those incapable of excellent rational activity was the life of moral virtue.[68]

The key question Aristotle seeks to answer is "What is the ultimate purpose of human existence?" A lot of people are seeking pleasure, health, and a good reputation. It is true that those have a value, but none of them can occupy the place of the greatest good for which humanity aims. It may seem like all goods are a means to obtain happiness, but Aristotle said that happiness is always an end in itself.[69]

Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche critiqued the English Utilitarians' focus on attaining the greatest happiness, stating that "Man does not strive for happiness, only the Englishman does".[70] Nietzsche meant that making happiness one's ultimate goal and the aim of one's existence, in his words "makes one contemptible." Nietzsche instead yearned for a culture that would set higher, more difficult goals than "mere happiness." He introduced the quasi-dystopic figure of the "last man" as a kind of thought experiment against the utilitarians and happiness-seekers.[71][72]

These small, "last men" who seek after only their own pleasure and health, avoiding all danger, exertion, difficulty, challenge, struggle are meant to seem contemptible to Nietzsche's reader. Nietzsche instead wants us to consider the value of what is difficult, what can only be earned through struggle, difficulty, pain and thus to come to see the affirmative value suffering and unhappiness truly play in creating everything of great worth in life, including all the highest achievements of human culture, not least of all philosophy.[73][74]

Causes and achievement methods

Main article: Well-being contributing factors

Theories on how to achieve happiness include "encountering unexpected positive events",[75] "seeing a significant other",[76] and "basking in the acceptance and praise of others".[77] Some others believe that happiness is not solely derived from external, momentary pleasures.[78]

Research on positive psychology, well-being, eudaimonia and happiness, and the theories of Diener, Ryff, Keyes, and Seligmann covers a broad range of levels and topics, including "the biological, personal, relational, institutional, cultural, and global dimensions of life."[79] The psychiatrist George Vaillant and the director of longitudinal Study of Adult Development at Harvard University Robert J. Waldinger found that those who were happiest and healthier reported strong interpersonal relationships.[80] Research showed that adequate sleep contributes to well-being.[81] Good mental health and good relationships contribute more than income to happiness.[82] In 2018, Laurie R. Santos course titled "Psychology and the Good Life" became the most popular course in the history of Yale University and was made available for free online to non-Yale students.[83]

Some commentators focus on the difference between the hedonistic tradition of seeking pleasant and avoiding unpleasant experiences, and the eudaimonic tradition of living life in a full and deeply satisfying way.[84] Kahneman has said that "“When you look at what people want for themselves, how they pursue their goals, they seem more driven by the search for satisfaction than the search for happiness.”[85]

Self-fulfilment theories

 
Woman kissing a baby on the cheek

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a pyramid depicting the levels of human needs, psychological, and physical. When a human being ascends the steps of the pyramid, self-actualization is reached.[86] Beyond the routine of needs fulfillment, Maslow envisioned moments of extraordinary experience, known as peak experiences, profound moments of love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, during which a person feels more whole, alive, self-sufficient, and yet a part of the world. This is similar to the flow concept of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.[87] The concept of flow is the idea that after our basic needs are met we can achieve greater happiness by altering our consciousness by becoming so engaged in a task that we lose our sense of time. Our intense focus causes us to forget any other issues, which in return promotes positive emotions.[88]

Erich Fromm said "Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus, simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self. In spending his energy productively he increases his powers, he „burns without being consumed.""[89]

 
Smiling woman from Vietnam

Self-determination theory relates intrinsic motivation to three needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

Ronald Inglehart has traced cross-national differences in the level of happiness based on data from the World Values Survey.[90] He finds that the extent to which a society allows free choice has a major impact on happiness. When basic needs are satisfied, the degree of happiness depends on economic and cultural factors that enable free choice in how people live their lives. Happiness also depends on religion in countries where free choice is constrained.[91]

Sigmund Freud said that all humans strive after happiness, but that the possibilities of achieving it are restricted because we "are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only from a contrast and very little from the state of things."[92]

The idea of motivational hedonism is the theory that pleasure is the aim for human life.[93]

Positive psychology

Since 2000 the field of positive psychology has expanded drastically in terms of scientific publications, and has produced many different views on causes of happiness, and on factors that correlate with happiness.[94] Numerous short-term self-help interventions have been developed and demonstrated to improve happiness.[95][96]

Indirect approaches

Various writers, including Camus and Tolle, have written that the act of searching or seeking for happiness is incompatible with being happy.[97][98][99][100]

John Stuart Mill believed that for the great majority of people happiness is best achieved en passant, rather than striving for it directly. This meant no self-consciousness, scrutiny, self-interrogation, dwelling on, thinking about, imagining or questioning on one's happiness. Then, if otherwise fortunately circumstanced, one would "inhale happiness with the air you breathe."[101]

William Inge said that "on the whole, the happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except the fact that they are so."[102] Orison Swett Marden said that "some people are born happy."[103]

Cognitive behavioral therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy is a popular therapeutic method used to change habits by merely changing thoughts. It focuses on emotional regulation and uses a lot of positive psychology practices. It is often used for people with depression or anxiety, and works towards how to lead a happier life.[104]

Effects

Positive

There is a wealth of cross-sectional studies on happiness and physical health that shows consistent positive relationships.[105] Follow-up studies appear to show that happiness does not predict longevity in sick populations, but that it does predict longevity among healthy populations.[106]

Low mood is correlated with many negative life outcomes such as suicide, poor health, substance abuse, and low life expectancy. By extension, happiness protects from those negative outcomes.

Negative

June Gruber argued that happiness may trigger a person to be more sensitive, more gullible, less successful, and more likely to undertake high risk behaviours.[107] She also conducted studies suggesting that seeking happiness can have negative effects, such as failure to meet over-high expectations.[108][109][110] Iris Mauss has shown that the more people strive for happiness, the more likely they will set up too high of standards and feel disappointed.[111][112] One study shows that women who value happiness more tend to react less positively to happy emotions.[113] A 2012 study found that psychological well-being was higher for people who experienced both positive and negative emotions.[114][115]

Society and culture

Government

 
Newly commissioned officers celebrate their new positions by throwing their midshipmen covers into the air as part of the U.S. Naval Academy class of 2011 graduation and commissioning ceremony.
Main article: Happiness economics

Jeremy Bentham believed that public policy should attempt to maximize happiness, and he even attempted to estimate a "hedonic calculus". Thomas Jefferson put the "pursuit of happiness" on the same level as life and liberty in the United States Declaration of Independence. Presently, many countries and organizations regularly measure population happiness through large-scale surveys, e.g., Bhutan.

