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The Key To Happiness, According To A Decades-Long Study

Sending a text to a friend can bring a smile to your face. Now, research suggests it could also help bring long-term health benefits. guoya/Getty Images hide caption

Sending a text to a friend can bring a smile to your face. Now, research suggests it could also help bring long-term health benefits.

If you could change one thing in your life to become a happier person — like your income, a job, your relationships or your health — what would make the biggest difference? That's the question Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Robert Waldinger has been attempting to answer through decades of research. He's the director of "the world's longest-running scientific study of happiness," and he spoke with Ari Shapiro about the factor that appears to make the biggest difference in people's lives. Waldinger is a co-author of The Good Life: Lessons from the world's longest scientific study of happiness . In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community. Email us at [email protected] .

This episode was produced by Lee Hale and Megan Lim. It was edited by William Troop and Christopher Intagliata. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.

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• Open access
• Published: 12 October 2023

Consistent effects of the genetics of happiness across the lifespan and ancestries in multiple cohorts

• Joey Ward 1 ,
• Laura M. Lyall 1 ,
• Breda Cullen 1 ,
• Rona J. Strawbridge 1 , 2 , 3 ,
• Xingxing Zhu 1 ,
• Ioana Stanciu 1 ,
• Alisha Aman 1 ,
• Claire L. Niedzwiedz 1 ,
• Jana Anderson 1 ,
• Mark E. S. Bailey 4 ,
• Donald M. Lyall 1   na1 &
• Jill P. Pell 1   na1  

Scientific Reports volume  13 , Article number:  17262 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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• Genetic association study
• Human behaviour

Happiness is a fundamental human affective trait, but its biological basis is not well understood. Using a novel approach, we construct LDpred-inf polygenic scores of a general happiness measure in 2 cohorts: the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) cohort (N = 15,924, age range 9.23–11.8 years), the Add Health cohort (N = 9129, age range 24.5–34.7) to determine associations with several well-being and happiness measures. Additionally, we investigated associations between genetic scores for happiness and brain structure in ABCD (N = 9626, age range (8.9–11) and UK Biobank (N = 16,957, age range 45–83). We detected significant (p.FDR < 0.05) associations between higher genetic scores vs. several well-being measures (best r 2  = 0.019) in children of multiple ancestries in ABCD and small yet significant correlations with a happiness measure in European participants in Add Health (r 2  = 0.004). Additionally, we show significant associations between lower genetic scores for happiness with smaller structural brain phenotypes in a white British subsample of UK Biobank and a white sub-sample group of ABCD. We demonstrate that the genetic basis for general happiness level appears to have a consistent effect on happiness and wellbeing measures throughout the lifespan, across multiple ancestral backgrounds, and multiple brain structures.

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Introduction.

Happiness is the core positive emotional state. As a trait that is affected in clinical outcomes (e.g. lack of happiness in depression) it is a positive valence Research Domain Criteria (RDOC) trait 1 . At the genetic level it is more often analysed as part of a wider concept of well-being 2 , 3 . There is evidence that, generally, an individual has a baseline happiness level which remains relatively stable over time 4 even after major positive or negative life events such as winning the lottery or being the victim of an accident 5 .

To date, the largest genome-wide association study (GWAS) was performed in UK Biobank by Baselmans and Bartels 6 (N ~ 222k) and is comprised of a meta-analysis of the question “ In general, how happy are you? ” which has been asked twice longitudinally (5 years apart approximately). A GWAS was performed on each instance of the question and the results combined in a meta-analysis. The impact of this genetic liability to higher or lower happiness has little understanding, including key aspects such as influence over the structural brain substrates.

Here we report the use of happiness polygenic scores (PGS) using the output of Baselmans and Bartels 6 in three cohorts across multiple age demographics: the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) cohort 7 (children aged 9–11) and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) 8 (adults aged 25–35) and the UK Biobank (middle-to-older age; 40–70). This study aimed to determine: (1) whether increased genetic loading of this happiness measure is significantly associated with happiness and well-being measures in independent cohorts that span differing age ranges and different ancestries compared to the discovery GWAS cohort; and (2) to investigate whether genetic predisposition for general happiness level is associated with average differences in key aspects of brain structure and white matter integrity measures with previous evidence of relating to psychological health.

Happiness and well-being measures

In the white subsample, genetic loading for happiness associated with the combined wellbeing measures (β = 0.14, S.E. = 0.04, p.FDR = 0.02), and five out of the nine well-being measures after correcting for multiple testing (Table S1 ). Reporting being delighted (β = 0.021, S.E. = 0.008, p.FDR = 0.016), calm (β = 0.029, S.E. = 0.007, p.FDR = 7.4 × 10 –5 ), enthusiastic (β = 0.038, S.E. = 0.008, p.FDR = 5.8 × 10 –6 ), confident (β = 0.034, S.E. = 0.008, p.FDR = 5.8 × 10 –6 ) and energetic (β = 0.02, S.E. = 0.007, p = 0.008) all showed positive associations. Full results in the other ancestries can be found in Table S1 .

In the meta-analysis of the whole sample, the combined wellbeing measures (β = 0.12, S.E. = 0.03, p.FDR = 0.004, Fig.  1 ) and three of the nine well-being measures associated with genetic loading for happiness after correcting for multiple testing (Table 1 , Figure S1 ). Being, confident (β = 0.022, S.E. = 0.009, p.FDR = 0.00495), energetic (β = 0.02, S.E. = 0.009, p.FDR = 0.0495) and able to concentrate (β = 0.027, S.E. = 0.01, p.FDR = 0.0495). As with the white subsample, all showed a positive association with genetic loading for happiness. Heterogeneity I 2 was moderate (~ 50) in the significant individual item wellbeing measures but low (0) in the overall wellbeing measure (Table 1 ).

Forest plot of the random effects meta-analysis of wellbeing score in the ABCD cohort.

A significant association was found in the LDpred analysis in the European ancestry subsample (β = 0.04, S.E. = 0.01, P = 0.002, Table S2 ) but we did not detected a significant association in the meta-analysis of whole sample (β = − 0.019, S.E. = 0.01, P = 0.57, Fig.  2 ). We note that heterogeneity was high (I 2  = 73.6).

Forest plot of the random effects meta-analysis of happiness measure in the Add Health cohort.

Brain structure

After correcting for multiple testing via FDR there were no brain phenotype measures that showed significant association with genetic loading for happiness (Table S3 ). Several regions were nominally significant. With greater genetic loading for happiness was correlated with larger volumes: white matter volume (β = 0.020, S.E. = 0.007, P = 0.005), the right accumbens (β = 0.020, S.E. = 0.007, P = 0.006), the left hippocampus tail (β = 0.016, S.E. = 0.007, P = 0.016) and grey matter volume (β = 0.011, S.E. = 0.007, P = 0.046). Both the left and right thalamus were borderline significant before FDR correction (left: β = 0.013, S.E. = 0.007, P = 0.053, right: β = 0.013, S.E. = 0.007, P = 0.05).

The WM integrity measure gMD showed a nominally significant negative association (β = − 0.014, S.E. = 0.007, P = 0.048) while gFA (β = 0.011, S.E. = 0.008, P = 0.15) showed a positive correlation (i.e. both were protective) however gFA was not significant.

In the white subsample, the volume of: the left pallidum (β = 0.055, S.E. = 0.015, p.FDR = 0.002), right cerebral white matter (β = 0.052, S.E. = 0.014, p.FDR = 0.002), total white matter (β = 0.05, S.E. = 0.014, P.FDR = 0.002), left cerebral white matter (β = 0.05, S.E. = 0.014, p.FDR = 0.002), the left thalamus proper (β = 0.047, S.E. = 0.014, p.FDR = 0.002), the right thalamus proper (β = 0.045, S.E. = 0.014, p.FDR = 0.006), total grey matter(β = 0.043, S.E. = 0.014, p.FDR = 0.006), the total frontal lobe (β = 0.04, S.E. = 0.015, p.FDR = 0.01), the right hippocampus (β = 0.037, S.E. = 0.015, p.FDR = 0.03) were significant after FDR correction. The right caudate (β = 0.032, S.E. = 0.015, P = 0.037) was only significant before FDR correction. All significant regions showed a positive correlation with genetic loading for happiness (Table S4 ).

For brain integrity measures in the white subsample, gMD showed a negative association while gFA showed a positive correlation (i.e. both protective), however neither association was statistically significant (Table S4 ).

In the meta-analysis of the whole sample, no brain regions were significantly associated with the happiness PGS after FDR correction. However, the volume of: the right amygdala (β = 0.03, S.E. = 0.01, P = 0.009, p.FDR = 0.19), and the right putamen (β = 0.025, S.E. = 0.01, P = 0.02, p.FDR = 0.21), were nominally associated (Table S5 ).

For brain integrity measures in the whole sample, gFA showed positive association while gMD showed a negative correlation, but these were not significant (Table S5 ).

The results of the LDpred PGS analyses in ABCD and Add Health showed that genetic liability toward happiness has fairly consistent effects across the lifespan from age 12 to 73 including across multiple ancestral backgrounds with the exception of the non-white ancestries of Add Health. The results of these models for the ABCD cohort show that genetic loading for happiness may drive certain aspects of an individual’s overall wellbeing (e.g., being calm, confident, energetic, able to concentrate), as well as aspects of brain structure known to underlie psychological as well as cognitive health.

The results of the MRI analyses in the UK Biobank returned only nominally significant regions that were associated with genetic loading for happiness and this may be an underestimate due to the known biases particularly within the MRI subsample—a bias evidenced to meaningfully underestimate effect estimates 9 . We detected several brain regions associated with genetic loading for happiness in the ABCD cohort, which is more representative of the populations from which it is drawn and these models were appropriately weighted.

Several brain regions have already been identified in hedonic brain circuitry such as the ventral pallidum and nucleus accumbens 10 . Models by Loonen et al. 11 suggest that many of the regions identified in our analyses regulate both pleasure and happiness pathways. They suggest the caudate nucleus, putamen and core of the accumbens nucleus are involved in experiencing pleasure and the amygdala, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis and accumbens nucleus are involved in experiencing happiness.

We identified associations with volumes of the left ventral pallidum in the white subsample of ABCD. We did not find any significant association with the nucleus accumbens in either ABCD analysis, but it was nominally significant in the UK Biobank model. We also note a consistent direction of effect of both these regions across the ABCD and UK Biobank analyses.

The hippocampal regions have been shown to be involved in hedonic neural circuitry for example in the meta-analysis of Tanzer and Wayandt 12 . Our results reflect these findings in the white sub-sample of the ABCD cohort but only in the right hippocampus.. The left hippocampus tail was nominally significant in the UK Biobank analysis but all other tested hippocampal regions and subregions showed no association.

The frontal lobe has been implicated in hedonic emotions 10 , 13 and we showed that greater frontal lobe volume significantly correlated with genetic loading for happiness in the white subsample of ABCD, again we also note a consistent direction of effect with the frontal lobe general factor used in the UK Biobank analysis. We also detected a positive correlation with grey matter volume in the ABCD analyses and a nominally significant association with same direction of effect reflected in the UK Biobank cohort, an association that has been identified elsewhere 14 . We also identify a novel finding of greater white matter volume in ABCD which is reinforced by the consistent direction of effect in UK Biobank.

Strengths and limitations

UK Biobank is not representative of the UK general population in that participants are generally healthier and have a higher socioeconomic status than the general population and therefore may have a different happiness level distribution than the UK as a whole 15 . The MRI sample is even less representative in that participation was slightly biased towards the fitter, healthier participants in UK Biobank 9 .

A similar issue arises in the PGS analyses in that those of European ancestry were used to establish LD structure of the genome. This was due to the lower numbers of non-European ancestry participants in these cohorts. As a result, our findings possibly underestimate the effect in non-European ancestries.

Conclusions

While previous studies demonstrated a genetic underpinning to stable happiness, there is a lack of understanding regarding the impact of such liability on wellbeing and aspects of brain structure. These analyses demonstrate that general happiness level has a genetic contribution which has a consistent effect across age groups and ancestral backgrounds, as well as associations with brain structure regardless of current happiness state. These analyses not only help increase our understanding of psychology and neurodevelopment, the novel methodology of using UK Biobank participants as a reference panel for LDpred PGS could be adapted for a wide range of other phenotypes. Even still, it would be of benefit to perform further analyses using larger datasets with less bias towards those of European ancestry.

Cohorts, genotyping and phenotyping

Adolescent brain cognitive development (abcd), abcd cohort description.

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) cohort is a longitudinal study of brain development and child health 7 . Investigators at 21 sites around the USA conducted repeated assessments of brain maturation in the context of social, emotional, and cognitive development, as well as a variety of health and environmental outcomes. We analysed data from release 3.0. At the time of the survey questions, the children ranged in age from 9 to 12 years. Informed written consent was provided by parents and assent was provided by children. The ABCD research protocol approved was approved by the Institutional Review Board of University of California San Diego (IRB# 160091) 16 .

Data used in the preparation of this article were obtained from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive DevelopmentSM (ABCD) Study ( https://abcdstudy.org ), held in the NIMH Data Archive (NDA). This is a multisite, longitudinal study designed to recruit more than 10,000 children age 9–10 and follow them over 10 years into early adulthood. The ABCD Study ® is supported by the National Institutes of Health and additional federal partners under award numbers U01DA041048, U01DA050989, U01DA051016, U01DA041022, U01DA051018, U01DA051037, U01DA050987, U01DA041174, U01DA041106, U01DA041117, U01DA041028, U01DA041134, U01DA050988, U01DA051039, U01DA041156, U01DA041025, U01DA041120, U01DA051038, U01DA041148, U01DA041093, U01DA041089, U24DA041123, U24DA041147. A full list of supporters is available at https://abcdstudy.org/federal-partners.html . A listing of participating sites and a complete listing of the study investigators can be found at https://abcdstudy.org/consortium_members/ . ABCD consortium investigators designed and implemented the study and/or provided data but did not necessarily participate in the analysis or writing of this report. This manuscript reflects the views of the authors and may not reflect the opinions or views of the NIH or ABCD consortium investigators.

The ABCD data repository grows and changes over time. The ABCD data used in this report came from https://doi.org/10.15154/1526432 ) DOIs can be found at https://dx.doi.org/10.15154/1526432 . All methods were carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations.

ABCD genotyping

DNA was extracted from saliva samples of the ABCD participants 17 . These samples were genotyped on the Affymetrix NIDA SmokeScreen Array (Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA, USA). The QC procedures are described in full at the following URL: https://doi.org/10.15154/1503209 .

ABCD genetic principal components (GPCs) were created using genotyped only SNPs using plink-pca flag.

ABCD phenotyping and exclusion criteria

A set of questions taken from the ABCD Youth NIH Toolbox Positive Affect Items was used. These questions measured aspects of positive emotions and affective well-being in the past week, specifically being attentive, delighted, calm, relaxed, enthusiastic, interested, confident, energetic and able to concentrate. Responses were measured as ‘not true’, ‘somewhat true’ or ‘very true’. Each item was analysed separately as well as a combined score that was the sum of responses to the individual questions. In addition to the happiness PGS the models were adjusted for age, sex, and principal genetic components (PGCs) 1–8.

As the initial UK Biobank GWAS was run in the white British sub-group, testing was performed firstly in the white (as defined by ABCD) participants and secondly in the whole sample, with ancestry treated as a factor variable. The other ancestral backgrounds of this cohort as defined by ABCD are; White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, and Other (Table S6 ).

ABCD MRI brain scans

Creation of the derived MRI variables from the ABCD cohort has been described in detail elsewhere 18 . For the purposes of this study, total frontal lobe volume was derived by summing the 22 frontal lobe subsection variables of the left and right hemisphere 19 . Additionally, we looked at total grey and white matter volume and left and right hippocampus volume. The hippocampal body and tail regions and white matter hyperintensity volume were not available for replication. All outcomes were transformed into z scores and all models were adjusted for the happiness PGS, age, sex, PGCs 1–8, and MRI site. For models that included participants from different ancestries, a factor variable for ancestry was included (Table S7 ). Models were weighted to match the American community survey (ACS) data by the weighting variable “acs raked propensity score”. Relationship filtering was also performed removing one individual at random from any pair of participants with valid phenotypes, who were determined to be related by ABCD.

Add health cohort description

Add Health is a nationally representative cohort study of more than 20,000 adolescents from the USA who were aged 12–19 years at baseline assessment in 1994–95. They have been followed through adolescence and into adulthood with five in-home interviews in five waves (I–V) conducted in 1995, 1996, 2001–2002, 2008–2009 and 2016–2018. In this analysis, participants ranged from 24.3 to 34.7 years old, 53% were female and 62% were non-Hispanic white. The study was approved by the University of California San Diego Institutional Review Board (IRB #190002XX). Informed consent was obtained from all subjects.

