Happiness
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Definition
What is happiness?
Happiness is studied at various levels and is generally agreed to have several parts. For example, there is a temporal aspect to happiness such that one can measure happiness in a week, in a year, or in a life. It has been demonstrated that one can feel positive and negative emotions at the same time (Diener and Emmons 1985), meaning that these items are not negatively correlated. Some people measure subjective happiness (how happy you remember being) while others measure objective happiness (Kahneman 1999), based on the intensity and duration of positive/negative affect measured in real time. Some people measure "satisfaction" which can be thought of as an evaluation of how one appraises one's general situation rather than one's actual feelings. Satisfaction can be broken up into various areas or domains which is called domain satisfaction. Most all of these items are positively correlated, yet distinct concepts.
How is it measured?
Most measures of happiness are based on self report. It is possible to measure affect using involuntary measures such as Facial EMG. Theoretically, involuntary physiological measures over a period of time would give one an objective measure of happiness. However, the technical barriers to doing this for any length of time preclude meaningful studies of long term effects of experiences on happiness.
There is also a distinction between remembered happiness and experienced happiness. If you ask people how happy they are at regular intervals, you get a different picture than if you asked people how happy they were during a given experience. The difference is often attributed to the peak-end rule where people are biased based on how they felt at the end or on their peak experience. Therefore, measures of happiness vary depending on whether one measures life satisfaction or moment to moment affect.
What is Subjective Well Being?
Subjective well being (SWB) is a term coined by Ed Diener (1984). SWB has three components, namely life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect. An individual with high life satisfaction, high positive affect, and low negative affect has high SWB. The scientific term SWB is often used to avoid the ambiguous meaning of the term happiness. However, the term happiness is more often used in the communication of research findings in the media. Researchers often distinguish between life satisfaction, as a cognitive component, and PA and NA, as an affective component of SWB. Although these components are correlated, individuals with high levels on one component can have lower levels on another component (Lucas, Diener, & Suh, 1996). Some researchers average across components to obtain a sinlge indicator of SWB.
References
Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95(3), 542-575.
Lucas, R. E., Diener, E., & Suh, E. (1996). Discriminant validity of well-being measures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(3), 616-628.
Personality/Individual differences
Gender
Reference: Gender Differences in WeII-Being (Nolen-Hoeksema and Rusting 1999)
Women show higher rates of depression and anxiety related mood disorders. They do not show greater rates of mania, which can be classified as a disorder of unregulated positive affect. (Lessler et al. 1994). This suggests that women may experience more negative affect.
There is conflicting evidence as to whether women or men experience more positive affect (independent of negative affect). Some studies find that women report more positive emotions, while others find no gender difference or even greater positive emotions in men. Some theorize that contextual factors Food, Rhodes, and Phelan 1989 are responsible for the conflicting results.
Age
There is a detectable positive effect of age on happiness as found in surveys of various national samples (Cantril 1965, Inglehart 1990). Again, since people who are happier live longer, it is hard to say that age causes happiness.
Genetics
The influence of genes on individual differences (heritability) in happiness may depend on the happiness measure. Only two studies have examined the heritability of life satisfaction. A Dutch study found an MZ correlation of r = .38 and an average correlation of r = .09 for DZ twins and other first-degree relatives. This finding suggests relatively small additive genetic effects (18%) and an equal amount of non-additive genetic effects (20%) on life satisfaction, with the majority of the variance due to non-shared environment effects and measurement error. A Danish study yielded an even lower estimate of heritability (MZ r = .23, DZ r = .11), which appear to be mostly additive. However, the lower estimate of heritability in this study may be due to the use of a less reliable single-item measure.
A Norweigan study with a broader measure of happiness (affective and congitive SWB) examined genetic influences longitudinally. This study suggested that genes explain 80% of the stable variance in happiness, whereas environmental factors mostly contribute to the occassion-specific variance in happiness. This finding suggests a strong genetic influence on individual differences in happiness. It is important to realize that this does not mean happiness cannot change. Weight (body-mass-index) is equally heritable and has been increasing over the past decades.
References
Kohler, H. P., Behrman, J. R., & Skytthe, A. (2005). Partner plus children = happiness? The effects of partnerships and fertility on well-being. Population and Development Review, 31(3), 407-+.
Nes, R. B., Roysamb, E., Tambs, K., Harris, J. R., & Reichborn-Kjennerud, T. (2006). Subjective well-being: Genetic and environmental contributions to stability and change. Psychological Medicine, 36(7), 1033-1042.
Stubbe, J. H., Posthuma, D., Boomsma, D. I., & De Geus, E. J. C. (2005). Heritability of life satisfaction in adults: A twin-family study. Psychological Medicine, 35(11), 1581-1588.
Personality
Of the Big Five Personality Traits, neuroticism is linked to negative affect and extraversion to positive affect. Agreeableness and conscientiousness are slightly correlated with positive affect and slightly negatively correlated with negative affect. Openness to experience is slightly positively correlated with both negative and positive affect. (Watson and Clark 1992)
Situations
Does culture affect happiness?