Richer nations tend to have higher measures of happiness than poorer nations.[116][117] The relationship between wealth and happiness is not linear and the same GDP increase in poor countries will have more effect on happiness than in wealthy countries.[118][119][120][121]

Some political scientists argue that life satisfaction is positively related to the social democratic model of a generous social safety net, pro-worker labor market regulations, and strong labor unions.[122][123][124] Others argue that happiness is strongly correlated with economic freedom,[125] preferably within the context of a western mixed economy, with free press and a democracy.

Cultural values

Personal happiness can be affected by cultural factors.[126][127][128] Hedonism appears to be more strongly related to happiness in more individualistic cultures.[129]

One theory is that higher SWB in richer countries is related to their more individualistic cultures. Individualistic cultures may satisfy intrinsic motivations to a higher degree that collectivistic cultures, and fulfilling intrinsic motivations, as opposed to extrinsic motivations, may relate to greater levels of happiness, leading to more happiness in individualistic cultures.[130]

Cultural views on happiness have changed over time.[131] For instance Western concern about childhood being a time of happiness has occurred only since the 19th century.[132] Not all cultures seek to maximize happiness,[133][nb 2][nb 3] and some cultures are averse to happiness.[134][135] It has been found in Western cultures that individual happiness is the most important. Some other cultures have opposite views and tend to be aversive to the idea of individual happiness. For example, people living in Eastern Asian cultures focus more on the need for happiness within relationships with others and even find personal happiness to be harmful to fulfilling happy social relationships.[134][133][136][nb 2][nb 3]

Religion

See also: Religious studies

People in countries with high cultural religiosity tend to relate their life satisfaction less to their emotional experiences than people in more secular countries.[137]

Buddhism

 
Tibetan Buddhist monk

Happiness forms a central theme of Buddhist teachings.[138] For ultimate freedom from suffering, the Noble Eightfold Path leads its practitioner to Nirvana, a state of everlasting peace. Ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms. More mundane forms of happiness, such as acquiring wealth and maintaining good friendships, are also recognized as worthy goals for lay people (see sukha). Buddhism also encourages the generation of loving kindness and compassion, the desire for the happiness and welfare of all beings.[139][140][unreliable source?][unreliable source?]

Hinduism

In Advaita Vedanta, the ultimate goal of life is happiness, in the sense that duality between Atman and Brahman is transcended and one realizes oneself to be the Self in all.

Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutras, wrote quite exhaustively on the psychological and ontological roots of bliss.[141]

Confucianism

The Chinese Confucian thinker Mencius, who had sought to give advice to ruthless political leaders during China's Warring States period, was convinced that the mind played a mediating role between the "lesser self" (the physiological self) and the "greater self" (the moral self), and that getting the priorities right between these two would lead to sage-hood.[142] He argued that if one did not feel satisfaction or pleasure in nourishing one's "vital force" with "righteous deeds", then that force would shrivel up (Mencius, 6A:15 2A:2). More specifically, he mentions the experience of intoxicating joy if one celebrates the practice of the great virtues, especially through music.[143]

Judaism

Main article: Happiness in Judaism

Happiness or simcha (Hebrew: שמחה) in Judaism is considered an important element in the service of God.[144] The biblical verse "worship The Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs," (Psalm 100:2) stresses joy in the service of God.[145] A popular teaching by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a 19th-century Chassidic Rabbi, is "Mitzvah Gedolah Le'hiyot Besimcha Tamid," it is a great mitzvah (commandment) to always be in a state of happiness. When a person is happy they are much more capable of serving God and going about their daily activities than when depressed or upset.[146][self-published source?]

Christianity

Further information: The Beatitudes

The primary meaning of "happiness" in various European languages involves good fortune, blessing, or a similar happening. The meaning in Greek philosophy refers primarily to ethics.

In Christianity, the ultimate end of human existence consists in felicity, Latin equivalent to the Greek eudaimonia ("blessed happiness"), described by the 13th-century philosopher-theologian Thomas Aquinas as a beatific vision of God's essence in the next life.[147]

According to Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, man's last end is happiness: "all men agree in desiring the last end, which is happiness."[148] Aquinas agreed with Aristotle that happiness cannot be reached solely through reasoning about consequences of acts, but also requires a pursuit of good causes for acts, such as habits according to virtue.[149]

According to Aquinas, happiness consists in an "operation of the speculative intellect": "Consequently happiness consists principally in such an operation, viz. in the contemplation of Divine things." And, "the last end cannot consist in the active life, which pertains to the practical intellect." So: "Therefore the last and perfect happiness, which we await in the life to come, consists entirely in contemplation. But imperfect happiness, such as can be had here, consists first and principally in contemplation, but secondarily, in an operation of the practical intellect directing human actions and passions."[150]

Human complexities, like reason and cognition, can produce well-being or happiness, but such form is limited and transitory. In temporal life, the contemplation of God, the infinitely Beautiful, is the supreme delight of the will. Beatitudo, or perfect happiness, as complete well-being, is to be attained not in this life, but the next.[151]

Islam

Al-Ghazali (1058–1111), the Sufi thinker, wrote that "The Alchemy of Happiness", is a manual of religious instruction that is used throughout the Muslim world and widely practiced today.[152]

Genetics and heritability

As of 2016, no evidence of happiness causing improved physical health has been found; the topic is being researched at the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.[153] A positive relationship has been suggested between the volume of the brain's gray matter in the right precuneus area and one's subjective happiness score.[154]

Sonja Lyubomirsky has estimated that 50 percent of a given human's happiness level could be genetically determined, 10 percent is affected by life circumstances and situation, and a remaining 40 percent of happiness is subject to self-control.[155][156]

When discussing genetics and their effects on individuals it is important to first understand that genetics do not predict behavior. It is possible for genes to increase the likelihood of individuals being happier compared to others, but they do not 100 percent predict behavior.