Add health genotyping

Saliva samples were obtained as part of the Wave IV data collection. Two Illumina arrays were used for genotyping, with approximately 80% of the sample genotyped with the Illumina Omni1-Quad BeadChip and the remainder of the group genotyped with the Illumina Omni2.5-Quad BeadChip. After quality control, genotyped data were available for 9974 individuals (7917 from the Omni1 chip and 2057 from the Omni2 chip) on 609,130 SNPs present on both genotyping arrays 20 . Imputation was performed separately for European ancestry (imputed using the HRC reference panel) and non-European ancestry samples (imputed using the 1000 Genomes Phase 3 reference panel) 21 . For more information on the genotyping and quality control procedures see the Add Health GWAS QC report online at: https://addhealth.cpc.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/docs/user_guides/AH_GWAS_QC.pdf .

Add Health Genetic Principal components (variable name pspcN, where N is the number of the PC) were derived centrally by Add Health. To prevent identification of individuals they are randomly reordered in sets of 5, i.e. PCs 1–5 were reordered so PC1 was may not be the PC with the largest variance. We adjusted models for the first 2 sets of PCs i.e. GPCs 1–10.

Add health phenotyping and exclusion criteria

The outcome happiness variable was collected during the at-home interview of Wave IV and was derived from the response to the question: “How often was the following true during the past seven days? You felt happy.” Responses were given as: “never or rarely”; “sometimes”; “a lot of the time”; “most of the time or all of the time”; “refused”; “don't know”. Those who responded with the latter two options were excluded. Remaining categories were coded from “never” = 0 to “all of the time” = 3.

Ancestry in Add Health is defined in the ‘psancest’ variable as European, African, Hispanic and East Asian (Table S8 ). Additionally, Add Health provides a weighting variable to make the results reflective of the US population. In these analyses the models were weighted by the Wave IV variable ‘gswgt4_2’.

UK Biobank cohort description

UK Biobank is a cohort of over half a million UK residents, aged from approximately 40–70 years at baseline. It was created to study environmental, lifestyle and genetic factors in middle and older age 22 . Baseline assessments occurred over a 4-year period, from 2006 to 2010, across 22 UK centres. These assessments were comprehensive and included social, cognitive, lifestyle and physical health measures.

UK Biobank obtained informed consent from all participants, and this study was conducted under generic approval from the NHS National Research Ethics Service (approval letter dated 29 June 2021, Ref 21/NW/0157) and under UK Biobank approvals for application #71392 ‘Investigating complex relationships between genetics, exposures, biomarkers, endophenotypes and cardiometabolic, inflammatory, immune and brain-related health outcomes’ (PI Rona Strawbridge; GWAS)#17689 (PI Donald Lyall; imaging).

UK Biobank genotyping

In March 2018, UK Biobank released genetic data for 487,409 individuals, genotyped using the Affymetrix UK BiLEVE Axiom or the Affymetrix UK Biobank Axiom arrays (Santa Clara, CA, USA) containing over 95% common content. Pre-imputation quality control, imputation and post-imputation cleaning were conducted centrally by UK Biobank (described in the UK Biobank release documentation) 23 .

UK Biobank phenotyping and exclusion criteria

Uk biobank mri brain scans.

Several structural and functional brain MRI measures are available in UK Biobank as imaging derived phenotypes (IDPs) 24 . The brain imaging data, as of January 2021, were used (N = 47,920). Participants were excluded if they had responded to either of the happiness questions used for the GWAS meta-analysis, were missing more than 10% of their genetic data, if their self-reported sex did not match their genetic sex, if they were determined by UK Biobank to be heterozygosity outliers, and if they were not of white British ancestry (classified by UK Biobank based on self-report and genetic principal components) 23 .

Brain imaging data used here were processed and quality-checked by UK Biobank and we made use of the IDPs 25 , 26 . Details of the UK Biobank imaging acquisition and processing, including structural segmentation and white matter diffusion processing, are freely available from three sources: the UK Biobank protocol: http://biobank.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/crystal/refer.cgi?id=2367 and documentation: http://biobank.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/crystal/refer.cgi?id=1977 and in protocol publications ( https://biobank.ctsu.ox.ac.uk/crystal/docs/brain_mri.pdf ).

We investigated key imaging substrates previously associated with psychological health e.g., mood disorder, cognitive health. Total white matter hyperintensity volumes were calculated on the basis of T1 and T2 fluid-attenuated inversion recovery, derived by UK Biobank. White matter hyperintensity volumes were log-transformed due to a positively skewed distribution. We constructed general factors of white matter tract integrity using principal component analysis. The two separate unrotated factors used were fractional anisotropy (FA), gFA, and mean diffusivity (MD), gMD, previously shown to explain 54% and 58% of variance, respectively 27 . We constructed a general factor of frontal lobe grey matter volume using 16 subregional volumes as per Ferguson et al. 27 . Total grey matter and white matter volumes were corrected for skull size (by UK Biobank). Models were adjusted for the happiness PGS, age, sex, PGCs 1–8.

LDpred genetic score generation

LDpred 28 established the LD structure of the genome using a reference panel of 1000 unrelated white British UK Biobank participants (the PGS training set). These participants had not been used in the discovery GWAS or have valid MRI data and passed the same QC as described above. SNPs were excluded if they had MAF < 0.01, had HWE P < 1 × 10 –6 or had imputation score < 0.8. Scores were then created in the validation set using an infinitesimal model. Models using polygenic scores (PGS) derived using LDpred were adjusted for age, sex, genotyping array and the first eight GPCs.

ABCD and Add Health

Due to the lower cohort size of ABCD and Add Health, it would not have been possible to remove 1000 participants from the analyses to use as a training set without markedly reducing the power of the analyses. Therefore, we used the same 1000 unrelated UK Biobank participants as the training set to establish LD and this was used to generate the PGS for the participants in these datasets 29 . The only additional step was to find the SNPs that were found in both the training (UK Biobank) and validation (ABCD and Add Health) datasets and passed the same SNP filtering criteria in both datasets, with an additional filter that MAF threshold was set at > 0.01 30 . The number of SNPs in each LDpred PGS can be found in supplementary table ( S9 ).

For each pair of related individuals (as determined by ABCD using variables genetic paired subjected 1–4) one participant was excluded at random. Models were adjusted for age at interview, sex and the first 10 GPCs. For multi-ancestry models, ancestry was treated as a factor variable.

p values for analyses were false discovery rate (FDR)-adjusted 31 .

Data availability

The phenotype and genotype data used for these analyses are available from their respective websites: UK Biobank: https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/enable-your-research/apply-for-access ; Add Health: https://addhealth.cpc.unc.edu/data/ ; ABCD: https://nda.nih.gov/abcd/request-access.html ; GWAS summary statistics were obtained via email from the GWAS author.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Professor Barrtels for sharing the GWAS summary statistics with us.

UK Biobank was established by the Wellcome Trust medical charity, Medical Research Council, Department of Health, Scottish Government and the Northwest Regional Development Agency. It has also had funding from the Welsh Assembly Government and the British Heart Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection or management, analyses or interpretation of the data, nor preparation, review or approval of the manuscript. JW is funded by the Aitchison Family bequest. CLN acknowledges funding from the Medical Research Council (MR/R024774/1) and a Lord Kelvin/Adam Smith Fellowship. LML is supported by a Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh JMAS Sim Fellowship and a Lord Kelvin/Adam Smith Fellowship. RJS is supported by a University of Glasgow LKAS fellowship and a UKRI Innovation-HDR-UK Fellowship (MR/S003061/1).

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These authors contributed equally: Donald M. Lyall and Jill P. Pell.

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School of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow, 1 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow, G12 8RZ, UK

Joey Ward, Laura M. Lyall, Breda Cullen, Rona J. Strawbridge, Xingxing Zhu, Ioana Stanciu, Alisha Aman, Claire L. Niedzwiedz, Jana Anderson, Donald M. Lyall & Jill P. Pell

Cardiovascular Medicine Unit, Department of Medicine Solna, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

Rona J. Strawbridge

Health Data Research UK, Glasgow, UK

School of Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, UK

Mark E. S. Bailey

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Concept and design: J.W. Acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data: J.W., D.L. (imaging), J.P. Drafting of the manuscript: J.W. Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: all co-authors. Statistical analysis: J.W., D.L. Administrative, technical, or material support: all co-authors.

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Ward, J., Lyall, L.M., Cullen, B. et al. Consistent effects of the genetics of happiness across the lifespan and ancestries in multiple cohorts. Sci Rep 13 , 17262 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-43193-9

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

The art of happiness: an explorative study of a contemplative program for subjective well-being.

• 1 Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
• 2 Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
• 3 Institute Lama Tzong Khapa, Pisa, Italy

In recent decades, psychological research on the effects of mindfulness-based interventions has greatly developed and demonstrated a range of beneficial outcomes in a variety of populations and contexts. Yet, the question of how to foster subjective well-being and happiness remains open. Here, we assessed the effectiveness of an integrated mental training program The Art of Happiness on psychological well-being in a general population. The mental training program was designed to help practitioners develop new ways to nurture their own happiness. This was achieved by seven modules aimed at cultivating positive cognition strategies and behaviors using both formal (i.e., lectures, meditations) and informal practices (i.e., open discussions). The program was conducted over a period of 9 months, also comprising two retreats, one in the middle and one at the end of the course. By using a set of established psychometric tools, we assessed the effects of such a mental training program on several psychological well-being dimensions, taking into account both the longitudinal effects of the course and the short-term effects arising from the intensive retreat experiences. The results showed that several psychological well-being measures gradually increased within participants from the beginning to the end of the course. This was especially true for life satisfaction, self-awareness, and emotional regulation, highlighting both short-term and longitudinal effects of the program. In conclusion, these findings suggest the potential of the mental training program, such as The Art of Happiness , for psychological well-being.

Introduction

People desire many valuable things in their life, but—more than anything else—they want happiness ( Diener, 2000 ). The sense of happiness has been conceptualized as people's experienced well-being in both thoughts and feelings ( Diener, 2000 ; Kahneman and Krueger, 2006 ). Indeed, research on well-being suggests that the resources valued by society, such as mental health ( Koivumaa-Honkanen et al., 2004 ) and a long life ( Danner et al., 2001 ), associate with high happiness levels. Since the earliest studies, subjective well-being has been defined as the way in which individuals experience the quality of their life in three different but interrelated mental aspects: infrequent negative affect, frequent positive affect, and cognitive evaluations of life satisfaction in various domains (physical health, relationships, and work) ( Diener, 1984 , 1994 , 2000 ; Argyle et al., 1999 ; Diener et al., 1999 ; Lyubomksky et al., 2005 ; Pressman and Cohen, 2005 ). A growing body of research has been carried out aimed at identifying the factors that affect happiness, operationalized as subjective well-being. In particular, the construct of happiness is mainly studied within the research fields of positive psychology or contemplative practices, which are grounded in ancient wisdom traditions. Positive psychology has been defined as the “the scientific study of human strengths and virtues” ( Sheldon and King, 2001 ), and it can be traced back to the reflections of Aristotle about different perspectives on well-being ( Ryan and Deci, 2001 ). On the other end, contemplative practices include a great variety of mental exercises, such as mindfulness, which has been conceived as a form of awareness that emerges from experiencing the present moment without judging those experiences ( Kabat-Zinn, 2003 ; Bishop et al., 2004 ). Most of these exercises stem from different Buddhist contemplative traditions such as Vipassana and Mahayana ( Kornfield, 2012 ). Notably, both perspective share the idea of overcoming suffering and achieving happiness ( Seligman, 2002 ). Particularly, Buddhism supports “the cultivation of happiness, genuine inner transformation, deliberately selecting and focusing on positive mental states” ( Lama and Cutler, 2008 ). In addition, mindfulness has been shown to be positively related to happiness ( Shultz and Ryan, 2015 ), contributing to eudemonic and hedonic well-being ( Howell et al., 2011 ).

In fact, although the definition of happiness has a long history and goes back to philosophical arguments and the search for practical wisdom, in modern times, happiness has been equated with hedonism. It relies on the achievement of immediate pleasure, on the absence of negative affect, and on a high degree of satisfaction with one's life ( Argyle et al., 1999 ). Nonetheless, scholars now argue that authentic subjective well-being goes beyond this limited view and support an interpretation of happiness as a eudemonic endeavor ( Ryff, 1989 ; Keyes, 2006 ; Seligman, 2011 ; Hone et al., 2014 ). Within this view, individuals seem to focus more on optimal psychological functioning, living a deeply satisfying life and actualizing their own potential, personal growth, and a sense of autonomy ( Deci and Ryan, 2008 ; Ryff, 2013 ; Vazquez and Hervas, 2013 ; Ivtzan et al., 2016 ). In psychology, such a view finds one of its primary supports in Maslow's (1981) theory of human motivation. Maslow argued that experience of a higher degree of satisfaction derives from a more wholesome life conduct. In Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, once lower and more localized needs are satisfied, the unlimited gratification of needs at the highest level brings people to a full and deep experience of happiness ( Inglehart et al., 2008 ). Consequently, today, several scholars argue that high levels of subjective well-being depend on a multi-dimensional perspective, which encompasses both hedonic and eudemonic components ( Huta and Ryan, 2010 ; Ryff and Boylan, 2016 ). Under a wider perspective, the process of developing well-being reflects the notion that mental health and good functioning are more than a lack of illness ( Keyes, 2005 ). This approach is especially evident if we consider that even the definition of mental health has been re-defined by the World Health Organization (1948) , which conceives health not merely as the absence of illness, but as a whole state of biological, psychological, and social well-being.

To date, evidence exists suggesting that happiness is, in some extent, modulable and trainable. Thus, simple cognitive and behavioral strategies that individuals choose in their lives could enhance happiness ( Lyubomirsky et al., 2005 ; Sin and Lyubomirsky, 2009 ). In the history of psychology, a multitude of clinical treatments have been applied to minimize the symptoms of a variety of conditions that might hamper people from being happy, such as anger, anxiety, and depression (for instance, see Forman et al., 2007 ; Spinhoven et al., 2017 ). In parallel with this view, an alternative—and less developed—perspective found in psychology focuses on the scientific study of individual experiences and positive traits, not for clinical ends, but instead for personal well-being and flourishing (e.g., Fredrickson and Losada, 2005 ; Sin and Lyubomirsky, 2009 ). Yet, the question of exactly how to foster subjective well-being and happiness, given its complexity and importance, remains open to research. Answering this question is of course of pivotal importance, both individually and at the societal level. Positive Psychology Interventions encompass simple, self-administered cognitive behavioral strategies intended to reflect the beliefs and behaviors of individuals and, in response to that, to increase the happiness of the people practicing them ( Sin and Lyubomirsky, 2009 ; Hone et al., 2015 ). Specifically, a series of comprehensive psychological programs to boost happiness exist, such as Fordyce's program ( Fordyce, 1977 ), Well-Being Therapy ( Fava, 1999 ), and Quality of Life Therapy ( Frisch, 2006 ). Similarly, a variety of meditation-based programs aim to develop mindfulness and emotional regulatory skills ( Carmody and Baer, 2008 ; Fredrickson et al., 2008 ; Weytens et al., 2014 ), such as Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR; Kabat-Zinn, 1990 ) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT; Teasdale et al., 2000 ). Far from being a mere trend ( De Pisapia and Grecucci, 2017 ), those mindfulness-based interventions have been shown to lead to increased well-being ( Baer et al., 2006 ; Keng et al., 2011 ; Choi et al., 2012 ; Coo and Salanova, 2018 ; Lambert et al., 2019 ) in several domains, such as cognition, consciousness, self, and affective processing ( Raffone and Srinivasan, 2017 ). Typically, mindfulness programs consist of informal and formal practice that educate attention and develop one's capacity to respond to unpredicted and/or negative thoughts and experiences ( Segal and Teasdale, 2002 ). In this context, individuals are gradually introduced to meditation practices, focusing first on the body and their own breath, and later on thoughts and mental states. The effects of these programs encompass positive emotions and reappraisal ( Fredrickson et al., 2008 ; Grecucci et al., 2015 ; Calabrese and Raffone, 2017 ) and satisfaction in life ( Fredrickson et al., 2008 ; Kong et al., 2014 ) and are related to a reduction of emotional reactivity to negative affect, stress ( Arch and Craske, 2006 ; Jha et al., 2017 ), and aggressive behavior ( Fix and Fix, 2013 ). All these effects mediate the relationship between meditation frequency and happiness ( Campos et al., 2016 ). This allows positive psychology interventions to improve subjective well-being and happiness and also reduce depressive symptoms and negative affect along with other psychopathologies ( Seligman, 2002 ; Quoidbach et al., 2015 ). Engaging in mindfulness might enhance in participants the awareness of what is valuable to them ( Shultz and Ryan, 2015 ). This aspect has been related to the growth of self-efficacy and autonomous functioning and is attributable to an enhancement in eudemonic well-being ( Deci and Ryan, 1980 ). Moreover, being aware of the present moment provides a clearer vision of the existing experience, which in turn has been associated with increases in hedonic well-being ( Coo and Salanova, 2018 ). Following these approaches, recent research provides evidence that trainings that encompass both hedonic and eudemonic well-being are correlated with tangible improved health outcomes ( Sin and Lyubomirsky, 2009 ).