Several cross-country correlational studies on Subjective Well Being have been done including the World Values Study Group 1994 and Eurobaromater 1991. Some nations do appear to be more emotional than other nations (ie. greater positive and negative affect) (Diener and Suh 1999). Inglehart and Rabier 1986 found that national measures of Subjective Well Being show temporal reliability over a period of 10 years.
Diener and Diener 1995 found a correlation of .48 between human rights indicators and Subjective Well Being. Inglehart and Rabier 1986 point out that cross countries SWB seems to covary with interpersonal trust. In the World Values Survey, it was found that Subjective Well Being is more salient for people from individualistic cultures versus collective cultures.
Does money increase happiness?
Money is related to happiness, but the effect diminishes as one's income increases (Diener et al 1993). People in poor countries are more effected by increases in income than people in rich countries (Veenhoven et al, 1994). Lottery winners do not seem to become happier (Smith and Razzell 1975). Diener and Diener 1995 found a correlation of .58 between the gross domestic product per capita of fifty-five nations and their level of SWB.
There is some evidence that the relationship between happiness and money is related to the value one places on money, thereby reflecting goal achievement (see Happiness and Values).
Affect
Does Gratitude increase happiness?
The empirical answer appears to be yes as evidenced by research by Emmons and McCullough at UC-Davis and Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania. More can be found at http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/Does_Gratitude_cause_Happiness%3F_A_Meta-analysis.
Behavior
How is marriage related to happiness?
Marriage is perhaps the strongest predictor of happiness (Glenn and Weaver 1979). Widowhood and divorce is a strong predictor of depression (Stroebe and Stroebe 1987).
Does practicing altruism/kindness lead to happiness?
There is not a lot of empirical research on this, but what has been done shows that there is indeed a link.
see http://www.leaonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327558ijbm1202_4. Sonja Lyubomirsky at UC-Riverside also does research on this -> http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~sonja/.
Education?
Education has a positive impact on happiness, largely as a result of it's effect on income and occupational status. Education has been found to have a greater effect for those of lower incomes (Campbell 1981). Some studies have found that education has a negative effect if income/status are controlled for (Clark and Oswald 1996) and explain this as a result of the higher expectations that education can create.
Cognition
What is the hedonic treadmill?
We all generally believe that if we get a raise or win the lottery, we will become happier. Conversely, we feel that if we are struck by a great tragedy, we will become less happy. The hedonic treadmill refers to the fact that life events often only produce momentary changes in happiness and that we often adjust our expectations such that our happiness reverts to pre-life event levels.
What is the relationship between happiness and values?
See this page Happiness and Values
Theory
What is Positive Psychology?
The below information is the "social psychology" related part of the happiness entry from Wikipedia.
w:Martin Seligman in his book Authentic Happiness gives the positive psychology definition of happiness as consisting of both positive emotions (like comfort) and positive activities (like absorption). He presents three categories of positive emotions:
- past: feelings of satisfaction, contentment, pride, and serenity.
- present (examples): enjoying the taste of food, glee at listening to music, absorption in reading, and company of people you like e.g. friends and family.
- future: feelings of optimism, hope, trust, faith, and confidence.
There are three categories of present positive emotions:
- bodily pleasures, e.g. enjoying the taste of food.
- higher pleasures, e.g. glee at listening to music.
- gratifications, e.g. absorption in reading.
The bodily and higher pleasures are "pleasures of the moment" and usually involve some external stimulus. An exception is the glee felt at having an original thought.
Gratifications involve full engagement, flow, elimination of self-consciousness, and blocking of felt emotions. But when a gratification comes to an end then positive emotions will be felt.
Gratifications can be obtained or increased by developing signature strengths and virtues. Authenticity is the derivation of gratification and positive emotions from exercising signature strengths. The good life comes from using signature strengths to obtain abundant gratification in, for example, enjoying work and pursuing a meaningful life.
Who
== Is it studied nationally?
There is a national domain satisfaction survey (the United States General Social Survey) which has been used by some to measure happiness trends nationally. (ie. Easterlin, Richard). Ed Diener has led an effort to institute a national Subjective Well Being survey (Diener 2000). A wonderful resource on comparative national happiness can be found at http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/statistics/some_findings.html.
Who studies it?
This page contains a number of people who list happiness amongst their specialties.
Issues in studying Happiness
Most of the data that leads to these conclusions is correlational, so we cannot necessarily infer causality. ie. Do happier people live longer or are older people happier? Much of this was taken from Causes and Correlates of Happiness, Argyle 1999
(Other Resources)
Where can I find more information?
- http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/ - the positive psychology center.
- http://www1.eur.nl/fsw/happiness/ - the world database of happiness.
- http://www.happinesspolicy.com - A happiness and public policy blog.
What else?
This is by no means a complete essay on the topic of happiness. If something is missing or wrong, please edit or add anything that may improve this entry.