At this point in scientific research, it has been hard to find a lot of evidence to support this idea that happiness is affected in some way by genetics. In a 2016 study, Michael Minkov and Michael Harris Bond found that a gene by the name of SLC6A4 was not a good predictor of happiness level in humans.[157]

On the other hand, there have been many studies that have found genetics to be a key part in predicting and understanding happiness in humans.[158] In a review article discussing many studies on genetics and happiness, they discussed the common findings.[159] The author found an important factor that has affected scientist findings this being how happiness is measured. For example, in certain studies when subjective wellbeing is measured as a trait heredity is found to be higher, about 70 to 90 percent. In another study, 11,500 unrelated genotypes were studied, and the conclusion was the heritability was only 12 to 18 percent. Overall, this article found the common percent of heredity was about 20 to 50 percent.[160]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ See Subjective well-being#Components of SWB
  2. ^ a b See the work of Jeanne Tsai
  3. ^ a b See Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness#Meaning of "happiness" ref. the meaning of the US Declaration of Independence phrase

References

  1. ^ a b . Wolfram Alpha. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 24 February 2011.
  2. ^ Anand, P (2016). Happiness Explained: What Human Flourishing is and What We Can Do to Promote It. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198735458.[page needed]
  3. ^ "Happiness". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2020.
  4. ^ Feldman, Fred (2010). What is This Thing Called Happiness?. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199571178.001.0001. ISBN 978-0199571178.
  5. ^ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that "An important project in the philosophy of happiness is simply getting clear on what various writers are talking about." https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/happiness/ 11 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ "Two Philosophical Problems in the Study of Happiness". from the original on 14 October 2018. Retrieved 13 October 2018.
  7. ^ Smith, Richard (August 2008). "The Long Slide to Happiness". Journal of Philosophy of Education. 42 (3–4): 559–573. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9752.2008.00650.x.
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  9. ^ a b Veenhoven, R. "Does Happiness Differ Across Cultures?" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 9 August 2017. Retrieved 10 October 2018.
  10. ^ Wolff-Mann, Ethan (13 October 2015). "What the New Nobel Prize Winner Has to Say About Money and Happiness". Money.com. from the original on 29 April 2022. Retrieved 9 October 2018.
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  12. ^ "People don't want to be happy the way I've defined the term – what I experience here and now. In my view, it's much more important for them to be satisfied, to experience life satisfaction, from the perspective of 'What I remember,' of the story they tell about their lives."https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-why-nobel-prize-winner-daniel-kahneman-gave-up-on-happiness-1.6528513 8 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine
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  17. ^ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/happiness/ 11 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine 2011, "'Happiness' is often used, in ordinary life, to refer to a short-lived state of a person, frequently a feeling of contentment: 'You look happy today'; 'I'm very happy for you'. Philosophically, its scope is more often wider, encompassing a whole life. And in philosophy it is possible to speak of the happiness of a person's life, or of their happy life, even if that person was in fact usually pretty miserable. The point is that some good things in their life made it a happy one, even though they lacked contentment. But this usage is uncommon, and may cause confusion.' https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/well-being/ 25 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine 2017
  18. ^ "People don't want to be happy the way I've defined the term – what I experience here and now. In my view, it's much more important for them to be satisfied, to experience life satisfaction, from the perspective of 'What I remember,' of the story they tell about their lives."https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-why-nobel-prize-winner-daniel-kahneman-gave-up-on-happiness-1.6528513 2018-10-08 at the Wayback Machine
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  25. ^ https://www.satori.lv/article/kas-ir-laime 13 May 2019 at the Wayback Machine Contact the author for English version
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  27. ^ "I am happy when I'm unhappy." Mark Baum character, The Big Short (film), https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Big_Short_(film)#Mark_Baum Archived 17 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine
  28. ^ Inc, Gallup (24 April 2015). "Who Are the Happiest People in the World? The Swiss or Latin Americans?". Gallup.com. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  29. ^ Helliwell, John; Yang, Shun (2012). (Report). p. 11. Archived from the original on 18 July 2016. How does happiness come into this classification? For better or worse, it enters in three ways. It is sometimes used as a current emotional report – "How happy are you now?," sometimes as a remembered emotion, as in "How happy were you yesterday?," and very often as a form of life evaluation, as in "How happy are you with your life as a whole these days?" People answer these three types of happiness question differently, so it is important to keep track of what is being asked. The good news is that the answers differ in ways that suggest that people understand what they are being asked, and answer appropriately
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  160. ^ Nes, Ragnhild Bang; Røysamb, Espen (October 2017). "Happiness in Behaviour Genetics: An Update on Heritability and Changeability". Journal of Happiness Studies. 18 (5): 1533–1552. doi:10.1007/s10902-016-9781-6. S2CID 145034246.

Further reading

  • Robert Waldinger M.D.; Marc Schulz Ph.D (2023). The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1982166694.

External links

  • The World Database of Happiness – a register of scientific research on the subjective appreciation of life.