Although there is a consistent interest in scientific research on the general topic of happiness, such studies present several limitations. Firstly, most of the research has focused on clinical studies to assess the effectiveness of happiness-based interventions—in line with more traditional psychological research, which is primarily concerned with the study of mental disorders ( Garland et al., 2015 , 2017 ; Groves, 2016 ). Secondly, most of the existing interventions are narrowly focused on the observation of single dimensions (i.e., expressing gratitude or developing emotional regulation skills) ( Boehm et al., 2011 ; Weytens et al., 2014 ). Moreover, typically studies involve brief 1- to 2-week interventions ( Gander et al., 2016 ), in contrast with the view that eudemonia is related to deep and long-lasting aspects of one's personal lifestyle. Furthermore, while the effectiveness of mindfulness-based therapies is well-documented, research that investigates the effects of mindfulness retreats has been lacking, which are characterized by the involvement of more intense practice from days to even years [for meta-analysis and review, see Khoury et al. (2017) , McClintock et al. (2019) , Howarth et al. (2019) ].

In this article, we report the effects on subjective well-being of an integrated mental training program called The Art of Happiness , which was developed and taught by two of the authors (CM for the core course subject matter and NDP for the scientific presentations). The course lasted 9 months and included three different modules (see Methods and Supplementary Material for all details), namely, seven weekends (from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) dedicated to a wide range of specific topics, two 5-day long retreats, and several free activities at home during the entire period. The course was designed to help practitioners develop new ways to nurture their own happiness, cultivating both self-awareness and their openness to others, thereby fostering their own emotional and social well-being. The basic idea was to let students discover how the union of ancient wisdom and spiritual practices with scientific discoveries from current neuropsychological research can be applied beneficially to their daily lives. This approach and mental training program was inspired by a book of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso and the psychiatrist Lama and Cutler (2008) . The program rests on the principle that happiness is inextricably linked to the development of inner equilibrium, a kinder and more open perspective of self, others, and the world, with a key role given to several types of meditation practices. Additionally, happiness is viewed as linked to a conceptual understanding of the human mind and brain, as well as their limitations and potentiality, in the light of the most recent scientific discoveries. To this end, several scientific topics and discoveries from neuropsychology were addressed in the program, with a particular focus on cognitive, affective, and social neuroscience. Topics were taught and discussed with language suitable for the general public, in line with several recent books (e.g., Hanson and Mendius, 2011 ; Dorjee, 2013 ; Goleman and Davidson, 2017 ). The aim of this study was to examine how several psychological measures, related to psychological well-being, changed among participants in parallel with course attendance and meditation practices. Given the abovementioned results of the positive effects on well-being ( Baer et al., 2006 ; Fredrickson et al., 2008 ; Keng et al., 2011 ; Choi et al., 2012 ; Kong et al., 2014 ; Coo and Salanova, 2018 ; Lambert et al., 2019 ), we predicted to find a significant increase in the dimensions of life satisfaction, control of anger, and mindfulness abilities. Conversely, we expected to observe a reduction of negative emotions and mental states ( Arch and Craske, 2006 ; Fix and Fix, 2013 ; Jha et al., 2017 )—i.e., stress, anxiety and anger. Moreover, our aim was to explore how those measures changed during the course of the mental training program, considering not only the general effects of the course (longitudinal effects) but also specific effects within each retreat (short-term effects). Our expectation for this study was therefore that the retreats would have had an effect on the psychological dimensions of well-being linked to the emotional states of our participants, while the whole course would have had a greater effect on the traits related to well-being. The conceptual distinction between states and traits was initially introduced in regard to anxiety by Cattell and Scheier (1961) , and then subsequently further elaborated by Spielberger et al. (1983) . When considering a mental construct (e.g., anxiety or anger), we refer to trait as a relatively stable feature, a general behavioral attitude, which reflects the way in which a person tends to perceive stimuli and environmental situations in the long term ( Spielberger et al., 1983 ; Spielberger, 2010 ). For example, subjects with high trait anxiety have indeed anxiety as a habitual way of responding to stimuli and situations. The state, on the other hand, can be defined as a temporary phase within the emotional continuum, which, for example, in anxiety is expressed through a subjective sensation of tension, apprehension, and nervousness, and is associated with activation of the autonomic nervous system in the short term ( Spielberger et al., 1983 ; Saviola et al., 2020 ). Here, in the adopted tests and analyses, we keep the two time scales separated, and we investigate the results with the aim of understanding the effects of the program on states and traits of different emotional and well-being measures. As a first effect of the course, we expect that the retreats affect mostly psychological states (as measured in the comparison of psychological variables between start and end of each retreat), whereas the full course is predicted to affect mainly psychological traits (as measured in the comparison of the psychological variables between start, middle, and end of the entire 9-month period).

Materials and Methods

Participants.

The participants in the mental training program and in the related research were recruited from the Institute Lama Tzong Khapa (Pomaia, Italy) in a 9-month longitudinal study (seven modules and two retreats) on the effects of a program called The Art of Happiness (see Supplementary Material for full details of the program). Twenty-nine participants followed the entire program (there were nine dropouts after the first module). Their mean age was 52.86 years (range = 39–66; SD = 7.61); 72% were female. Participants described themselves as Caucasian, reaching a medium-high scholarly level with 59% of the participants holding an academic degree and 41% holding a high school degree. The participants were not randomly selected, as they were volunteers in the program. Most of them had no serious prior experience of meditation, only basic experience consisting of personal readings or watching video courses on the web, which overall we considered of no impact to the study. The only exclusion criteria were absence of a history of psychiatric or neurological disease, and not being currently on psychoactive medications. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Sapienza University of Rome, and all participants gave written informed consent. The participants did not receive any compensation for participation in the study.

The overall effectiveness of the 9-month training was examined using a within-subjects design, with perceived stress, mindfulness abilities, etc. (Time: pre–mid–end) as the dependent variable. The effectiveness of the retreats was examined using a 2 × 2 factor within-subjects design (condition: pre vs. post; retreat: 1 vs. 2), with the same dependent variables. The specific contemplative techniques that were applied in the program are described in the Supplementary Material , the procedure is described in the Procedure section, and the measurements are described in the Materials section.

Mental Training Program

The program was developed and offered at the Institute Lama Tzong Khapa (Pomaia, Italy). It was one of several courses that are part of the Institute's ongoing programs under the umbrella of “Secular Ethics and Universal Values.” These various programs provide participants with opportunities to discover how the interaction of ancient wisdom and spiritual practices with contemporary knowledge from current scientific research in neuropsychology can be applied extensively and beneficially to improve the quality of their daily lives.

Specifically, The Art of Happiness was a 9-month program, with one program activity each month, either a weekend module or a retreat; there were two retreats—a mid-course retreat and a concluding retreat (for full details on the program, see Supplementary Material ). Each thematic module provided an opportunity to sequentially explore the topics presented in the core course text, The Art of Happiness by the Lama and Cutler (2008) .

In terms of the content of this program, as mentioned above, the material presented and explored has been drawn on the one hand from the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism and Western contemplative traditions, and current scientific research found in neuropsychology on the other hand. On the scientific side, topics included the effects of mental training and meditation, the psychology and neuroscience of well-being and happiness, neuroplasticity, mind–brain–body interactions, different areas of contemplative sciences, the placebo effects, the brain circuits of attention and mind wandering, stress and anxiety, pain and pleasure, positive and negative emotions, desire and addiction, the sense of self, empathy, and compassion (for a full list of the scientific topics, see Supplementary Material ).

The overall approach of the course was one of non-dogmatic exploration. Topics were presented not as undisputed truths, but instead as information to be shared, explored, examined, and possibly verified by one's own experience. Participants were heartily invited to doubt, explore, and test everything that was shared with them, to examine and experience firsthand whether what was being offered has validity or not.

The course was, essentially, an informed and gentle training of the mind, and in particular of emotions, based on the principle that individual well-being is inextricably linked to the development of inner human virtues and strengths, such as emotional balance, inner self-awareness, an open and caring attitude toward self and others, and clarity of mind that can foster a deeper understanding of one's own and others' reality.

The program provided lectures and discussions, readings, and expert videos introducing the material pertinent to each module's topic. Participants engaged with the material through listening, reading, discussing, and questioning. Participants were provided with additional learning opportunities to investigate each topic more deeply, critically, and personally, through the media of meditation, journaling, application to daily life, exercises at home, and contemplative group work with other participants in dyads and triads. Participants were then encouraged to reflect repeatedly on their insights and on their experiences, both successful and not, to apply their newly acquired understandings to their lives, by incorporating a daily reflection practice into their life schedule. The two program retreats also provided intensive contemplative experiences and activities, both individual and in dialogue with others.

On this basis, month after month in different dedicated modules, participants learned new ways to nurture their own happiness, to cultivate their openness to others, to develop their own emotional and social well-being, and to understand some of the scientific discoveries on these topics.

The specific topics addressed in corresponding modules and retreats, each in a different and consecutive month, were as follows: (1) The Purpose of Life: Authentic Happiness; (2) Empathy and Compassion; (3) Transforming Life's Suffering; (4) Working with Disturbing Emotions I: Hate and Anger; first retreat (intermediate); (5) Working with Disturbing Emotions II: The Self Image; (6) Life and Death; (7) Cultivating the Spiritual Dimension of Life: A Meaningful Life; second retreat (final). Full details of the entire program are reported in the Supplementary Material .

Participants were guided in the theory and practice of various contemplative exercises throughout the course pertaining to all the different themes. Recorded versions of all the various meditation exercises were made available to participants, enabling them to repeat these practices at home at their own pace.

Participants were encouraged to enter the program already having gained some basic experience of meditation, but this was not a strict requirement. In fact, not all participants in this experiment actually fulfilled this (only five), although each of the other participants had previous basic experiences of meditation (through personal readings, other video courses, etc.). In spite of this variety, by the end of the 9-month program, all participants were comfortable with contemplative practices in general and more specifically with the idea of maintaining a meditation practice in their daily lives.

During the various Art of Happiness modules, a variety of basic attentional and mindful awareness meditations were practiced in order to enhance attentional skills and cultivate various levels of cognitive, emotional, social, and environmental awareness.

Analytical and reflective contemplations are a form of deconstructive meditation ( Dahl et al., 2015 ), which were applied during the course in different contexts. On the one hand, these types of meditations were applied in the context of heart-opening practices—for example, in the cultivation of gratitude, forgiveness, loving-kindness toward self and others, self-compassion, and compassion for others. Analytical and reflective meditations were also practiced as a learning tool for further familiarization with some of the more philosophical subject matter of the course—engaging in a contemplative analysis of impermanence (for example, contemplating more deeply and personally the transitory nature of one's own body, of one's own emotions and thoughts, as well as of the material phenomena that surround us). These analytical meditations were also accompanied by moments of concentration (sustained attention) at the conclusion of each meditation focusing on what the meditator has learned or understood in the meditative process, in order to stabilize and reinforce those insights more deeply within the individual.

Additional contemplative activities were also included in the program: contemplative art activities, mindful listening, mindful dialogue, and the practice of keeping silence during the retreat. Participants were, in addition, encouraged to keep a journal of their experiences during their Art of Happiness journey, especially in relation to their meditations and the insights and questions that emerged within themselves, in order to enhance their self-awareness and cultivate a deeper understanding of themselves, their inner life and well-being, and their own inner development during the course and afterward.

During the two retreats, the previous topics were explored again (modules 1–4 for the intermediary retreat and modules 5–7 for the final retreat), but without discussing the theoretical aspects (i.e., the neuroscientific and psychological theories), instead only focusing on the contemplative practices, which were practiced extensively for the whole day, both individually and in group activities (for a full list of the contemplative practices and retreat activities, see Supplementary Material ).

We collected data at five-time points, always during the first day (either of the module or the retreat): at baseline (month 1 - T0), at pre (T1) and post (P1) of the mid-course retreat (month 5–Retreat 1), and at pre (T2) and post (R2) of the final retreat (month 9–Retreat 2), as shown in Figure 1 . Participants filled out the questionnaires on paper all together within the rooms of the Institute Lama Tzong Khapa at the beginning of each module or retreat, and at the end of the retreats, with the presence of two researchers. The order of the questionnaires was randomized, per person and each questionnaire session lasted less than an hour.

Figure 1 . The timing of the course and the experimental procedure, including the modules, the retreats, and the 5 data collections (from T0 to P2).

The adopted questionnaires were those commonly used in the literature to measure a variety of traits and states linked to well-being. An exhaustive description of the self-reported measures follows below.

Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS)

The SWLS ( Diener et al., 1985 ) was developed to represent cognitive judgments of life satisfaction. Participants indicated their agreement in five items with a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Scores range from 5 to 35, with higher scores representing higher levels of satisfaction. Internal consistency is very good with Cronbach's α = 0.85 [Italian version of the normative data in Di Fabio and Palazzeschi (2012) ].

Short Version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10)

The PSS ( Cohen et al., 1983 ) was designed to assess individual perception and reaction to stressful daily-life situations. The questionnaire consists of 10 questions related to the feelings and thoughts of the last month, with a value ranging from 0 (never) to 4 (very often) depending on the severity of the disturbance caused. Scores range from 0 to 40. Higher scores represent higher levels of perceived stress, reflecting the degree to which respondents find their lives unpredictable or overloaded. Cronbach's α ranges from 0.78 to 0.93 [Italian version of the normative data by Mondo et al. (2019) ].

State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI)

The STAI ( Spielberger et al., 1983 ) was developed to assess anxiety. It has 40 items, on which respondents evaluate themselves in terms of frequency with a four-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (almost never) to 4 (almost always). The items are grouped in two independent subscales of 20 items each that assess state anxiety, with questions regarding the respondents' feelings at the time of administration, and trait anxiety, with questions that explore how the participant feels habitually. The scores range from 20 to 80. Higher scores reflect higher levels of anxiety. Internal consistency coefficients for the scale ranged from 0.86 to 0.95 [Italian version of the normative data by Spielberger et al. (2012) ].

Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS)

PANAS ( Watson et al., 1988 ) measures two distinct and independent dimensions: positive and negative affect. The questionnaire consists of 20 adjectives, 10 for the positive affect subscale and 10 for the negative affect scale. The positive affect subscale reflects the degree to which a person feels enthusiastic, active, and determined while the negative affect subscale refers to some unpleasant general states such as anger, guilt, and fear. The test presents a five-point Likert scale (1 = very slightly or not at all; 5 = extremely). The alpha reliabilities are acceptably high, ranging from 0.86 to 0.90 for positive affect and from 0.84 to 0.87 for negative affect [Italian version of the normative data by Terracciano et al. (2003) ].

Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ)

The FFMQ ( Baer et al., 2008 ) was developed to assess mindfulness facets through 39 items rated on a five-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (never or very rarely true) to 5 (very often or always true). A total of five subscales are included: attention and observation of one's own thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and emotions ( Observe ); the ability to describe thoughts in words, feelings, perceptions, and emotions ( Describe ); act with awareness, with attention focused and sustained on a task or situation, without mind wandering ( Act-aware ); non-judgmental attitude toward the inner experience ( Non-Judge ); and the tendency to not react and not to reject inner experience ( Non-React ). Normative data of the FFMQ have demonstrated good internal consistency, with Cronbach's α ranging from 0.79 to 0.87 [Italian version by Giovannini et al. (2014) ].

State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory-2 (STAXI-2)

The STAXI-2 ( Spielberger, 1999 ) provides measures to assess the experience, expression, and control of anger. It comprises 57 items rated on a four-point Likert scale, ranging from 0 (not at all) to 3 (very much indeed). Items are grouped by four scales: the first, State Anger scale, refers to the emotional state characterized by subjective feelings and relies on three more subscales: Angry Feelings, Physical Expression of Anger, and Verbal Expression of Anger. The second scale is the Trait Anger and indicates a disposition to perceive various situations as annoying or frustrating with two subscales—Angry Temperament and Angry Reaction. The third and last scales are Anger Expression and Anger Control. These assess anger toward the environment and oneself according to four relatively independent subscales: Anger Expression-OUT, Anger Expression-IN, Anger Control-OUT, and Anger Control-IN. Alpha coefficients STAXI-2 were above 0.84 for all scales and subscales, except for Trait Anger Reaction, which had an alpha coefficient of 0.76 [Italian version by Spielberger (2004) ].

Statistical Analysis

The responses on each questionnaire were scored according to their protocols, which resulted in one score per participant and a time point for each of the 22 scale/subscale questionnaires examined. Missing values (<2%) were imputed using the median. Descriptive statistics for all variables were analyzed and are summarized in Table 1 and in the first panel (column) of Figures 2 – 5 . Prior to conducting primary analyses, the distribution of scores on all the dependent variables was evaluated. Because the data were not normally distributed, we used non-parametric tests. Permutation tests are non-parametric tests as they do not rely on assumptions about the distribution of the data and can be used with different types of scales and with a small sample size.