May 10, 2023
happiness, several, terms, redirect, here, other, uses, disambiguation, happy, disambiguation, gladness, disambiguation, jolly, disambiguation, enjoyment, redirects, here, 2005, video, album, kaiser, chiefs, enjoyment, video, cheerful, redirects, here, royal, . Several terms redirect here For other uses see Happiness disambiguation Happy disambiguation Gladness disambiguation and Jolly disambiguation Enjoyment redirects here For the 2005 video album by Kaiser Chiefs see Enjoyment video Cheerful redirects here For Royal Navy destroyer see HMS Cheerful 1897 Happiness in the context of mental or emotional states is positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy 1 Other forms include life satisfaction well being subjective well being flourishing and eudaimonia 2 A smiling 95 year old man from Pichilemu Chile Since the 1960s happiness research has been conducted in a wide variety of scientific disciplines including gerontology social psychology and positive psychology clinical and medical research and happiness economics Contents 1 Definitions 1 1 Changes of meaning over time 2 Measurement 3 Philosophy 3 1 Relation to morality 3 2 Ethics 3 3 Aristotle 3 4 Nietzsche 4 Causes and achievement methods 4 1 Self fulfilment theories 4 2 Positive psychology 4 3 Indirect approaches 4 4 Cognitive behavioral therapy 5 Effects 5 1 Positive 5 2 Negative 6 Society and culture 6 1 Government 6 2 Cultural values 6 3 Religion 6 3 1 Buddhism 6 3 2 Hinduism 6 3 3 Confucianism 6 3 4 Judaism 6 3 5 Christianity 6 3 6 Islam 7 Genetics and heritability 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 Further reading 12 External linksDefinitions Happiness is subject to debate on usage and meaning 3 4 5 6 7 and on possible differences in understanding by culture 8 9 The word is mostly used in relation to two factors 10 the current experience of the feeling of an emotion affect such as pleasure or joy 1 or of a more general sense of emotional condition as a whole 11 For instance Daniel Kahneman has defined happiness as what I experience here and now 12 This usage is prevalent in dictionary definitions of happiness 13 14 15 appraisal of life satisfaction such as of quality of life 16 For instance Ruut Veenhoven has defined happiness as overall appreciation of one s life as a whole 9 2 17 Kahneman has said that this is more important to people than current experience 18 19 20 Some usages can include both of these factors Subjective well being swb 21 includes measures of current experience emotions moods and feelings and of life satisfaction nb 1 For instance Sonja Lyubomirsky has described happiness as the experience of joy contentment or positive well being combined with a sense that one s life is good meaningful and worthwhile 22 Eudaimonia 23 is a Greek term variously translated as happiness welfare flourishing and blessedness Xavier Landes 24 has proposed that happiness include measures of subjective wellbeing mood and eudaimonia 25 These differing uses can give different results 26 27 Whereas Nordic countries often score highest on swb surveys South American countries score higher on affect based surveys of current positive life experiencing 28 The implied meaning of the word may vary depending on context 29 qualifying happiness as a polyseme and a fuzzy concept A further issue is when measurement is made appraisal of a level of happiness at the time of the experience may be different from appraisal via memory at a later date 30 31 Some users accept these issues but continue to use the word because of its convening power 32 Changes of meaning over time Happiness may have had a different meaning at the time of drafting of the US Declaration of Independence compared to now 33 34 Measurement Worldwide levels of happiness as measured by the World Happiness Report 2023 People have been trying to measure happiness for centuries In 1780 the English utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed that as happiness was the primary goal of humans it should be measured as a way of determining how well the government was performing 35 Today happiness is typically measured using self report surveys Self reporting is prone to cognitive biases and other sources of errors such as peak end rule Studies show that memories of felt emotions can be inaccurate 36 Affective forecasting research shows that people are poor predictors of their future emotions including how happy they will be 37 Happiness economists are not overly concerned with philosophical and methodological issues and continue to use questionaries to measure average happiness of populations Several scales have been developed to measure happiness The Subjective Happiness Scale SHS is a four item scale measuring global subjective happiness from 1999 The scale requires participants to use absolute ratings to characterize themselves as happy or unhappy individuals as well as it asks to what extent they identify themselves with descriptions of happy and unhappy individuals 38 39 The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule PANAS from 1988 is a 20 item questionnaire using a five point Likert scale 1 very slightly or not at all 5 extremely to assess the relation between personality traits and positive or negative affects at this moment today the past few days the past week the past few weeks the past year and in general 40 A longer version with additional affect scales was published 1994 41 The Satisfaction with Life Scale SWLS is a global cognitive assessment of life satisfaction developed by Ed Diener A seven point Likert scale is used to agree or disagree with five statements about one s life 42 43 The Cantril ladder method 44 has been used in the World Happiness Report Respondents are asked to think of a ladder with the best possible life for them being a 10 and the worst possible life being a 0 They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale 45 44 Positive Experience the survey by Gallup asks if the day before people experienced enjoyment laughing or smiling a lot feeling well rested being treated with respect learning or doing something interesting 9 of the top 10 countries in 2018 were South American led by Paraguay and Panama Country scores range from 85 to 43 46 Since 2012 a World Happiness Report has been published Happiness is evaluated as in How happy are you with your life as a whole and in emotional reports as in How happy are you now and people seem able to use happiness as appropriate in these verbal contexts Using these measures the report identifies the countries with the highest levels of happiness In subjective well being measures the primary distinction is between cognitive life evaluations and emotional reports 47 The UK began to measure national well being in 2012 48 following Bhutan which had already been measuring gross national happiness 49 50 Academic economists and international economic organizations are arguing for and developing multi dimensional dashboards which combine subjective and objective indicators to provide a more direct and explicit assessment of human wellbeing There are many different contributors to adult wellbeing that happiness judgements partly reflect the presence of salient constraints and fairness autonomy community and engagement are key aspects of happiness and wellbeing throughout the life course 51 Although these factors play a role in happiness they do not all need to improve simultaneously to help one achieve an increase in happiness Happiness has been found to be quite stable over time 52 53 Philosophy A smiling butcher slicing meat Main article Philosophy of happiness Relation to morality Philosophy of happiness is often discussed in conjunction with ethics 54 Traditional European societies inherited from the Greeks and from Christianity often linked happiness with morality which was concerned with the performance in a certain kind of role in a certain kind of social life 55 Happiness remains a difficult term for moral philosophy Throughout the history of moral philosophy there has been an oscillation between attempts to define morality in terms of consequences leading to happiness and attempts to define morality in terms that have nothing to do with happiness at all 56 Connections between happiness and morality have been studied in a variety of ways in psychology Empirical research suggests that laypeople s judgments of a person s happiness in part depend on perceptions of that person s morality suggesting that judgments of others happiness involve moral evaluation 57 A large body of research also suggests that engaging in prosocial behavior can increase happiness 58 59 60 Ethics Ethicists have made arguments for how humans should behave either individually or collectively based on the resulting happiness of such behavior Utilitarians such as John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham advocated the greatest happiness principle as a guide for ethical behavior 61 Critics of this view include Thomas Carlyle Ferdinand Tonnies and others within the German philosophical tradition 62 Aristotle Aristotle described eudaimonia Greek eὐdaimonia as the goal of human thought and action Eudaimonia is often translated to mean happiness but some scholars contend that human flourishing may be a more accurate translation 63 Aristotle s use of the term in Nicomachiean Ethics extends beyond the general sense of happiness 64 In the Nicomachean Ethics written in 350 BCE Aristotle stated that happiness also being well and doing well is the only thing that humans desire for their own sake unlike riches honour health or friendship He observed that men sought riches or honour or health not only for their own sake but also in order to be happy 65 For Aristotle the term eudaimonia which is translated as happiness or flourishing is an activity rather than an emotion or a state 66 Eudaimonia Greek eὐdaimonia is a classical Greek word consists of the word eu good or well being and daimōn spirit or minor deity used by extension to mean one s lot or fortune Thus understood the happy life is the good life that is a life in which a person fulfills human nature in an excellent way 67 Specifically Aristotle argued that the good life is the life of excellent rational activity He arrived at this claim with the Function Argument Basically if it is right every living thing has a function that which it uniquely does For Aristotle human function is to reason since it is that alone which humans uniquely do And performing one s function well or excellently is good According to Aristotle the life of excellent rational activity is the happy life Aristotle argued a second best life for those incapable of excellent rational activity was the life of moral virtue 68 The key question Aristotle seeks to answer is What is the ultimate purpose of human existence A lot of people are seeking pleasure health and a good reputation It is true that those have a value but none of them can occupy the place of the greatest good for which humanity aims It may seem like all goods are a means to obtain happiness but Aristotle said that happiness is always an end in itself 69 Nietzsche Friedrich Nietzsche critiqued the English Utilitarians focus on attaining the greatest happiness stating that Man does not strive for happiness only the Englishman does 70 Nietzsche meant that making happiness one s ultimate goal and the aim of one s existence in his words makes one contemptible Nietzsche instead yearned for a culture that would set higher more difficult goals than mere happiness He introduced the quasi dystopic figure of the last man as a kind of thought experiment against the utilitarians and happiness seekers 71 72 These small last men who seek after only their own pleasure and health avoiding all danger exertion difficulty challenge struggle are meant to seem contemptible to Nietzsche s reader Nietzsche instead wants us to consider the value of what is difficult what can only be earned through struggle difficulty pain and thus to come to see the affirmative value suffering and unhappiness truly play in creating everything of great worth in life including all the highest achievements of human culture not least of all philosophy 73 74 Causes and achievement methodsMain article Well being contributing factors Theories on how to achieve happiness include encountering unexpected positive events 75 seeing a significant other 76 and basking in the acceptance and praise of others 77 Some others believe that happiness is not solely derived from external momentary pleasures 78 Research on positive psychology well being eudaimonia and happiness and the theories of Diener Ryff Keyes and Seligmann covers a broad range of levels and topics including the biological personal relational institutional cultural and global dimensions of life 79 The psychiatrist George Vaillant and the director of longitudinal Study of Adult Development at Harvard University Robert J Waldinger found that those who were happiest and healthier reported strong interpersonal relationships 80 Research showed that adequate sleep contributes to well being 81 Good mental health and good relationships contribute more than income to happiness 82 In 2018 Laurie R Santos course titled Psychology and the Good Life became the most popular course in the history of Yale University and was made available for free online to non Yale students 83 Some commentators focus on the difference between the hedonistic tradition of seeking pleasant and avoiding unpleasant experiences and the eudaimonic tradition of living life in a full and deeply satisfying way 84 Kahneman has said that When you look at what people want for themselves how they pursue their goals they seem more driven by the search for satisfaction than the search for happiness 85 Self fulfilment theories Woman kissing a baby on the cheek Maslow s hierarchy of needs is a pyramid depicting the levels of human needs psychological and physical When a human being ascends the steps of the pyramid self actualization is reached 86 Beyond the routine of needs fulfillment Maslow envisioned moments of extraordinary experience known as peak experiences profound moments of love understanding happiness or rapture during which a person feels more whole alive self sufficient and yet a part of the world This is similar to the flow concept of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 87 The concept of flow is the idea that after our basic needs are met we can achieve greater happiness by altering our consciousness by becoming so engaged in a task that we lose our sense of time Our intense focus causes us to forget any other issues which in return promotes positive emotions 88 Erich Fromm said Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence the productive realization of his potentialities and thus simultaneously being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self In spending his energy productively he increases his powers he burns without being consumed 89 Smiling woman from Vietnam Self determination theory relates intrinsic motivation to three needs competence autonomy and relatedness Ronald Inglehart has traced cross national differences in the level of happiness based on data from the World Values Survey 90 He finds that the extent to which a society allows free choice has a major impact on happiness When basic needs are satisfied the degree of happiness depends on economic and cultural factors that enable free choice in how people live their lives Happiness also depends on religion in countries where free choice is constrained 91 Sigmund Freud said that all humans strive after happiness but that the possibilities of achieving it are restricted because we are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only from a contrast and very little from the state of things 92 The idea of motivational hedonism is the theory that pleasure is the aim for human life 93 Positive psychology Since 2000 the field of positive psychology has expanded drastically in terms of scientific publications and has produced many different views on causes of happiness and on factors that correlate with happiness 94 Numerous short term self help interventions have been developed and demonstrated to improve happiness 95 96 Indirect approaches Various writers including