Table 1 . Descriptive statistics of the depended variables among time points.

Figure 2 . Results of the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), State and Trait Anxiety Index (STAI), and Positive and Negative Affect Scales (PANAS). The first (left) panel depicts pooled mean raw data per time point estimating 95% confidence interval. The second (central) panel represents changes in pooled mean ( y -axis) between retreats. The solid line represents retreat 1 and the dotted line denotes retreat 2 derived from the contrasts of the two-way ANOVA. The third (right) panel depicts bar charts representing the changes in mean between the 3 time points derived from the one-way ANOVA. Note that scores are on the y -axis and time is on the x -axis. Time points legend: baseline (month 1—T0), pre (T1), post (P1), mid-course retreat (month 5—retreat 1), pre (T2), and post (R2) of the final retreat (month 9—retreat 2). Statistical significance, * p < 0.05.

Figure 3 . Results for the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire FFMQ (Observe, Describe, Act with Awareness, Non-judge, and Non-react). The first (left) panel depicts pooled mean raw data per time point estimating 95% confidence interval. The second (central) panel represents changes in pooled mean ( y -axis) between retreats. The solid line represents retreat 1 and the dotted line denotes retreat 2 derived from the contrasts of the two-way ANOVA. The third (right) panel depicts bar charts representing the changes in mean between the 3 time points derived from one-way ANOVA. Note that scores are on the y -axis and time id on the x -axis. Time points legend: baseline (month 1—T0), pre (T1), post (P1), mid-course retreat (month 5—retreat 1), pre (T2), and post (P2) of the final retreat (month 9—retreat 2). Statistical significance, * p < 0.05.

Figure 4 . Results of the first part of the State Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI-2): State Anger, State Anger Feelings, State Anger Physical, State Anger Verbal, Trait Anger, and Trait Anger Temperament. The first (left) panel depicts pooled mean raw data per time point estimating 95% confidence interval. The second (central) panel represents changes in pooled mean ( y -axis) between retreats. The solid line represents retreat 1 and the dotted line denotes retreat 2 derived from the contrasts of the two-way ANOVA. The third (right) panel depicts bar charts representing the changes in mean between the 3 time points derived from one-way ANOVA. Note that scores are on the y -axis and time is on the x -axis. Time points legend: baseline (month 1—T0), pre (T1), post (P1), mid-course retreat (month 5—retreat 1), pre (T2), and post (R2) of the final retreat (month 9—retreat 2). Statistical significance, ** p < 0.01 and * p < 0.05.

Figure 5 . Results from the second part of the State Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI-2): Trait Anger Reaction, Anger Expression-IN, Anger Expression-OUT, Anger Control-IN, and Anger Control OUT. The first (left) panel depicts pooled mean raw data per time point estimating 95% confidence interval. The second (central) panel represents changes in pooled mean ( y -axis) between retreats. The solid line represents retreat 1 and the dotted line denotes retreat 2 derived from the contrasts of the two-way ANOVA. The third (right) panel depicts bar charts representing the changes in mean between the 3 time points derived from one-way ANOVA. Note that scores are on the y -axis and time is on the x -axis. Time points legend: baseline (month 1—T0), pre (T1), post (P1), mid-course retreat (month 5—Retreat 1), pre (T2), and post (R2) of the final retreat (month 9—Retreat 2). Statistical significance, * p < 0.05.

The longitudinal effects of the program were analyzed to determine whether scores changed between the start, mid-point (5 months), and the end (9 months) of the course. To achieve this, we compared the main effect of the program on the score , considering Time as a unique factor with three levels: at the baseline (T0), at the pre of the mid-retreat (T1), and at the pre of the final retreat (T2). Here, we used a one-way permutation Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance (RM ANOVA) with the aovperm() function from the Permuco package v. 1.0.2 in R ( Frossard and Renaud, 2018 ), which implements a method from Kherad-Pajouh and Renaud (2014) . The difference between the traditional and the permutation ANOVA is that, while the traditional ANOVA tests the equality of the group mean, the permutation version tests the exchangeability of the group observations. In this study, the number of permutations was set to 100,000 and the alpha level was set to 0.05; therefore, the p -value was computed as the ratio between the number of permutation tests that have an F value higher than the critical F value and the number of permutations performed. Effect size estimates were calculated using partial eta squared. Post hoc testing used pairwise permutational t -tests with the “pairwise.perm.t.test” function from the “RVAideMemoire” package in R ( Hervé and Hervé, 2020 ). To account for Type I errors introduced by multiple pairwise tests and Type II errors introduced by small sample size, we applied the false discovery rate (FDR) correction method of Benjamini and Hochberg (1995) and set statistical significance at p = 0.05. Results are summarized in Table 2 and in the third panel (column) of Figures 2 – 5 .

Table 2 . One-way ANOVA and pairwise comparison results with 100,000 permutations.

The short-term effects of the contemplative program on each retreat were analyzed to determine whether scores changed post-retreats and whether these changes occurred in both retreats. Thus, we used a two-way permutation RM ANOVA, with the score of each scale/subscale as the dependent variable and the within-subject factors Retreat (1, 2) and Condition (Pre T1/T2, Post P1/P2) as independent variables. Results are summarized in Table 3 and in the second panel (column) of Figures 2 – 5 .

Table 3 . Results of the two-way permutation RM ANOVAs.

In addition, we explored differences attributed to the course and to the retreats using a paired permutation t test with the “perm.t.test()” function in R. We compare those psychological measures at the beginning of the course (T0) with its very end (P2), which coincided with the end of the second retreat. In this way, we illustrate a summary of changes due both to the second retreat and to the whole course. The results are summarized in Table 4 and depicted in a radar plot in Figure 6 .

Table 4 . Overall changes between the start (T0) and the end of the course (P2).

Figure 6 . Results of the permutation t -test between the start and the end of the course. All values ranged from 0 to 1. Variables: SWLS, Satisfaction with Life Scale; S-Ang/F, Feeling Angry; S-Ang/V, Feel like Expressing Anger Verbally; S-Ang/P, Feel like Expressing Anger Physically; T-Ang/T, Angry Temperament; T-Ang/R, Angry reaction; AX-O, Anger Expression-OUT; AX-I, Anger Expression-IN; AC-O, Anger Control-OUT; AC-I, Anger Control-IN; PSS, Perceived Stress Scale; STAI-Y1, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory—State; STAI-Y2, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory—Trait; PA and NA, Positive and Negative Affect Scales, respectively; OBS, Observe; DES, Describe; AWA, Act with awareness, Njudge, Non-judge; NReact, Non-react. To make consistent that an increase of the specific scale corresponds to an improvement in well-being, negative scales were reversed, namely: PSS, STAI-Y1, STAI-Y2, PANAS-NA, S-Ang, S-Ang/F, S-Ang/P, S-Ang/V, T-Ang, T-Ang/T, S-Ang/R, AX-O, AX-I. Concerning the statistical significance, *** p < 0.001, ** p < 0.01, and * p < 0.05.

Effects of the Program

Results from one-way permutation RM ANOVA showed a statistically significant effect of the program on SWLS at the p = 0.008 level over the Time course factor with a large effect size (ηp 2 = 0.16). Post hoc analysis revealed that the SWLS score was significantly higher at T2 with respect to T2 (mean difference = 2.48; p = 0.016). Similarly, SWLS was higher T2 as compared to T1 (mean difference = 1.38; p = 0.032).

Results also provided statistically significant evidence of changes in the PSS over the Time course ( p = 0.009), showing a large effect size (ηp 2 = 0.16). Post-hoc results showed a difference between T0 and T1, revealing that the PSS was significantly lower at T1 (mean difference = −2, p = 0.02).

Results revealed a significant effect of the Time course for Trait Anxiety ( p = 0.009, ηp 2 = 0.16). Post-hoc tests revealed a reduction in Trait Anxiety from the start of the course (T0) to the first day of the second retreat (T2) (M diff. = −3.21, p = 0.25).

Results also showed a significant effect of the Time course for negative affect ( p = 0.004, ηp 2 = 0.19). Post hoc analysis revealed that contemplative practice led to a reduction in negative affect from the baseline (T0) to the first day of the first retreat (T1) (mean difference = −2.42) and between T0 and first day of the second retreat (T2) (mean difference = −2.92), which differed significantly with p = 0.021 and p = 0.012, respectively.

Moreover, a significant effect of the Time course was found for several subscales of the FFMQ. First, the observe scale was found at the p = 0.023 level showing a large effect size (ηp 2 = 0.13). Post-hoc comparisons revealed an increasing capacity to observe one's own thoughts, from the middle of the course (T1) to the first day of the second retreat (T2) (mean difference = 1.58, p = 0.038). Likewise, there was a significant difference for the capacity to Act with Awareness ( p = 0.036, ηp 2 = 0.12). Post hoc comparisons revealed an increased level at T2 as compared to T1 (mean difference = 2.07, p = 0.043). The Time course had a significant effect on the Non-Judge subscale with a large effect size ( p = 0.002, ηp 2 = 0.20). Post hoc analysis indicated a significant increase from T0 to T1 (mean difference = 2.07, p = 0.013), as well as from T0 to T2 (mean difference = 3.31, p = 0.013).

In regard to the STAXI-2, we found Time course significant effects on Trait Anger ( p = 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.23) and its subscales, Trait Anger Temperament ( p = 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.22) and Trait Anger Reaction ( p = 0.016, ηp 2 = 0.14). Post-hoc comparisons revealed a significance difference on the Trait Anger Scale, which decreased from the beginning of the course (T0) to 5 months later (T1) (mean difference = −1.83, p = 0.041) and also from T0 to the end of the course (T2) (mean difference = −3.24, p = 0.002). Similarly, State Anger Temperament significantly decreased from T0 to T1 (mean difference = −0.79, p = 0.016) and from T0 to T2 (mean difference = −1.38, p = 0.008). Additionally, Trait Anger Reaction decreased from T0 to T2 (mean difference = −1.24, p = 0.023). Finally, the longitudinal effect of the course on the STAXI-2 led to significant results in the Anger Control-IN subscale over the Time course ( p = 0.03, ηp 2 = 0.12). Here, post-hoc comparisons showed a statistically significant difference between T0 and T2, which increased (mean difference = 1.76, p =.044). For more details, see Table 2 and the third panel (column) of Figures 2 – 5 .

Effects of the Retreats

Two-way permutation RM ANOVAs showed a significant main effect for Retreat on SWLS ( p = 0.002, ηp 2 = 0.16), Trait Anxiety ( p = 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.19), positive affect ( p = 0.044, ηp 2 = 0.07), Observe ( p = 0.008, ηp 2 = 0.12), Act with awareness ( p ≤ 0.001, ηp 2 = 0.22), Non-Judge ( p = 0.045, ηp 2 =.07), Non-React ( p = 0.02, ηp 2 = 0.10), Trait Anger ( p = 0.008, ηp 2 = 0.12), Trait Anger Temperament ( p = 0.022, ηp 2 = 0.09), Trait Anger Reaction ( p = 0.019, ηp 2 = 0.10), and Anger Control-IN ( p = 0.029, ηp 2 = 0.08). A main effect of the Condition (Pre vs. Post) was found only for the State Anxiety scale with p = 0.004 and a large effect size (ηp 2 = 0.14). Analysis results including F statistics are summarized in Table 3 ; a visual representation of the data is presented in the second panel (column) of Figures 2 – 5 .

Overall Effects of the Course and Retreats

As predicted, permutation t -test analysis revealed that participants increased their reported level of SWLS from the start (T0) to the end (P2) of the course (mean difference = 2.83, p = 0.008). Two subscales from the FFMQ, namely, the capacity to observe one's own thoughts (mean difference = 1.86, p = 0.039) and non-judgmental attitude toward the inner experience (mean difference = 3.24, p = 0.006), also significantly increased from the start to the end of the course. On the other hand, the affect linked to the progression from the start (T0) to the very end of the course (P2) was related to a significant decrease in the negative affect (mean difference = −3.62, p = 0.001). In the same way, the average level of stress of the sample decreased significantly (mean difference = −1.9, p = 0.033) along with a significant decrease of Trait Anxiety (M diff = −3.97, p ≤ 0.001). Participants also decreased on almost all STAXI-2 subscales. Here, the results from permutation paired t -test reveal a significant difference in scores, which decreased from T0 to P2 on all the subscales of Trait Anger (mean difference = −3.55, p ≤ 0.001; Trait Anger Temperament: mean difference = −1.34, p ≤ 0.001; Trait Anger Reaction: mean difference = −1.52, p ≤ 0.001), with an increased value for the subscales Anger Control-OUT (mean difference = 1.93, p ≤ 0.009) and Anger Control-IN (mean difference = 1.93, p = 0.017). For more details, see Table 4 and Figure 6 .

The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of an integrated 9-month mental training program called The Art of Happiness , which was developed to increase well-being in a general population. By a range of well-established psychometric assessment tools, we quantified how several psychological well-being variables changed with course attendance. We took into account both the trait effects of the course acting at a long timescale (over the 9-month duration of the full course) and the state effects of intensive retreat experiences acting at a short time scale (over the course of each of the two retreats). Several psychological well-being measures related to states and—more importantly—traits gradually improved as participants progressed from the beginning to the end of the course.

On the one hand, the program produced a significant longitudinal effect (9 months) revealing a progressive increase in the volunteer's levels of life satisfaction and of the capacities to reach non-judgmental mental states, to act with awareness, to non-react to inner experience, and to exercise control over attention to the internal state of anger, in line with other contemplative interventions ( Fredrickson et al., 2008 ; Keng et al., 2011 ; Baer et al., 2012 ; Kong et al., 2014 ). Conversely, after the completion of the program, there were decreases in levels of trait anxiety, trait anger (including both the anger temperament and reaction subscales), and negative affect, showing a progressive reduction during the intervention. These results support prior research that demonstrated the longitudinal positive effects of a multitude of contemplative practices on well-being measures linked to—among others—decreased trait anxiety, trait anger, and negative affect ( Fix and Fix, 2013 ; Khoury et al., 2015 ; Gotink et al., 2016 ). Such findings highlight the gradual development of mental states related to subjective well-being in parallel with ongoing contemplative practices over a time scale of months, with a gradual increase of wholesome mental states, and a gradual decrease of unwholesome mental states. Notably, as in other mindfulness interventions ( Khoury et al., 2015 ; Gotink et al., 2016 ), there was a significant reduction in the level of perceived stress already in the first few months of the program (T0–T1).

Additionally, these results show the specific effects between retreat experiences within the program as an intervention for fostering happiness. Specifically, the retreats had a positive effect on the participants' perceived well-being, which improved between the two retreats (with a 4-month interval). Among other assessed dimensions, between the retreats, there were significantly increased levels of life satisfaction, positive affect, and mindful abilities to act with awareness, to observe, non-react, and non-judge inner experience and the capacity to control anger toward oneself. Conversely, there were significantly lower levels of trait anxiety and trait anger (including both the anger temperament and reaction subscales) between the retreats (over a period of 4 months).

Regarding the very short effects of the course, we highlight significant changes within the first part of the training and prior to the first retreat (T0–T1). Here, some variables related to happiness changed most, suggesting their independence from retreat. Particularly, PSS notably decreased along with negative affect and Trait Anger (the subscale of Angry Temperament), while the capacity of non-judgmental attitude toward the inner experience significantly increased, providing useful information for future interventions.

Moreover, participants' state anxiety significantly decreased in a very short time (5 days), between pre and post of both retreats. These findings are consistent with previous studies, which demonstrated the positive effects of contemplative training and practices on these measures in retreats ( Khoury et al., 2017 ; Howarth et al., 2019 ; McClintock et al., 2019 ). In Figure 6 , we make a general and integrated comparison between the various psychological measures, comparing the very beginning of the course with its very end, which also coincided with the end of the second retreat. In this way, we illustrate both state changes (due to the second retreat) and trait changes (due to the whole course). This representation allows an integrated view of all the changes that took place at different time scales. This graph might suggest that the only measures that did not change significantly from the beginning to the end of the course are those in which the participants already had a score strongly oriented toward well-being, and therefore with little room for a change. Thus, future studies could take into account individual differences when evaluating happiness programs.

Although the present findings are promising, this study presents several limitations that need to be taken into consideration. The two main limitations rely on the absence of a randomized control group and in the fact that participants were self-selected. This lack of verification makes it difficult to determine whether the results are attributable to the program or to other factors, for example, simply arising due to spending time in a happiness-oriented activity. It is also important to note that despite examining several assessments within persons, the sample size was restricted to 29. Furthermore, responses to the questionnaires may have been biased toward the socially desirable response as the course's staff administered them, and another active group could have controlled for these effects. Consequently, it is recommended to conduct future studies with larger samples and a well-designed and controlled trial, in order to achieve more conclusive findings. Another limitation is that, while all the participants attended the whole course with a comparable (coherent) level of commitment to the practices (including the retreats), we did not verify their course-related activity and practices at home, and therefore, we have no way to check whether they actually did the practice activities at home as suggested during the modules.