Camus and Tolle have written that the act of searching or seeking for happiness is incompatible with being happy 97 98 99 100 John Stuart Mill believed that for the great majority of people happiness is best achieved en passant rather than striving for it directly This meant no self consciousness scrutiny self interrogation dwelling on thinking about imagining or questioning on one s happiness Then if otherwise fortunately circumstanced one would inhale happiness with the air you breathe 101 William Inge said that on the whole the happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except the fact that they are so 102 Orison Swett Marden said that some people are born happy 103 Cognitive behavioral therapy Cognitive behavioral therapy is a popular therapeutic method used to change habits by merely changing thoughts It focuses on emotional regulation and uses a lot of positive psychology practices It is often used for people with depression or anxiety and works towards how to lead a happier life 104 EffectsPositive There is a wealth of cross sectional studies on happiness and physical health that shows consistent positive relationships 105 Follow up studies appear to show that happiness does not predict longevity in sick populations but that it does predict longevity among healthy populations 106 Low mood is correlated with many negative life outcomes such as suicide poor health substance abuse and low life expectancy By extension happiness protects from those negative outcomes This section needs expansion You can help by adding to it September 2022 Negative June Gruber argued that happiness may trigger a person to be more sensitive more gullible less successful and more likely to undertake high risk behaviours 107 She also conducted studies suggesting that seeking happiness can have negative effects such as failure to meet over high expectations 108 109 110 Iris Mauss has shown that the more people strive for happiness the more likely they will set up too high of standards and feel disappointed 111 112 One study shows that women who value happiness more tend to react less positively to happy emotions 113 A 2012 study found that psychological well being was higher for people who experienced both positive and negative emotions 114 115 Society and cultureGovernment Newly commissioned officers celebrate their new positions by throwing their midshipmen covers into the air as part of the U S Naval Academy class of 2011 graduation and commissioning ceremony Main article Happiness economics Jeremy Bentham believed that public policy should attempt to maximize happiness and he even attempted to estimate a hedonic calculus Thomas Jefferson put the pursuit of happiness on the same level as life and liberty in the United States Declaration of Independence Presently many countries and organizations regularly measure population happiness through large scale surveys e g Bhutan Richer nations tend to have higher measures of happiness than poorer nations 116 117 The relationship between wealth and happiness is not linear and the same GDP increase in poor countries will have more effect on happiness than in wealthy countries 118 119 120 121 Some political scientists argue that life satisfaction is positively related to the social democratic model of a generous social safety net pro worker labor market regulations and strong labor unions 122 123 124 Others argue that happiness is strongly correlated with economic freedom 125 preferably within the context of a western mixed economy with free press and a democracy Cultural values Personal happiness can be affected by cultural factors 126 127 128 Hedonism appears to be more strongly related to happiness in more individualistic cultures 129 One theory is that higher SWB in richer countries is related to their more individualistic cultures Individualistic cultures may satisfy intrinsic motivations to a higher degree that collectivistic cultures and fulfilling intrinsic motivations as opposed to extrinsic motivations may relate to greater levels of happiness leading to more happiness in individualistic cultures 130 Cultural views on happiness have changed over time 131 For instance Western concern about childhood being a time of happiness has occurred only since the 19th century 132 Not all cultures seek to maximize happiness 133 nb 2 nb 3 and some cultures are averse to happiness 134 135 It has been found in Western cultures that individual happiness is the most important Some other cultures have opposite views and tend to be aversive to the idea of individual happiness For example people living in Eastern Asian cultures focus more on the need for happiness within relationships with others and even find personal happiness to be harmful to fulfilling happy social relationships 134 133 136 nb 2 nb 3 Religion See also Religious studies People in countries with high cultural religiosity tend to relate their life satisfaction less to their emotional experiences than people in more secular countries 137 Buddhism Tibetan Buddhist monk Happiness forms a central theme of Buddhist teachings 138 For ultimate freedom from suffering the Noble Eightfold Path leads its practitioner to Nirvana a state of everlasting peace Ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms More mundane forms of happiness such as acquiring wealth and maintaining good friendships are also recognized as worthy goals for lay people see sukha Buddhism also encourages the generation of loving kindness and compassion the desire for the happiness and welfare of all beings 139 140 unreliable source unreliable source Hinduism In Advaita Vedanta the ultimate goal of life is happiness in the sense that duality between Atman and Brahman is transcended and one realizes oneself to be the Self in all Patanjali author of the Yoga Sutras wrote quite exhaustively on the psychological and ontological roots of bliss 141 Confucianism The Chinese Confucian thinker Mencius who had sought to give advice to ruthless political leaders during China s Warring States period was convinced that the mind played a mediating role between the lesser self the physiological self and the greater self the moral self and that getting the priorities right between these two would lead to sage hood 142 He argued that if one did not feel satisfaction or pleasure in nourishing one s vital force with righteous deeds then that force would shrivel up Mencius 6A 15 2A 2 More specifically he mentions the experience of intoxicating joy if one celebrates the practice of the great virtues especially through music 143 Judaism Main article Happiness in Judaism Happiness or simcha Hebrew שמחה in Judaism is considered an important element in the service of God 144 The biblical verse worship The Lord with gladness come before him with joyful songs Psalm 100 2 stresses joy in the service of God 145 A popular teaching by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov a 19th century Chassidic Rabbi is Mitzvah Gedolah Le hiyot Besimcha Tamid it is a great mitzvah commandment to always be in a state of happiness When a person is happy they are much more capable of serving God and going about their daily activities than when depressed or upset 146 self published source Christianity Further information The Beatitudes The primary meaning of happiness in various European languages involves good fortune blessing or a similar happening The meaning in Greek philosophy refers primarily to ethics In Christianity the ultimate end of human existence consists in felicity Latin equivalent to the Greek eudaimonia blessed happiness described by the 13th century philosopher theologian Thomas Aquinas as a beatific vision of God s essence in the next life 147 According to Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas man s last end is happiness all men agree in desiring the last end which is happiness 148 Aquinas agreed with Aristotle that happiness cannot be reached solely through reasoning about consequences of acts but also requires a pursuit of good causes for acts such as habits according to virtue 149 According to Aquinas happiness consists in an operation of the speculative intellect Consequently happiness consists principally in such an operation viz in the contemplation of Divine things And the last end cannot consist in the active life which pertains to the practical intellect So Therefore the last and perfect happiness which we await in the life to come consists entirely in contemplation But imperfect happiness such as can be had here consists first and principally in contemplation but secondarily in an operation of the practical intellect directing human actions and passions 150 Human complexities like reason and cognition can produce well being or happiness but such form is limited and transitory In temporal life the contemplation of God the infinitely Beautiful is the supreme delight of the will Beatitudo or perfect happiness as complete well being is to be attained not in this life but the next 151 Islam Al Ghazali 1058 1111 the Sufi thinker wrote that The Alchemy of Happiness is a manual of religious instruction that is used throughout the Muslim world and widely practiced today 152 Genetics and heritabilityAs of 2016 update no evidence of happiness causing improved physical health has been found the topic is being researched at the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health 153 A positive relationship has been suggested between the volume of the brain s gray matter in the right precuneus area and one s subjective happiness score 154 Sonja Lyubomirsky has estimated that 50 percent of a given human s happiness level could be genetically determined 10 percent is affected by life circumstances and situation and a remaining 40 percent of happiness is subject to self control 155 156 When discussing genetics and their effects on individuals it is important to first understand that genetics do not predict behavior It is possible for genes to increase the likelihood of individuals being happier compared to others but they do not 100 percent predict behavior At this point in scientific research it has been hard to find a lot of evidence to support this idea that happiness is affected in some way by genetics In a 2016 study Michael Minkov and Michael Harris Bond found that a gene by the name of SLC6A4 was not a good predictor of happiness level in humans 157 On the other hand there have been many studies that have found genetics to be a key part in predicting and understanding happiness in humans 158 In a review article discussing many studies on genetics and happiness they discussed the common findings 159 The author found an important factor that has affected scientist findings this being how happiness is measured For example in certain studies when subjective wellbeing is measured as a trait heredity is found to be higher about 70 to 90 percent In another study 11 500 unrelated genotypes were studied and the conclusion was the heritability was only 12 to 18 percent Overall this article found the common percent of heredity was about 20 to 50 percent 160 See alsoAnhedonia Aversion to happiness Brain stimulation reward Depression Euphoria Extraversion introversion and happiness Hedonic treadmill Pleasure Reward system Sadness psychology portal philosophy portalNotes See Subjective well being Components of SWB a b See the work of Jeanne Tsai a b See Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness Meaning of happiness ref the meaning of the US Declaration of Independence phraseReferences a b happiness Wolfram Alpha Archived from the original on 18 July 2011 Retrieved 24 February 2011 Anand P 2016 Happiness Explained What Human Flourishing is and What We Can Do to Promote It Oxford University Press ISBN 9780198735458 page needed Happiness The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Metaphysics Research Lab Stanford University 2020 Feldman Fred 2010 What is This Thing Called Happiness doi 10 1093 acprof oso 9780199571178 001 0001 ISBN 978 0199571178 The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that An important project in the philosophy of happiness is simply getting clear on what various writers are talking about https plato stanford edu entries happiness Archived 11 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine Two Philosophical Problems in the Study of Happiness Archived from the original on 14 October 2018 Retrieved 13 October 2018 Smith Richard August 2008 The Long Slide to Happiness Journal of Philosophy of Education 42 3 4 559 573 doi 10 1111 j 1467 9752 2008 00650 x How Universal is Happiness Ruut Veenhoven Chapter 11 in Ed Diener John F Helliwell amp Daniel Kahneman Eds International Differences in Well Being 2010 Oxford University Press New York ISBN 978 0199732739 a b Veenhoven R Does Happiness Differ Across Cultures PDF Archived PDF from the original on 9 August 2017 Retrieved 10 October 2018 Wolff Mann Ethan 13 October 2015 What the New Nobel Prize Winner Has to Say About Money and Happiness Money com Archived from the original on 29 April 2022 Retrieved 9 October 2018 Dan Haybron https www slu edu colleges AS philos site people faculty Haybron Archived 30 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine http www happinessandwellbeing org project team Archived 12 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine I would suggest that when we talk about happiness we are actually referring much of the time to a complex emotional phenomenon Call it emotional well being Happiness as emotional well being concerns your emotions and moods more broadly your emotional condition as a whole To be happy is to inhabit a favorable emotional state On this view we can think of happiness loosely as the opposite of anxiety and depression Being in good spirits quick to laugh and slow to anger at peace and untroubled confident and comfortable in your own skin engaged energetic and full of life https opinionator blogs nytimes com 2014 04 13 happiness and its discontents Archived 12 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine Haybron has also used the term thymic by which he means overall mood state in this context https philpapers org rec HAYHAE Archived 18 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine Xavier Landes lt https www sseriga edu landes xavier gt Archived 30 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine gt has described a similar concept of mood https www satori lv article kas ir laime Archived 13 May 2019 at the Wayback Machine People don t want to be happy the way I ve defined the term what I experience here and now In my view it s much more important for them to be satisfied to experience life satisfaction from the perspective of What I remember of the story they tell about their lives https www haaretz com israel news premium MAGAZINE why nobel prize winner daniel kahneman gave up on happiness 1 6528513 Archived 8 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine Happy Definition of happy in English by Oxford Dictionaries Archived from the original on 9 October 2018 Retrieved 9 October 2018 HAPPINESS meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary Archived from the original on 9 October 2018 Retrieved 9 October 2018 The definition of happy Archived from the original on 9 October 2018 Retrieved 9 October 2018 Graham Michael C 2014 Facts of Life ten issues of contentment Outskirts Press pp 6 10 ISBN 978 1478722595 https plato stanford edu entries happiness Archived 11 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine 2011 Happiness is often used in ordinary life to refer to a short lived state of a person frequently a feeling of contentment You look happy today I m very happy for you Philosophically its scope is more often wider encompassing a whole life And in philosophy it is possible to speak of the happiness of a person s life or of their happy life even if that person was in fact usually pretty miserable The point is that some good things in their life made it a happy one even though they lacked contentment But this usage is uncommon and may cause confusion https plato stanford edu entries well being Archived 25 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine 2017 People don t want to be happy the way I ve defined the term what I experience here and now In my