Possible new directions of exploration of this study concern the age range of the participants, which, in our case, was limited to middle-aged individuals (39–66), and therefore, the effects on younger or older individuals remain currently unexplored. Another interesting direction would be to conduct follow-up measurements to assess the stability of the longitudinal effects months or years after the end of the program. Finally, while well-being and happiness are individual and subjective narratives of one's life as good and happy ( Bauer et al., 2008 ), and therefore self-assessments through questionnaires are a valid and common tool of investigation, in interventions such as The Art of Happiness , it would be appropriate to also explore individual differences, more objective psychophysiological effects, as well as cultural and social aspects influencing the inner model of happiness.

Despite these methodological limitations and still unexplored directions of research, the results described here suggest that The Art of Happiness may be a promising program for fostering well-being in individuals, improving mental health and psychological functioning. Longitudinal integrated contemplative programs with retreats offer a unique opportunity for the intensive development of the inner attitudes related to the capacity to be happy, reducing mental health symptoms and improving a more stable eudemonic well-being in healthy adults.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, Nicola De Pisapia, upon reasonable request.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Ethics Committee of the Sapienza University of Rome. The participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

ND, CM, and AR designed the study. ND, CM, LC, and AR collected the data. CR analyzed the data. CR and ND wrote the original draft. All authors edited and reviewed the manuscript.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We thank the Institute Lama Tzong Khapa (Pomaia, Italy) for the support in various phases of this experiment. We also wish to express our gratitude to the reviewers for their thoughtful comments and efforts toward improving the manuscript.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.600982/full#supplementary-material

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Keywords: meditation, wisdom, happiness, well–being, mindfulness

Citation: Rastelli C, Calabrese L, Miller C, Raffone A and De Pisapia N (2021) The Art of Happiness: An Explorative Study of a Contemplative Program for Subjective Well-Being. Front. Psychol. 12:600982. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.600982

Received: 31 August 2020; Accepted: 11 January 2021; Published: 11 February 2021.

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Copyright © 2021 Rastelli, Calabrese, Miller, Raffone and De Pisapia. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Nicola De Pisapia, nicola.depisapia@unitn.it

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The Science of Happiness in Positive Psychology 101

Whether on a global or an individual level, the pursuit of happiness is one that is gaining traction and scientific recognition.

There are many definitions of happiness, and we will also explore those in this article. For now, we invite you to think of a time when you were happy. Were you alone? With others? Inside? Outside.

At the end of this article, revisit that memory. You may have new insight as to what made that moment “happy,” as well as tips to train your brain towards more happiness.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Happiness & Subjective Wellbeing Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients identify sources of authentic happiness and strategies to boost wellbeing.

This Article Contains:

A definition of happiness, a look at the science of happiness, the scientific research on happiness at work, 17 interesting facts and findings, a study showing how acts of kindness make us happier, the global pursuit of happiness, measures of happiness, four qualities of life.

• How to Train your Brain for Happiness

A Take-Home Message

In general, happiness is understood as the positive emotions we have in regards to the pleasurable activities we take part in through our daily lives.

Pleasure, comfort, gratitude, hope, and inspiration are examples of positive emotions that increase our happiness and move us to flourish. In scientific literature, happiness is referred to as hedonia (Ryan & Deci, 2001), the presence of positive emotions and the absence of negative emotions.

In a more broad understanding, human wellbeing is made up of both hedonic and Eudaimonic principles, the literature on which is vast and describes our personal meaning and purpose in life (Ryan & Deci, 2001).

Research on happiness over the years has found that there are some contributing correlational factors that affect our happiness. These include (Ryan & Deci, 2001):

• Personality Type
• Positive Emotions versus Negative Emotions
• Attitude towards Physical Health
• Social Class and Wealth
• Attachment and Relatedness
• Goals and Self-Efficacy
• Time and Place.

So what is the “ science of happiness? ”

This is one of those times when something is exactly what it sounds like – it’s all about the science behinds what happiness is and how to experience it, what happy people do differently, and what we can do to feel happier.

This focus on happiness is new to the field of psychology; for many decades – basically since the foundation of psychology as a science in the mid- to late-1800s – the focus was on the less pleasant in life. The field focused on pathology, on the worst-scenario cases, on what can go wrong in our lives.

Although there was some attention paid to wellbeing, success, and high functioning, the vast majority of funding and research was dedicated to those who were struggling the most: those with severe mental illness, mental disorders, or those who have survived trauma and tragedy.

While there’s certainly nothing wrong with doing what we can to raise up those who are struggling, there was an unfortunate lack of knowledge about what we can do to bring us all up to a higher level of functioning and happiness.

Positive psychology changed all of that. Suddenly, there was space at the table for a focus on the positive in life, for “ what thoughts, actions, and behaviors make us more productive at work, happier in our relationships, and more fulfilled at the end of the day ” (Happify Daily, n.d.).

The science of happiness has opened our eyes to a plethora of new findings about the sunny side of life.

Current research and studies

For instance, we have learned a lot about what happiness is and what drives us.

Recent studies have shown us that:

• Money can only buy happiness up to about $75,000 – after that, it has no significant effect on our emotional wellbeing (Kahneman & Deaton, 2010).
• Most of our happiness is not determined by our genetics, but by our experiences and our day-to-day lives (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005).
• Trying too hard to find happiness often has the opposite effect and can lead us to be overly selfish (Mauss et al., 2012).
• Pursuing happiness through social means (e.g., spending more time with family and friends) is more likely to be effective than other methods (Rohrer et al., 2018).
• The pursuit of happiness is one place where we should consider ditching the SMART goals; it may be more effective to pursue “vague” happiness goals than more specific ones (Rodas et al., 2018).
• Happiness makes us better citizens – it is a good predictor of civic engagement in the transition to adulthood (Fang et al., 2018).
• Happiness leads to career success, and it doesn’t have to be “natural” happiness – researchers found that “experimentally enhancing” positive emotions also contributed to improved outcomes at work (Walsh et al., 2018).
• There is a linear relationship between religious involvement and happiness. Higher worship service attendance is correlated with more commitment to faith, and commitment to faith is related to greater compassion. Those more compassionate individuals are more likely to provide emotional support to others, and those who provide emotional support to others are more likely to be happy (Krause et al., 2018). It’s a long road, but a direct one!

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These detailed, science-based exercises will equip you or your clients with tools to discover authentic happiness and cultivate subjective well-being.

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There’s been a ton of research on the effects of happiness in the workplace. Much of this is driven by companies who want to find a way to improve productivity, attract new talent, and get a dose of good publicity, all at the same time. After all, who wouldn’t want to do business with and/or work for a company full of happy employees?

Although the jury is still out on exactly how happy employees “should” be for maximum productivity, efficiency, and health, we have learned a few things about the effects of a happy workforce:

• People who are happy with their jobs are less likely to leave their jobs, less likely to be absent, and less likely to engage in counterproductive behaviors at work.
• People who are happy with their jobs are more likely to engage in behavior that contributes to a happy and productive organization, more likely to be physically healthy, and more likely to be mentally healthy.
• Happiness and job performance are related—and the relationship likely works in both directions (e.g., happy people do a better job and people who do a good job are more likely to be happy).
• Unit- or team-level happiness is also linked to positive outcomes, including higher customer satisfaction, profit, productivity, employee turnover, and a safer work environment.
• In general, a happier organization is a more productive and successful organization (Fisher, 2010).

To sum up the findings we have so far, it’s easy to see that happiness at work does matter – for individuals, for teams, and for organizations overall. We don’t have all the answers about exactly how the relationship between happiness and productivity works, but we know that there is a relationship there.

Lately, many human resources managers, executives, and other organizational leaders have decided that knowing there’s a relationship is good enough evidence to establish happiness-boosting practices at work, which means that we have a lot of opportunities to see the impact of greater happiness at work in the future.

Research in this field is booming, and new findings are coming out all the time. Here are a few of the most interesting facts and findings so far:

• Happiness is linked to lower heart rate and blood pressure, as well as healthier heart rate variability.
• Happiness can also act as a barrier between you and germs – happier people are less likely to get sick.
• People who are happier enjoy greater protection against stress and release less of the stress hormone cortisol.
• Happy people tend to experience fewer aches and pains, including dizziness, muscle strain, and heartburn.
• Happiness acts as a protective factor against disease and disability (in general, of course).
• Those who are happiest tend to live significantly longer than those who are not.
• Happiness boosts our immune system, which can help us fight and fend off the common cold.
• Happy people tend to make others happier as well, and vice versa – those who do good, feel good!
• A portion of our happiness is determined by our genetics (but there’s still plenty of room for attitude adjustments and happiness-boosting exercises!).
• Smelling floral scents like roses can make us happier.
• Those who are paid by the hour may be happier than those on salary (however, these findings are limited, so take them with a grain of salt!).
• Relationships are much more conducive to a happy life than money.
• Happier people tend to wear bright colors; it’s not certain which way the relationship works, but it can’t hurt to throw on some brighter hues once in a while—just in case!
• Happiness can help people cope with arthritis and chronic pain better.
• Being outdoors – especially near the water – can make us happier.
• The holidays can be a stressful time, even for the happiest among us – an estimated 44% of women and 31% of men get the “holiday blues.”
• Happiness is contagious! When we spend time around happy people, we’re likely to get a boost of happiness as well.

Newman (2015) is the source for the first six facts and findings, and Florentine (2016) for the latter 11 .

Feeling blue? Treat yourself to a decadent dessert.

Feeling frustrated after an argument with a friend? Skip your workout and have an extra scoop of ice cream.

The message is clear: If you want to feel happy, you should focus on your own wishes and desires. Yet this is not the advice that many people grew up hearing. Indeed, most of the world’s religions (and grandmothers everywhere) have long suggested that people should focus on others first and themselves second.

Psychologists refer to such behavior as prosocial behavior and many recent studies have shown that when people have a prosocial focus, doing kind acts for others, their own happiness increases.

But how does prosocial behavior compare to treating yourself in terms of your happiness? And does treating yourself really make you feel happy?

Nelson et al. (2016) presented their research answering these questions.

Participants were divided into four groups and given new instructions each week for four weeks.

One group was instructed to perform random acts of kindness for themselves (such as going shopping or enjoying a favorite hobby); the second group was instructed to perform acts of kindness for others (such as visiting an elderly relative or helping someone carry groceries); the third group was instructed to perform acts of kindness to improve the world (such as recycling or donating to charity); the fourth group was instructed to keep track of their daily activities.

Each week, the participants reported their activities from the previous week, as well as their experience of positive and negative emotions.

At the beginning, the end, and again two weeks after the four-week period, participants completed a questionnaire to assess their psychological flourishing. As a measure of overall happiness, the questionnaire included questions about psychological, social, and emotional wellbeing .

The Results

The results of the study were striking. Only participants who engaged in prosocial behavior demonstrated improvements in psychological flourishing.

Participants who practiced prosocial behavior demonstrated increases in positive emotions from one week to the next. In turn, these increases in feelings such as happiness, joy, and enjoyment predicted increases in psychological flourishing at the end of the study. In other words, positive emotions appeared to have been a critical ingredient linking prosocial behavior to increases in flourishing.

But what about the people who treated themselves?

They did not show the same increases in positive emotions or psychological flourishing as those who engaged in acts of kindness. In fact, people who treated themselves did not differ in positive emotions, negative emotions, or psychological flourishing over the course of the study compared to those who merely kept track of their daily activities.

This research does not say that we shouldn’t treat ourselves, show ourselves self-love when we need it, or enjoy our relaxation when we have it. However, the results of this study strongly suggest that we are more likely to reach greater levels of happiness when we exhibit prosocial behavior and show others kindness through our actions.

In world economic circles, Richard Easterlin investigated the relationship between money and wellbeing.

The Easterlin paradox—”money does not buy happiness” (Mohun, 2012)—sparked a new wave of thinking about wealth and wellbeing.

In 1972, Bhutan chose to pursue a policy of happiness rather than a focus on economic growth tracked via their gross domestic product (GDPP). Subsequently, this little nation has been among the happiest, ranking amongst nations with far superior wealth (Kelly, 2012).

More global organizations and nations are becoming aware and supportive of the importance of happiness in today’s world. This has lead to The United Nations inviting nations to take part in a happiness survey, resulting in the “ World Happiness Report ,” a basis from which to steer public policy. Learn about the World Happiness Report for 2016 .

The United Nations also established  World Happiness Day , March 20 th , which was the result of efforts of the Bhutan Kingdom and their Gross National Happiness initiative (Helliwell et al., 2013).

Organizations such as the  New Economic Foundation are playing an influential role as an economic think tank that focuses on steering economic policy and development for the betterment of human wellbeing.

Ruut Veenhoven, a world authority on the scientific study of happiness, was one of the sources of inspiration for the United Nations General Assembly (2013) adopting happiness measures. Veenhoven is a founding member of the World Database of Happiness , which is a comprehensive scientific repository of happiness measures worldwide.

The objective of this organization is to provide a coordinated collection of data, with common interpretation according to a scientifically validated happiness theory, model, and body of research.

At this point, you might be wondering: Is it possible to measure happiness? Many psychologists have devoted their careers to answering this question and in short, the answer is yes.

Happiness can be measured by these three factors: the presence of positive emotions, the absence of negative emotions, and life satisfaction (Ryan & Deci, 2001). It is a uniquely subjective experience, which means that nobody is better at reporting on someone’s happiness than the individuals themselves.

For this reason scales, self-report measures, and questionnaires are the most common formats for measuring happiness. The most recognized examples are the following:

• The PANAS (Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule);
• The SWLS (Satisfaction With Life Scale) ;
• The SHS (Subjective Happiness Scale)

However, there are  many instruments available to measure happiness that have proven reliable and valid over time (Hefferon & Boniwell, 2011).

Of the four dimensions, satisfaction is our personal subjective measure of happiness as we interpret life as a whole. Veenhoven’s (2010) global research into happiness suggests that happiness is possible for many.

This is an overview of his Four Qualities:

Using Veenhoven’s Four Qualities it is possible to assess the happiness of any country.

Liveability of environment

This dimension includes factors such as law, freedom, schooling, employment, electricity or gas, etc. It is a measurement of how well an environment meets what Maslow proposed as our basic needs (safety, security, shelter, food) (Maslow, 1943).

Life-ability of individuals

The ability of individuals to deal with life is important; both mental and physical health are identified as important factors, together with social values of solidarity, tolerance, and love (Veenhoven, 2010).

Utility of life

In this dimension, Veenhoven (2010) references a higher-order meaning, for example, religious affiliations.

Uchida et al. (2014) found that high levels of national disaster negatively impacted a nation’s level of happiness.

Satisfaction

Happiness is a complex construct that cannot be directly controlled. Through policy and individual and organizational action, one can endeavor to influence and increase happiness (Veenhoven, 2010).

However, happiness is a subjective experience and only once we change the way we perceive the world can we really begin sharing and creating happiness for others.

But is it possible to train yourself to be happier?

The answer is yes!

How to Train Your Brain for Happiness

At birth, our genetics provide us a set point that accounts for some portion of our happiness. Having enough food, shelter, and safety account for another portion.

There’s also quite a bit of happiness that’s entirely up to us (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005).

By training our brain through awareness and exercises to think in a happier, more optimistic, and more resilient way, we can effectively train our brains for happiness.

New discoveries in the field of positive psychology show that physical health, psychological wellbeing, and physiological functioning are all improved by how we learn to “feel good” (Fredrickson, et al., 2000).

What Are The Patterns We Need To “Train Out” of Our Brains?

• Perfectionism  – Often confused with conscientiousness, which involves appropriate and tangible expectations, perfectionism involves inappropriate levels of expectations and intangible goals. It often produces problems for adults, adolescents, and children.
• Social comparison  – When we compare ourselves to others we often find ourselves lacking. Healthy social comparison is about finding what you admire in others and learning to strive for those qualities. However, the best comparisons we can make are with ourselves. How are you better than you were in the past?
• Materialism – Attaching our happiness to external things and material wealth is dangerous, as we can lose our happiness if our material circumstances change (Carter & Gilovich, 2010).
• Maximizing  – Maximizers search for better options even when they are satisfied. This leaves them little time to be present for the good moments in their lives and with very little gratitude (Schwartz et al., 2002).

Misconceptions About Mind Training

Some of the misconceptions about retraining your brain are simply untrue. Here are a few myths that need debunking:

1. We are products of our genetics so we cannot create change in our brains.

Our minds are malleable. Ten years ago we thought brain pathways were set in early childhood. In fact, we now know that there is huge potential for large changes through to your twenties, and neuroplasticity is still changing throughout one’s life.