view it s much more important for them to be satisfied to experience life satisfaction from the perspective of What I remember of the story they tell about their lives https www haaretz com israel news premium MAGAZINE why nobel prize winner daniel kahneman gave up on happiness 1 6528513 Archived 2018 10 08 at the Wayback Machine Mandel Amir 7 October 2018 Why Nobel Prize Winner Daniel Kahneman Gave Up on Happiness Haaretz Livni Ephrat 21 December 2018 A Nobel Prize winning psychologist says most people don t really want to be happy Quartz e g Can Happiness be Measured Action for Happiness http www actionforhappiness org why happiness Archived 18 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine The How of Happiness Lyubomirsky 2007 Kashdan Todd B Biswas Diener Robert King Laura A October 2008 Reconsidering happiness the costs of distinguishing between hedonics and eudaimonia The Journal of Positive Psychology 3 4 219 233 doi 10 1080 17439760802303044 S2CID 17056199 Landes Xavier Stockholm School of Economics in Riga Archived from the original on 30 August 2019 Retrieved 30 August 2019 https www satori lv article kas ir laime Archived 13 May 2019 at the Wayback Machine Contact the author for English version Joshanloo Mohsen 18 October 2019 Lay Conceptions of Happiness Associations With Reported Well Being Personality Traits and Materialism Frontiers in Psychology 10 2377 doi 10 3389 fpsyg 2019 02377 PMC 6813919 PMID 31681129 I am happy when I m unhappy Mark Baum character The Big Short film https en wikiquote org wiki The Big Short film Mark Baum Archived 17 October 2018 at the Wayback Machine Inc Gallup 24 April 2015 Who Are the Happiest People in the World The Swiss or Latin Americans Gallup com a href Template Cite web html title Template Cite web cite web a last has generic name help Helliwell John Yang Shun 2012 World Happiness Report 2012 Report p 11 Archived from the original on 18 July 2016 How does happiness come into this classification For better or worse it enters in three ways It is sometimes used as a current emotional report How happy are you now sometimes as a remembered emotion as in How happy were you yesterday and very often as a form of life evaluation as in How happy are you with your life as a whole these days People answer these three types of happiness question differently so it is important to keep track of what is being asked The good news is that the answers differ in ways that suggest that people understand what they are being asked and answer appropriately Chernoff Naina N 6 May 2002 Memory Vs Experience Happiness is Relative Observer Association for Psychological Science Retrieved 10 November 2021 Inge W R 1926 Lay Thoughts of a Dean Creative Media Partners LLC ISBN 978 1379053095 Looking back I think I can separate the years when I was happy and those when I was unhappy But perhaps at the time I should have judged differently Helliwell John et al World Happiness Report 2015 Report Some have argued that it is misleading to use happiness as a generic term to cover subjective well being more generally While subjective well being is more precise it simply does not have the convening power of happiness The main linguistic argument for using happiness in a broader generic role is that happiness plays two important roles within the science of well being appearing once as a prototypical positive emotion and again as part of a cognitive life evaluation question This double use has sometimes been used to argue that there is no coherent structure to happiness responses The converse argument made in the World Happiness Reports is that this double usage helps to justify using happiness in a generic role as long as the alternative meanings are clearly understood and credibly related Evidence from a growing number of large scale surveys shows that the answers to questions asking about the emotion of happiness differ from answers to judgmental questions asking about a person s happiness with life as a whole in exactly the ways that theory would suggest Answers to questions about the emotion of happiness relate well to what is happening at the moment Evaluative answers in response to questions about life as a whole are supported by positive emotions as noted above but also driven much more than are answers to questions about emotions by a variety of life circumstances including income health and social trust quoted in Helliwell John F 25 February 2017 What s Special About Happiness as a Social Indicator Social Indicators Research Springer Science and Business Media LLC 135 3 965 968 doi 10 1007 s11205 017 1549 9 ISSN 0303 8300 S2CID 151828351 Lexical Investigations Happiness Dictionary com 1 October 2013 Retrieved 25 January 2023 What the 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enjoyments of life such was now my theory are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing when they are taken en passant without being made a principal object Once make them so and they are immediately felt to be insufficient They will not bear a scrutinizing examination Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so The only chance is to treat not happiness but some end external to it as the purpose of life Let your self consciousness your scrutiny your self interrogation exhaust themselves on that and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe without dwelling on it or thinking about it without either forestalling it in imagination or putting it to flight by fatal questioning This theory now became the basis of my philosophy of life And I still hold to it as the best theory for all those who have but a moderate degree of sensibility and of capacity for enjoyment that is for the great majority of mankind Autobiography Ch 5 https www 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Archived from the original on 16 October 2017 Retrieved 15 October 2017 Toichi Motomi Yoshimura Sayaka Sawada Reiko Kubota Yasutaka Uono Shota Kochiyama Takanori Sato Wataru 20 November 2015 The structural neural substrate of subjective happiness Scientific Reports 5 16891 Bibcode 2015NatSR 516891S doi 10 1038 srep16891 PMC 4653620 PMID 26586449 Okbay Aysu et al June 2016 Genetic variants associated with subjective well being depressive symptoms and neuroticism identified through genome wide analyses Nature Genetics 48 6 624 633 doi 10 1038 ng 3552 PMC 4884152 PMID 27089181 Bartels Meike March 2015 Genetics of Wellbeing and Its Components Satisfaction with Life Happiness and Quality of Life A Review and Meta analysis of Heritability Studies Behavior Genetics 45 2 137 156 doi 10 1007 s10519 015 9713 y PMC 4346667 PMID 25715755 Minkov Michael Bond Michael Harris April 2017 A Genetic Component to National Differences in Happiness Journal of Happiness Studies 18 2 321 340 doi 10 1007 s10902 015 9712 y S2CID 54717193 Bartels Boomsma Meike Dorret I 3 September 2009 Born to be Happy The Etiology of Subjective Well Being Behavior Genetics 39 6 605 615 doi 10 1007 s10519 009 9294 8 PMC 2780680 PMID 19728071 Bang Nes Roysamb Ragnhild Espen 28 July 2016 Happiness in Behaviour Genetics An Update on Heritability and Changeability Journal of Happiness Studies 18 5 1533 1552 doi 10 1007 s10902 016 9781 6 S2CID 145034246 Nes Ragnhild Bang Roysamb Espen October 2017 Happiness in Behaviour Genetics An Update on Heritability and Changeability Journal of Happiness Studies 18 5 1533 1552 doi 10 1007 s10902 016 9781 6 S2CID 145034246 Further readingRobert Waldinger M D Marc Schulz Ph D 2023 The Good Life Lessons from the World s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness Simon amp Schuster ISBN 978 1982166694 External linksHappiness at Wikipedia s sister projects Definitions from Wiktionary Media from Commons News from Wikinews Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Textbooks from Wikibooks Resources from Wikiversity The World Database of Happiness a register of scientific research on the subjective appreciation of life Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Happiness amp oldid 1149765927, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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