The myelin sheath that covers your neural pathways gets thicker and stronger the more it is used (think of the plastic protective covering on wires); the more a pathway is used, the stronger the myelin and the faster the neural pathway. Simply put, when you practice feeling grateful, you notice more things to be grateful for.

2. Brain training is brainwashing.

Brainwashing is an involuntary change. If we focus on training our mind to see the glass half full instead of half empty, that is a choice.

3. If we are too happy we run the risk of becoming overly optimistic.

There is no such thing as overly optimistic, and science shows that brain training for positivity includes practices like  mindfulness and gratitude. No one has ever overdosed on these habits.

How Is The Brain Wired For Happiness?

Our brains come already designed for happiness. We have caregiving systems in place for eye contact, touch, and vocalizations to let others know we are trustworthy and secure .

Our brains also regulate chemicals like oxytocin.

People who have more oxytocin trust more readily, have increased tendencies towards monogamy, and exhibit more caregiving behavior. These behaviors reduce stress which lowers production of hormones like cortisol and inhibits the cardiovascular response to stress (Kosfeld et al., 2005).

The following TED talk provides an insight into how we can overcome our negative mental patterns:

If happiness has little to do with having too many resources, then it is an inner state that we have the power to cultivate. The above video even offers specific exercises for you to try. Just by doing them, you are actively re-wiring your brain towards calm and happy sensations.

Meanwhile, this TED talk gives a better understanding of how to wire your brain to accept the positivity and happiness in your life:

The negativity bias that Dr. Rick Hanson discusses can help us understand how we can activate and “install” positive thinking as part of our core brain chemistry. If you don’t have a moment to watch either of these videos now, make time for it later—they are rich with relevant data and tips.

17 Exercises To Increase Happiness and Wellbeing

Add these 17 Happiness & Subjective Well-Being Exercises [PDF] to your toolkit and help others experience greater purpose, meaning, and positive emotions.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

Happiness is the overall subjective experience of our positive emotions. There are many factors which influence our happiness, and ongoing research continues to uncover what makes us happiest.

This global pursuit of happiness has resulted in measures such as the World Happiness Report, while the World Happiness Database is working to collaborate and consolidate the existing happiness pursuits of different nations.

We are living in a time when the conditions for happiness are known. This can be disheartening at times when there is much negativity in the world.

There is, however, good news in this situation: neuroplasticity.

The human brain is wired for happiness and positive connections with others. It is actually possible to experience and learn happiness despite what has been genetically hardwired.

In a world where the focus on happiness is growing and the mirror is turning back towards ourselves, the happiness of the world relies on the happiness within each one of us and how we act, share, and voice the importance of happiness for everyone.

What are the steps you are taking to make yourself and others happier? Let us know by leaving a comment below!

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Happiness Exercises for free .

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• Fisher, C. D. (2010). Happiness at work.  International Journal of Management Reviews ,  12 (4), 384–412.
• Florentine, E. (2016, July 1).  11 Scientific facts about happiness.  Bustle . Retrieved from https://www.bustle.com/articles/169675-11-scientific-facts-about-happiness-that-youll-want-to-know.
• Fredrickson, B. L., Mancuso, R. A., Branigan, C., & Tugade, M. M. (2000). The undoing effect of positive emotions . Motivation and Emotion , 24 (4), 237–258.
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What our readers think.

Thank you for this beautiful well written article. I came across it during my research regarding the science of happiness. The beauty in writing this post is the power to influence souls in a positive manner many who you will not meet.

Sending some love and light to you and all those who get to read your blog.

Being in the field of Human Resource for four decades, coming across and dealing with millions of minds, after reading your article, gives a feeling that I have learnt something new today…

Thank you and congratulations for such a informative work.

God bless…

Thank you for your search light into one of the nerve center of our generation. i will like to use part of this in my upcoming book

Hello Katherine, Now reading https://positivepsychology.com/happiness/ Salute to you for enriching us. Nearly hundred of us relatives are creating an audio book for our blind uncle about life skills. Any quote from you that I can add in the document? Will be grateful. regards, Prabodh Sirur

Hi Prabodh,

Wow, that sounds like a lovely gift for your uncle! We actually have a couple of posts containing quotes about happiness, so you may want to take a look at those for some inspiration. You can find those here and here .

Hope this helps, and good luck with the audiobook!

– Nicole | Community Manager

Thanks for your article, I translated this article for a mental health lesson and I really enjoyed this article.

Thank you for this super helpful article!!

Thank You for such an Informative and Detailed Article on Science of Happiness. I am a Budding Happiness Life Coach and stumbled on this Article. This gives me more understanding of Happiness in Scientific way, with your permission, I would like to share my learning in my course. Thank You and looking forward for more such Articles. Thank You and God Bless You

Hi Srinivas, Thank you for your lovely feedback. We’re glad you liked the article. Feel free to share it with others by clicking ‘Yes’ on the ‘Was this article useful to you’ button. From there, a range of sharing options will appear. – Nicole | Community Manager

Thanks, very nice lecture and informative But I wish to know more about role of religious effects on Happiness? another thing is it ok to translate lecture to other language and share it? Regards Dr Eirebi Albogasim

Hi Dr. Albogasim, Thanks for reading. There’s quite a bit of research showing that those who practice religion tend to be happier than the general population ( here’s an article on the topic). And yes, feel free to translate and share the lecture. – Nicole | Community Manager

I stumbled on your article as I am researching on Happiness to publish my 3rd book. Thanks for sharing! A very elaborate and informative article. The “Take home message” is very encouraging. And I vouch for the neuroplasticity of the brain. We can train ourselves to be Happy. Once we change our attitude, it is easy to be Happy. I learnt how to be Happy at the age of 23. Few years back I posted an article sharing my findings on Happiness in this Linked-in forum. Please see the link for the same https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/easy-happy-ramesh-thota-pmp-cqa/ . Appreciate if you can share your views.

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The Neuroscience of Happiness and Pleasure

The evolutionary imperatives of survival and procreation, and their associated rewards, are driving life as most animals know it. Perhaps uniquely, humans are able to consciously experience these pleasures and even contemplate the elusive prospect of happiness. The advanced human ability to consciously predict and anticipate the outcome of choices and actions confers on our species an evolutionary advantage, but this is a double-edged sword, as John Steinbeck pointed out as he wrote of “the tragic miracle of consciousness” and how our “species is not set, has not jelled, but is still in a state of becoming” ( Steinbeck and Ricketts 1941 ). While consciousness allows us to experience pleasures, desires, and perhaps even happiness, this is always accompanied by the certainty of the end.

Nevertheless, while life may ultimately meet a tragic end, one could argue that if this is as good as it gets, we might as well enjoy the ride and in particular to maximize happiness. Yet, it is also true that for many happiness is a rare companion due to the competing influences of anxiety and depression.

In order to help understand happiness and alleviate the suffering, neuroscientists and psychologists have started to investigate the brain states associated with happiness components and to consider the relation to well-being. While happiness is in principle difficult to define and study, psychologists have made substantial progress in mapping its empirical features, and neuroscientists have made comparable progress in investigating the functional neuroanatomy of pleasure, which contributes importantly to happiness and is central to our sense of well-being.

In this article we will try to map out some of the intricate links between pleasure and happiness. Our main contention is that a better understanding of the pleasures of the brain may offer a more general insight into happiness, into how brains work to produce it in daily life for the fortunate, how brains fail in the less fortunate, and hopefully into better ways to enhance the quality of life.

A SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS?

As shown by the other contributions to this volume, there are many possible definitions and approaches to investigating happiness. Many would agree that happiness has remained difficult to define and challenging to measure—partly due to its subjective nature. Is it possible to get a scientific handle on such a slippery concept? There are several aids to start us off.

Since Aristotle, happiness has been usefully thought of as consisting of at least two aspects: hedonia (pleasure) and eudaimonia (a life well lived). In contemporary psychology these aspects are usually referred to as pleasure and meaning, and positive psychologists have recently proposed to add a third distinct component of engagement related to feelings of commitment and participation in life ( Seligman et al. 2005 ).

Using these definitions, scientists have made substantial progress in defining and measuring happiness in the form of self-reports of subjective well-being, in identifying its distribution across people in the real world, and in identifying how well-being is influenced by various life factors that range from income to other people ( Kahneman 1999 ). This research shows that while there is clearly a sharp conceptual distinction between pleasure versus engagement-meaning components, hedonic and eudaimonic aspects empirically cohere together in happy people.

For example, in happiness surveys, over 80 percent of people rate their overall eudaimonic life satisfaction as “pretty to very happy,” and comparably, 80 percent also rate their current hedonic mood as positive (for example, positive 6–7 on a 10 point valence scale, where 5 is hedonically neutral) ( Kesebir and Diener 2008 ). A lucky few may even live consistently around a hedonic point of 8—although excessively higher hedonic scores may actually impede attainment of life success, as measured by wealth, education, or political participation ( Oishi et al. 2007 ).

While these surveys provide interesting indicators of mental well-being, they offer little evidence of the underlying neurobiology of happiness. That is the quest we set ourselves here. But to progress in this direction, it is first necessary to make a start using whatever evidence is both relevant to the topic of well-being and happiness, and in which neuroscience has relative strengths. Pleasure and its basis offers a window of opportunity.

In the following we will therefore focus on the substantial progress in understanding the psychology and neurobiology of sensory pleasure that has been made over the last decade ( Berridge and Kringelbach 2008 ; Kringelbach and Berridge 2010 ). These advances make the hedonic side of happiness most tractable to a scientific approach to the neural underpinnings of happiness. Supporting a hedonic approach, it has been suggested that the best measure of subjective well-being may be simply to ask people how they hedonically feel right now—again and again—so as to track their hedonic accumulation across daily life ( Kahneman 1999 ). Such repeated self-reports of hedonic states could also be used to identify more stable neurobiological hedonic brain traits that dispose particular individuals toward happiness. Further, a hedonic approach might even offer a toehold into identifying eudaimonic brain signatures of happiness, due to the empirical convergence between the two categories, even if pleasant mood is only half the happiness story ( Kringelbach and Berridge 2009 ).

It is important to note that our focus on the hedonia component of happiness should not be confused with hedonism, which is the pursuit of pleasure for pleasure’s own sake, and more akin to the addiction features we describe below. Also, to focus on hedonics does not deny that some ascetics may have found bliss through painful self-sacrifice, but simply reflects that positive hedonic tone is indispensable to most people seeking happiness.

A SCIENCE OF PLEASURE

The link between pleasure and happiness has a long history in psychology. For example, that link was stressed in the writings of Sigmund Freud when he posited that people “strive after happiness; they want to become happy and to remain so. This endeavor has two sides, a positive and a negative aim. It aims, on the one hand, at an absence of pain and displeasure, and, on the other, at the experiencing of strong feelings of pleasure” ( Freud and Riviere 1930 : 76). Emphasizing a positive balance of affect to be happy implies that studies of hedonic brain circuits can advance the neuroscience of both pleasure and happiness.

A related but slightly different view is that happiness depends most chiefly on eliminating negative “pain and displeasure” to free an individual to pursue engagement and meaning. Positive pleasure by this view is somewhat superfluous. This view may characterize the twentieth-century medical and clinical emphasis on alleviating negative psychopathology and strongly distressing emotions. It fits also with William James’s quip nearly a century ago that “happiness, I have lately discovered, is no positive feeling, but a negative condition of freedom from a number of restrictive sensations of which our organism usually seems the seat. When they are wiped out, the clearness and cleanness of the contrast is happiness. This is why anaesthetics make us so happy. But don’t you take to drink on that account” ( James 1920 : 158).

Focusing on eliminating negative distress seems to leave positive pleasure outside the boundary of happiness, perhaps as an extra bonus or even an irrelevancy for ordinary pursuit. In practice, many mixtures of positive affect and negative affect may occur in individuals and cultures may vary in the importance of positive versus negative affect for happiness. For example, positive emotions are linked most strongly to ratings of life satisfaction overall in nations that stress self-expression, but alleviation of negative emotions may become relatively more important in nations that value individualism ( Kuppens et al. 2008 ).

By either hedonic view, psychology seems to be moving away from the stoic notion that affect states such as pleasure are simply irrelevant to happiness. The growing evidence for the importance of affect in psychology and neuroscience shows that a scientific account will have to involve hedonic pleasures and/or displeasures. To move toward a neuroscience of happiness, a neurobiological understanding is required of how positive and negative affect are balanced in the brain.

Thus, pleasure is an important component of happiness, according to most modern viewpoints. Given the potential contributions of hedonics to happiness, we now survey developments in understanding the brain mechanisms of pleasure. The scientific study of pleasure and affect was foreshadowed by the pioneering ideas of Charles Darwin, who examined the evolution of emotions and affective expressions, and suggested that these are adaptive responses to environmental situations. In that vein, pleasure “liking” and displeasure reactions are prominent affective reactions in the behavior and brains of all mammals ( Steiner et al. 2001 ) and likely had important evolutionary functions ( Kringelbach 2009 ). Neural mechanisms for generating affective reactions are present and similar in most mammalian brains, and thus appear to have been selected for and conserved across species ( Kringelbach 2010 ). Indeed, both positive affect and negative affect are recognized today as having adaptive functions ( Nesse 2004 ), and positive affect in particular has consequences in daily life for planning and building cognitive and emotional resources ( Fredrickson et al. 2008 ).

Such functional perspectives are consistent with a thesis that is crucial to our aim of identifying the neurobiological bases of happiness: that affective reactions such as pleasure have objective features beyond their subjective ones. This idea is important, since progress in affective neuroscience has been made recently by identifying objective aspects of pleasure reactions and triangulating toward underlying brain substrates. This scientific strategy divides the concept of affect into two parts: the affective state , which has objective aspects in behavioral, physiological, and neural reactions; and conscious affective feelings , seen as the subjective experience of emotion ( Kringelbach 2004 ). Note that such a definition allows conscious feelings to play a central role in hedonic experiences, but holds that the affective essence of a pleasure reaction is more than a conscious feeling. That objective “something more” is especially tractable to neuroscience investigations that involve brain manipulations and can be studied regardless of the availability or accuracy of corresponding subjective reports.

The available evidence suggests that brain mechanisms involved in fundamental pleasures (food and sexual pleasures) overlap with those for higher-order pleasures (for example, monetary, artistic, musical, altruistic, and transcendent pleasures) ( Kringelbach 2010 ).

From sensory pleasures and drugs of abuse to monetary, aesthetic and musical delights, all pleasures seem to involve the same hedonic brain systems, even when linked to anticipation and memory. Pleasures important to happiness, such as socializing with friends, and related traits of positive hedonic mood are thus all likely to draw upon the same neurobiological roots that evolved for sensory pleasures. The neural overlap may offer a way to generalize from fundamental pleasures that are best understood and so infer larger hedonic brain principles likely to contribute to happiness.

We note the rewarding properties for all pleasures are likely to be generated by hedonic brain circuits that are distinct from the mediation of other features of the same events (for example, sensory, cognitive) ( Kringelbach 2005 ). Thus, pleasure is never merely a sensation or a thought, but is instead an additional hedonic gloss generated by the brain via dedicated systems ( Frijda 2010 ).

THE NEUROANATOMY OF PLEASURE

How does positive affect arise? Affective neuroscience research on sensory pleasure has revealed many networks of brain regions and neurotransmitters activated by pleasant events and states (see figures 1 and ​ and2). 2 ). Identification of hedonic substrates has been advanced by recognizing that pleasure or “liking” is but one component in the larger composite psychological process of reward, which also involves “wanting” and “learning” components ( Smith et al. 2010 ). Each component also has conscious and nonconscious elements that can be studied in humans—and at least the latter can also be probed in other animals.

Reward and pleasure are multifaceted psychological concepts. Major processes within reward (first column) consist of motivation or wanting (white), learning (light gray), and—most relevant to happiness—pleasure liking or affect (gray). Each of these contains explicit (top three rows) and implicit (bottom three rows) psychological components (second column) that constantly interact and require careful scientific experimentation to tease apart. Explicit processes are consciously experienced (for example, explicit pleasure and happiness, desire, or expectation), whereas implicit psychological processes are potentially unconscious in the sense that they can operate at a level not always directly accessible to conscious experience (implicit incentive salience, habits and “liking” reactions), and must be further translated by other mechanisms into subjective feelings. Measurements or behavioral procedures that are especially sensitive markers of the each of the processes are listed (third column). Examples of some of the brain regions and neurotransmitters are listed (fourth column), as well as specific examples of measurements (fifth column), such as an example of how highest subjective life satisfaction does not lead to the highest salaries (top) ( Haisken-De New and Frick 2005 ). Another example shows the incentive-sensitization model of addiction and how “wanting” to take drugs may grow over time independently of “liking” and “learning” drug pleasure as an individual becomes an addict (bottom) ( Robinson and Berridge 1993 ).

The schematic figure shows the approximate sensorimotor, pleasure, and social brain regions in the adult brain. (a) Processing linked to the identification of and interaction with stimuli is carried out in the sensorimotor regions of the brain, (b) which are separate from the valence processing in the pleasure regions of the brain. (c) In addition to this pleasure processing, there is further higher-order processing of social situations (such as theory of mind) in widespread cortical regions. (d) The hedonic mammalian brain circuitry can be revealed using behavioral and subjective measures of pleasures in rodents and humans ( Berridge and Kringelbach 2008 ).

HEDONIC HOTSPOTS

Despite having extensive distribution of reward-related circuitry, the brain appears rather frugal in “liking” mechanisms that cause pleasure reactions. Some hedonic mechanisms are found deep in the brain (nucleus accumbens, ventral pallidum, brainstem) and other candidates are in the cortex (orbitofrontal, cingulate, medial prefrontal and insular cortices). Pleasure-activated brain networks are widespread and provide evidence for highly distributed brain coding of hedonic states, but compelling evidence for pleasure causation (detected as increases in “liking” reactions consequent to brain manipulation) has so far been found for only a few hedonic hotspots in the subcortical structures. Each hotspot is merely a cubic millimeter or so in volume in the rodent brain (and should be a cubic centimeter or so in humans, if proportional to whole brain volume). Hotspots are capable of generating enhancements of “liking” reactions to a sensory pleasure such as sweetness, when stimulated with opioid, endocannabinoid, or other neurochemical modulators ( Smith et al. 2010 ).

Hotspots exist in the nucleus accumbens shell and ventral pallidum, and possibly other forebrain and limbic cortical regions, and also in deep brainstem regions, including the parabrachial nucleus in the pons (see figure 2d ). The pleasure-generating capacity of these hotspots has been revealed in part by studies in which micro-injections of drugs stimulated neurochemical receptors on neurons within a hotspot, and caused a doubling or tripling of the number of hedonic “liking” reactions normally elicited by a pleasant sucrose taste. Analogous to scattered islands that form a single archipelago, hedonic hotspots are anatomically distributed but interact to form a functional integrated circuit. The circuit obeys control rules that are largely hierarchical and organized into brain levels. Top levels function together as a cooperative heterarchy, so that, for example, multiple unanimous “votes” in favor from simultaneously participating hotspots in the nucleus accumbens and ventral pallidum are required for opioid stimulation in either forebrain site to enhance “liking” above normal.

In addition, as mentioned above, pleasure is translated into motivational processes in part by activating a second component of reward termed “wanting” or incentive salience, which makes stimuli attractive when attributed to them by mesolimbic brain systems ( Berridge and Robinson 2003 ). Incentive salience depends in particular on mesolimbic dopamine neurotransmission (though other neurotransmitters and structures also are involved).

Importantly, incentive salience is not hedonic impact or pleasure “liking” ( Berridge 2007 ). This is why an individual can “want” a reward without necessarily “liking” the same reward. Irrational “wanting” without liking can occur especially in addiction via incentive-sensitization of the mesolimbic dopamine system and connected structures. At extreme, the addict may come to “want” what is neither “liked” nor expected to be liked, a dissociation possible because “wanting” mechanisms are largely subcortical and separable from cortically mediated declarative expectation and conscious planning. This is a reason why addicts may compulsively “want” to take drugs even if, at a more cognitive and conscious level, they do not want to do so. That is surely a recipe for great unhappiness (see figure 2 , bottom right).

CORTICAL PLEASURE

In the cortex, hedonic evaluation of pleasure valence is anatomically distinguishable from precursor operations such as sensory computations, suggesting existence of a hedonic cortex proper ( figure 2 ). Hedonic cortex involves regions such as the orbitofrontal, insula, medial prefrontal and cingulate cortices, which a wealth of human neuroimaging studies have shown to code for hedonic evaluations (including anticipation, appraisal, experience, and memory of pleasurable stimuli) and have close anatomical links to subcortical hedonic hotspots. It is important, however, to again make a distinction between brain activity coding and causing pleasure. Neural coding is inferred in practice by measuring brain activity correlated to a pleasant stimulus, using human neuroimaging techniques, or electrophysiological or neurochemical activation measures in animals ( Aldridge and Berridge 2010 ). Causation is generally inferred on the basis of a change in pleasure as a consequence of a brain manipulation, such as a lesion or stimulation. Coding and causation often go together for the same substrate, but they may diverge so that coding occurs alone.

Pleasure encoding may reach an apex of cortical localization in a subregion that is midanterior and roughly midlateral within the orbitofrontal cortex of the prefrontal lobe, where neuroimaging activity correlates strongly to subjective pleasantness ratings of food varieties—and to other pleasures such as sexual orgasms, drugs, chocolate, and music. Most important, activity in this special midanterior zone of orbitofrontal cortex tracks changes in subjective pleasure, such as a decline in palatability when the reward value of one food was reduced by eating it to satiety (while remaining high to another food). The midanterior subregion of orbitofrontal cortex is thus a prime candidate for the coding of subjective experience of pleasure ( Kringelbach 2005 ).

Another potential coding site for positive hedonics in orbitofrontal cortex is along its medial edge that has activity related to the positive and negative valence of affective events ( Kringelbach and Rolls 2004 ), contrasted to lateral portions that have been suggested to code unpleasant events (although lateral activity may reflect a signal to escape the situation, rather than displeasure per se) ( O’Doherty et al. 2001 ). This medial–lateral hedonic gradient interacts with an abstraction–concreteness gradient in the posterior-anterior dimension, so that more complex or abstract reinforcers (such as monetary gain and loss) are represented more anteriorly in the orbitofrontal cortex than less complex sensory rewards (such as taste). The medial region that codes pleasant sensations does not, however, appear to change its activity with reinforcer devaluation, and so may not reflect the full dynamics of pleasure.

Still other cortical regions have been implicated by some studies in coding for pleasant stimuli, including parts of the mid-insular cortex that is buried deep within the lateral surface of the brain as well as parts of the anterior cingulate cortices on the medial surface of the cortex. As yet, however, pleasure coding is not as clear for those regions as for the orbitofrontal cortex, and it remains uncertain whether insular or anterior cingulate cortices specifically code pleasure or only emotion more generally. A related suggestion has emerged that the frontal left hemisphere plays a special lateralized role in positive affect more than the right hemisphere ( Davidson and Irwin 1999 ), though how to reconcile left-positive findings with many other findings of bilateral activations of orbitofrontal and related cortical regions during hedonic processing remains an ongoing puzzle ( Kringelbach 2005 ).

It remains still unknown, however, if even the midanterior pleasure-coding site of orbitofrontal cortex or medial orbitofrontal cortex or any other cortical region actually causes a positive pleasure state. Clearly, damage to the orbitofrontal cortex does impair pleasure-related decisions, including choices and context-related cognitions in humans, monkeys, and rats ( Anderson et al. 1999 ; Nauta 1971 ). But some caution regarding whether the cortex generates positive affect states per se is indicated by the consideration that patients with lesions to the orbitofrontal cortex do still react normally to many pleasures, although sometimes showing inappropriate emotions. Hedonic capacity after prefrontal damage has not, however, yet been studied in careful enough detail to draw firm conclusions about cortical causation (for example, using selective satiation paradigms), and it would be useful to have more information on the role of orbitofrontal cortex, insular cortex, and cingulate cortex in generating and modulating hedonic states.

Pleasure causation has been so far rather difficult to assess in humans given the limits of information from lesion studies, and the correlative nature of neuroimaging studies. A promising tool, however, is deep brain stimulation (DBS), which is a versatile and reversible technique that directly alters brain activity in a brain target and where the ensuing whole-brain activity can be measured with Magnetoencephalography (MEG) ) Kringelbach et al. 2007 ). Pertinent to a view of happiness as freedom from distress, at least pain relief can be obtained from DBS of periaqueductal grey in the brainstem in humans, where specific neural signatures of pain have been found ( Green et al. 2009 ), and where the pain relief is associated with activity in the midanterior orbitofrontal cortex, perhaps involving endogenous opioid release. Similarly, DBS may alleviate some unpleasant symptoms of depression, though without actually producing positive affect.

Famously, also, pleasure electrodes were reported to exist decades ago in animals and humans when implanted in subcortical structures, including the nucleus accumbens, septum and medial forebrain bundle ( Olds and Milner 1954 ; Heath 1972 ) ( figure 2c ). However, recently we and others have questioned whether most such electrodes truly caused pleasure, or instead, only a psychological process more akin to “wanting” without “liking” ( Berridge and Kringelbach 2008 ). In our view, it still remains unknown whether DBS causes true pleasure, or if so, where in the brain electrodes produce it.

LOSS OF PLEASURE

The lack of pleasure, anhedonia, is one of the most important symptoms of many mental illnesses, including depression. It is difficult to conceive of anyone reporting happiness or well-being while so deprived of pleasure. Thus anhedonia is another potential avenue of evidence for the link between pleasure and happiness.

The brain regions necessary for pleasure—but disrupted in anhedonia—are not yet fully clear. Core “liking” reactions to sensory pleasures appear relatively difficult to abolish absolutely in animals by a single brain lesion or drug, which may be very good in evolutionary terms. Only the ventral pallidum has emerged among brain hedonic hotspots as a site where damage fully abolishes the capacity for positive hedonic reaction in rodent studies, replacing even “liking” for sweetness with “disliking” gapes normally reserved for bitter or similarly noxious tastes, at least for a while ( Aldridge and Berridge 2010 ). Interestingly, there are extensive connections from the ventral pallidum to the medial orbitofrontal cortex.

On the basis of this evidence, the ventral pallidum might also be linked to human anhedonia. This brain region has not yet been directly surgically targeted by clinicians but there is anecdotal evidence that some patients with pallidotomies (of nearby globus pallidus, just above and behind the ventral pallidum) for Parkinson’s patients show flattened affect (Aziz, personal communication), and stimulation of globus pallidus internus may help with depression. A case study has also reported anhedonia following bilateral lesion to the ventral pallidum ( Miller et al. 2006 ).

Alternatively, core “liking” for fundamental pleasures might persist intact but unacknowledged in anhedonia, while instead only more cognitive construals, including retrospective or anticipatory savoring, becomes impaired. That is, fundamental pleasure may not be abolished in depression after all. Instead, what is called anhedonia might be secondary to motivational deficits and cognitive misap-praisals of rewards, or to an overlay of negative affective states. This may still disrupt life enjoyment, and perhaps render higher pleasures impossible.

Other potential regions targeted by DBS to help with depression and anhedonia include the nucleus accumbens and the subgenual cingulate cortex. In addition, lesions of the posterior part of the anterior cingulate cortex have been used for the treatment of depression with some success ( Steele et al. 2008 ).

BRIDGING PLEASURE TO MEANING

It is potentially interesting to note that all these structures either have close links with frontal cortical structures in the hedonic network (for example, nucleus accumbens and ventral pallidum) or belong to what has been termed the brain’s default network, which changes over early development ( Fransson et al. 2007 ; Fair et al. 2008 ).

Mention of the default network brings us back to the topic of eudaimonic happiness, and to potential interactions of hedonic brain circuits with circuits that assess meaningful relationships of self to social others. The default network is a steady state circuit of the brain, which becomes perturbed during cognitive tasks ( Gusnard and Raichle 2001 ). Most pertinent here is an emerging literature that has proposed the default network to carry representations of self ( Lou et al. 1999 ), internal modes of cognition ( Buckner et al. 2008 ), and perhaps even states of consciousness ( Laureys et al. 2004 ). Such functions might well be important to higher pleasures as well as meaningful aspects of happiness.

Although highly speculative, we wonder whether the default network might deserve further consideration for a role in connecting eudaimonic and hedonic happiness. At least, key regions of the frontal default network overlap with the hedonic network discussed above, such as the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortices, and have a relatively high density of opiate receptors. And activity changes in the frontal default network, such as in the subgenual cingulate and orbitofrontal cortices, correlate to pathological changes in subjective hedonic experience, such as in depressed patients ( Drevets et al. 1997 ).

Pathological self-representations by the frontal default network could also provide a potential link between hedonic distortions of happiness that are accompanied by eudaimonic dissatisfaction, such as in cognitive rumination of depression. Conversely, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression, which aims to disengage from dysphoria-activated depressogenic thinking, might conceivably recruit default network circuitry to help mediate improvement in happiness via a linkage to hedonic circuitry.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

The most difficult questions facing pleasure and happiness research remain the nature of its subjective experience, the relation of hedonic components (pleasure or positive affect) to eudaimonic components (cognitive appraisals of meaning and life satisfaction), and the relation of each of these components to underlying brain systems. While some progress has been made in understanding brain hedonics, it is important not to over-interpret. In particular we have still not made substantial progress toward understanding the functional neuroanatomy of happiness.

In this article, we have identified a number of brain regions that are important in the brain’s hedonic networks, and speculated on the potential interaction of hedonics with eudaimonic networks. So far the most distinctive insights have come from studying sensory pleasures, but another challenge is to understand the how brain networks underlying fundamental pleasure relate to higher pleasures, such as music, dance, play, and flow to contribute to happiness. While it remains unclear how pleasure and happiness are exactly linked, it may be safe to say at least that the pathological lack of pleasure, in anhedonia or dysphoria, amounts to a formidable obstacle to happiness.

Further, in social animals like humans, it is worth noting that social interactions with conspecifics are fundamental and central to enhancing the other pleasures. Humans are intensely social, and data indicate that one of the most important factors for happiness is social relationships with other people. Social pleasures may still include vital sensory features such as visual faces, touch features of grooming and caress, as well as in humans more abstract and cognitive features of social reward and relationship evaluation. These may be important triggers for the brain’s hedonic networks in human beings.

In particular, adult pair bonds and attachment bonds between parents and infants are likely to be extremely important for the survival of the species ( Kringelbach et al. 2008 ). The breakdown of these bonds is all too common and can lead to great unhappiness. And even bond formation can potentially disrupt happiness, such as in transient parental depression after birth of an infant (in over 10 percent of mothers and approximately 3 percent of fathers [ Cooper and Murray 1998 ]). Progress in understanding the hedonics of social bonds could be useful in understanding happiness, and it will be important to map the developmental changes that occur over a lifespan. Fortunately, social neuroscience is beginning to unravel some of the complex dynamics of human social interactions and their relation to brain activations ( Parsons et al. 2010 ).

In conclusion, so far as positive affect contributes to happiness, then considerable progress has been made in understanding the neurobiology of pleasure in ways that might be relevant. For example, we can imagine several possibilities to relate happiness to particular hedonic psychological processes discussed above. Thus, one way to conceive of hedonic happiness is as “liking” without “wanting.” That is, a state of pleasure without disruptive desires, a state of contentment ( Kringelbach 2009 ). Another possibility is that moderate “wanting,” matched to positive “liking,” facilitates engagement with the world. A little incentive salience may add zest to the perception of life and perhaps even promote the construction of meaning, just as in some patients therapeutic deep brain stimulation may help lift the veil of depression by making life events more appealing. However, too much “wanting” can readily spiral into maladaptive patterns such as addiction, and is a direct route to great unhappiness. Finally, happiness of course springs not from any single component but from the interplay of higher pleasures, positive appraisals of life meaning and social connectedness, all combined and merged by interaction between the brain’s default networks and pleasure networks. Achieving the right hedonic balance in such ways may be crucial to keep one not just ticking over but actually happy.

Future scientific advances may provide a better sorting of psychological features of happiness and its underlying brain networks. If so, it remains a distinct possibility that more among us may be one day shifted into a better situation to enjoy daily events, to find life meaningful and worth living—and perhaps even to achieve a degree of bliss.

Acknowledgments

We thank Christopher Peterson, Eric Jackson, Kristine Rømer Thomsen, Christine Parsons, and Katie Young for helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Our research has been supported by grants from the TrygFonden Charitable Foundation to Kringelbach and from the National Institute of Mental Health and National Institute on Drug Abuse to Berridge.

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14.5 The Pursuit of Happiness

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Define and discuss happiness, including its determinants
• Describe the field of positive psychology and identify the kinds of problems it addresses
• Explain the meaning of positive affect and discuss its importance in health outcomes
• Describe the concept of flow and its relationship to happiness and fulfillment

Although the study of stress and how it affects us physically and psychologically is fascinating, it is—admittedly—somewhat of a grim topic. Psychology is also interested in the study of a more upbeat and encouraging approach to human affairs—the quest for happiness.

America’s founders declared that its citizens have an unalienable right to pursue happiness. But what is happiness? When asked to define the term, people emphasize different aspects of this elusive state. Indeed, happiness is somewhat ambiguous and can be defined from different perspectives (Martin, 2012). Some people, especially those who are highly committed to their religious faith, view happiness in ways that emphasize virtuosity, reverence, and enlightened spirituality. Others see happiness as primarily contentment—the inner peace and joy that come from deep satisfaction with one’s surroundings, relationships with others, accomplishments, and oneself. Still others view happiness mainly as pleasurable engagement with their personal environment—having a career and hobbies that are engaging, meaningful, rewarding, and exciting. These differences, of course, are merely differences in emphasis. Most people would probably agree that each of these views, in some respects, captures the essence of happiness.

Elements of Happiness

Some psychologists have suggested that happiness consists of three distinct elements: the pleasant life, the good life, and the meaningful life, as shown in Figure 14.25 (Seligman, 2002; Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005). The pleasant life is realized through the attainment of day-to-day pleasures that add fun, joy, and excitement to our lives. For example, evening walks along the beach and a fulfilling sex life can enhance our daily pleasure and contribute to the pleasant life. The good life is achieved through identifying our unique skills and abilities and engaging these talents to enrich our lives; those who achieve the good life often find themselves absorbed in their work or their recreational pursuits. The meaningful life involves a deep sense of fulfillment that comes from using our talents in the service of the greater good: in ways that benefit the lives of others or that make the world a better place. In general, the happiest people tend to be those who pursue the full life—they orient their pursuits toward all three elements (Seligman et al., 2005).

For practical purposes, a precise definition of happiness might incorporate each of these elements: an enduring state of mind consisting of joy, contentment, and other positive emotions, plus the sense that one’s life has meaning and value (Lyubomirsky, 2001). The definition implies that happiness is a long-term state—what is often characterized as subjective well-being—rather than merely a transient positive mood we all experience from time to time. It is this enduring happiness that has captured the interests of psychologists and other social scientists.

The study of happiness has grown dramatically in the last three decades (Diener, 2013). One of the most basic questions that happiness investigators routinely examine is this: How happy are people in general? The average person in the world tends to be relatively happy and tends to indicate experiencing more positive feelings than negative feelings (Diener, Ng, Harter, & Arora, 2010). When asked to evaluate their current lives on a scale ranging from 0 to 10 (with 0 representing “worst possible life” and 10 representing “best possible life”), people in more than 150 countries surveyed from 2010–2012 reported an average score of 5.2. People who live in North America, Australia, and New Zealand reported the highest average score at 7.1, whereas those living Sub-Saharan Africa reported the lowest average score at 4.6 (Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs, 2013). Worldwide, the five happiest countries are Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Sweden; the United States is ranked 17th happiest ( Figure 14.26 ) (Helliwell et al., 2013).

Several years ago, a Gallup survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults found that 52% reported that they were “very happy.” In addition, more than 8 in 10 indicated that they were “very satisfied” with their lives (Carroll, 2007). However, a recent poll found that only 42% of American adults report being "very happy." The groups that show the greatest declines in happiness are people of color, those who have not completed a college education, and those who politically identify as Democrats or independents (McCarthy, 2020). These results suggest that challenging economic conditions may be related to declines in happiness. Of course, this interpretation implies that happiness is closely tied to one's finances. But, is it? What factors influence happiness?

Factors Connected to Happiness

What really makes people happy? What factors contribute to sustained joy and contentment? Is it money, attractiveness, material possessions, a rewarding occupation, a satisfying relationship? Extensive research over the years has examined this question. One finding is that age is related to happiness: Life satisfaction usually increases the older people get, but there do not appear to be gender differences in happiness (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999). Although it is important to point out that much of this work has been correlational, many of the key findings (some of which may surprise you) are summarized below.

Family and other social relationships appear to be key factors correlated with happiness. Studies show that married people report being happier than those who are single, divorced, or widowed (Diener et al., 1999). Happy individuals also report that their marriages are fulfilling (Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005). In fact, some have suggested that satisfaction with marriage and family life is the strongest predictor of happiness (Myers, 2000). Happy people tend to have more friends, more high-quality social relationships, and stronger social support networks than less happy people (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005). Happy people also have a high frequency of contact with friends (Pinquart & Sörensen, 2000).

Can money buy happiness? In general, extensive research suggests that the answer is yes, but with several caveats. While a nation’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) is associated with happiness levels (Helliwell et al., 2013), changes in GDP (which is a less certain index of household income) bear little relationship to changes in happiness (Diener, Tay, & Oishi, 2013). On the whole, residents of affluent countries tend to be happier than residents of poor countries; within countries, wealthy individuals are happier than poor individuals, but the association is much weaker (Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2002). To the extent that it leads to increases in purchasing power, increases in income are associated with increases in happiness (Diener, Oishi, & Ryan, 2013). However, income within societies appears to correlate with happiness only up to a point. In a study of over 450,000 U.S. residents surveyed by the Gallup Organization, Kahneman and Deaton (2010) found that well-being rises with annual income, but only up to $75,000. The average increase in reported well-being for people with incomes greater than $75,000 was null. As implausible as these findings might seem—after all, higher incomes would enable people to indulge in Hawaiian vacations, prime seats as sporting events, expensive automobiles, and expansive new homes—higher incomes may impair people’s ability to savor and enjoy the small pleasures of life (Kahneman, 2011). Indeed, researchers in one study found that participants exposed to a subliminal reminder of wealth spent less time savoring a chocolate candy bar and exhibited less enjoyment of this experience than did participants who were not reminded of wealth (Quoidbach, Dunn, Petrides, & Mikolajczak, 2010).

What about education and employment? Happy people, compared to those who are less happy, are more likely to graduate from college and secure more meaningful and engaging jobs. Once they obtain a job, they are also more likely to succeed (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005). While education shows a positive (but weak) correlation with happiness, intelligence is not appreciably related to happiness (Diener et al., 1999).

Does religiosity correlate with happiness? In general, the answer is yes (Hackney & Sanders, 2003). However, the relationship between religiosity and happiness depends on societal circumstances. Nations and states with more difficult living conditions (e.g., widespread hunger and low life expectancy) tend to be more highly religious than societies with more favorable living conditions. Among those who live in nations with difficult living conditions, religiosity is associated with greater well-being; in nations with more favorable living conditions, religious and nonreligious individuals report similar levels of well-being (Diener, Tay, & Myers, 2011).

Clearly the living conditions of one’s nation can influence factors related to happiness. What about the influence of one’s culture? To the extent that people possess characteristics that are highly valued by their culture, they tend to be happier (Diener, 2012). For example, self-esteem is a stronger predictor of life satisfaction in individualistic cultures than in collectivistic cultures (Diener, Diener, & Diener, 1995), and extraverted people tend to be happier in extraverted cultures than in introverted cultures (Fulmer et al., 2010).

So we’ve identified many factors that exhibit some correlation to happiness. What factors don’t show a correlation? Researchers have studied both parenthood and physical attractiveness as potential contributors to happiness, but no link has been identified. Although people tend to believe that parenthood is central to a meaningful and fulfilling life, aggregate findings from a range of countries indicate that people who do not have children are generally happier than those who do (Hansen, 2012). And although one’s perceived level of attractiveness seems to predict happiness, a person’s objective physical attractiveness is only weakly correlated with their happiness (Diener, Wolsic, & Fujita, 1995).

Life Events and Happiness

An important point should be considered regarding happiness. People are often poor at affective forecasting: predicting the intensity and duration of their future emotions (Wilson & Gilbert, 2003). In one study, nearly all newlywed spouses predicted their marital satisfaction would remain stable or improve over the following four years; despite this high level of initial optimism, their marital satisfaction actually declined during this period (Lavner, Karner, & Bradbury, 2013). In addition, we are often incorrect when estimating how our long-term happiness would change for the better or worse in response to certain life events. For example, it is easy for many of us to imagine how euphoric we would feel if we won the lottery, were asked on a date by an attractive celebrity, or were offered our dream job. It is also easy to understand how long-suffering fans of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, which had not won a World Series championship since 1908, thought they would feel permanently elated when their team finally won another World Series in 2016. Likewise, it is easy to predict that we would feel permanently miserable if we suffered a disabling accident or if a romantic relationship ended.

However, something similar to sensory adaptation often occurs when people experience emotional reactions to life events. In much the same way our senses adapt to changes in stimulation (e.g., our eyes adapting to bright light after walking out of the darkness of a movie theater into the bright afternoon sun), we eventually adapt to changing emotional circumstances in our lives (Brickman & Campbell, 1971; Helson, 1964). When an event that provokes positive or negative emotions occurs, at first we tend to experience its emotional impact at full intensity. We feel a burst of pleasure following such things as a marriage proposal, birth of a child, acceptance to law school, an inheritance, and the like; as you might imagine, lottery winners experience a surge of happiness after hitting the jackpot (Lutter, 2007). Likewise, we experience a surge of misery following widowhood, a divorce, or a layoff from work. In the long run, however, we eventually adjust to the emotional new normal; the emotional impact of the event tends to erode, and we eventually revert to our original baseline happiness levels. Thus, what was at first a thrilling lottery windfall or World Series championship eventually loses its luster and becomes the status quo ( Figure 14.27 ). Indeed, dramatic life events have much less long-lasting impact on happiness than might be expected (Brickman, Coats, & Janoff-Bulman, 1978).

Recently, some have raised questions concerning the extent to which important life events can permanently alter people’s happiness set points (Diener, Lucas, & Scollon, 2006). Evidence from a number of investigations suggests that, in some circumstances, happiness levels do not revert to their original positions. For example, although people generally tend to adapt to marriage so that it no longer makes them happier or unhappier than before, they often do not fully adapt to unemployment or severe disabilities (Diener, 2012). Figure 14.28 , which is based on longitudinal data from a sample of over 3,000 German respondents, shows life satisfaction scores several years before, during, and after various life events, and it illustrates how people adapt (or fail to adapt) to these events. German respondents did not get lasting emotional boosts from marriage; instead, they reported brief increases in happiness, followed by quick adaptation. In contrast, widows and those who had been laid off experienced sizeable decreases in happiness that appeared to result in long-term changes in life satisfaction (Diener et al., 2006). Further, longitudinal data from the same sample showed that happiness levels changed significantly over time for nearly a quarter of respondents, with 9% showing major changes (Fujita & Diener, 2005). Thus, long-term happiness levels can and do change for some people.

Increasing Happiness

Some recent findings about happiness provide an optimistic picture, suggesting that real changes in happiness are possible. For example, thoughtfully developed well-being interventions designed to augment people’s baseline levels of happiness may increase happiness in ways that are permanent and long-lasting, not just temporary. These changes in happiness may be targeted at individual, organizational, and societal levels (Diener et al., 2006). Researchers in one study found that a series of happiness interventions involving such exercises as writing down three good things that occurred each day led to increases in happiness that lasted over six months (Seligman et al., 2005).

Measuring happiness and well-being at the societal level over time may assist policy makers in determining if people are generally happy or miserable, as well as when and why they might feel the way they do. Studies show that average national happiness scores (over time and across countries) relate strongly to six key variables: per capita gross domestic product (GDP, which reflects a nation’s economic standard of living), social support, freedom to make important life choices, healthy life expectancy, freedom from perceived corruption in government and business, and generosity (Helliwell et al., 2013). Investigating why people are happy or unhappy might help policymakers develop programs that increase happiness and well-being within a society (Diener et al., 2006). Resolutions about contemporary political and social issues that are frequent topics of debate—such as poverty, taxation, affordable health care and housing, clean air and water, and income inequality—might be best considered with people’s happiness in mind.

Positive Psychology

In 1998, Seligman (the same person who conducted the learned helplessness experiments mentioned earlier), who was then president of the American Psychological Association, urged psychologists to focus more on understanding how to build human strength and psychological well-being. In deliberately setting out to create a new direction and new orientation for psychology, Seligman helped establish a growing movement and field of research called positive psychology (Compton, 2005). In a very general sense, positive psychology can be thought of as the science of happiness; it is an area of study that seeks to identify and promote those qualities that lead to greater fulfillment in our lives. This field looks at people’s strengths and what helps individuals to lead happy, contented lives, and it moves away from focusing on people’s pathology, faults, and problems. According to Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000), positive psychology,

at the subjective level is about valued subjective experiences: well-being, contentment, and satisfaction (in the past); hope and optimism (for the future); and… happiness (in the present). At the individual level, it is about positive individual traits: the capacity for love and vocation, courage, interpersonal skill, aesthetic sensibility, perseverance, forgiveness, originality, future mindedness, spirituality, high talent, and wisdom. (p. 5)

Some of the topics studied by positive psychologists include altruism and empathy, creativity, forgiveness and compassion, the importance of positive emotions, enhancement of immune system functioning, savoring the fleeting moments of life, and strengthening virtues as a way to increase authentic happiness (Compton, 2005). Recent efforts in the field of positive psychology have focused on extending its principles toward peace and well-being at the level of the global community. In a war-torn world in which conflict, hatred, and distrust are common, such an extended “positive peace psychology” could have important implications for understanding how to overcome oppression and work toward global peace (Cohrs, Christie, White, & Das, 2013).

The Center for Investigating Healthy Minds

On the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center conducts rigorous scientific research on healthy aspects of the mind, such as kindness, forgiveness, compassion, and mindfulness. Established in 2008 and led by renowned neuroscientist Dr. Richard J. Davidson, the Center examines a wide range of ideas, including such things as a kindness curriculum in schools, neural correlates of prosocial behavior, psychological effects of Tai Chi training, digital games to foster prosocial behavior in children, and the effectiveness of yoga and breathing exercises in reducing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

According to its website, the Center was founded after Dr. Davidson was challenged by His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, “to apply the rigors of science to study positive qualities of mind” (Center for Investigating Health Minds, 2013). The Center continues to conduct scientific research with the aim of developing mental health training approaches that help people to live happier, healthier lives.

Positive Affect and Optimism

Taking a cue from positive psychology, extensive research over the last 10-15 years has examined the importance of positive psychological attributes in physical well-being. Qualities that help promote psychological well-being (e.g., having meaning and purpose in life, a sense of autonomy, positive emotions, and satisfaction with life) are linked with a range of favorable health outcomes (especially improved cardiovascular health) mainly through their relationships with biological functions and health behaviors (such as diet, physical activity, and sleep quality) (Boehm & Kubzansky, 2012). The quality that has received attention is positive affect , which refers to pleasurable engagement with the environment, such as happiness, joy, enthusiasm, alertness, and excitement (Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). The characteristics of positive affect, as with negative affect (discussed earlier), can be brief, long-lasting, or trait-like (Pressman & Cohen, 2005). Independent of age, gender, and income, positive affect is associated with greater social connectedness, emotional and practical support, adaptive coping efforts, and lower depression; it is also associated with longevity and favorable physiological functioning (Steptoe, O’Donnell, Marmot, & Wardle, 2008).

Positive affect also serves as a protective factor against heart disease. In a 10-year study of Nova Scotians, the rate of heart disease was 22% lower for each one-point increase on the measure of positive affect, from 1 (no positive affect expressed) to 5 (extreme positive affect) (Davidson, Mostofsky, & Whang, 2010). In terms of our health, the expression, “don’t worry, be happy” is helpful advice indeed. There has also been much work suggesting that optimism —the general tendency to look on the bright side of things—is also a significant predictor of positive health outcomes.

Although positive affect and optimism are related in some ways, they are not the same (Pressman & Cohen, 2005). Whereas positive affect is mostly concerned with positive feeling states, optimism has been regarded as a generalized tendency to expect that good things will happen (Chang, 2001). It has also been conceptualized as a tendency to view life’s stressors and difficulties as temporary and external to oneself (Peterson & Steen, 2002). Numerous studies over the years have consistently shown that optimism is linked to longevity, healthier behaviors, fewer postsurgical complications, better immune functioning among men with prostate cancer, and better treatment adherence (Rasmussen & Wallio, 2008). Further, optimistic people report fewer physical symptoms, less pain, better physical functioning, and are less likely to be rehospitalized following heart surgery (Rasmussen, Scheier, & Greenhouse, 2009).

Another factor that seems to be important in fostering a deep sense of well-being is the ability to derive flow from the things we do in life. Flow is described as a particular experience that is so engaging and engrossing that it becomes worth doing for its own sake (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). It is usually related to creative endeavors and leisure activities, but it can also be experienced by workers who like their jobs or students who love studying (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999). Many of us instantly recognize the notion of flow. In fact, the term derived from respondents’ spontaneous use of the term when asked to describe how it felt when what they were doing was going well. When people experience flow, they become involved in an activity to the point where they feel they lose themselves in the activity. They effortlessly maintain their concentration and focus, they feel as though they have complete control of their actions, and time seems to pass more quickly than usual (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). Flow is considered a pleasurable experience, and it typically occurs when people are engaged in challenging activities that require skills and knowledge they know they possess. For example, people would be more likely report flow experiences in relation to their work or hobbies than in relation to eating. When asked the question, “Do you ever get involved in something so deeply that nothing else seems to matter, and you lose track of time?” about 20% of Americans and Europeans report having these flow-like experiences regularly (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997).

Although wealth and material possessions are nice to have, the notion of flow suggests that neither are prerequisites for a happy and fulfilling life. Finding an activity that you are truly enthusiastic about, something so absorbing that doing it is reward itself (whether it be playing tennis, studying Arabic, writing children’s novels, or cooking lavish meals) is perhaps the real key. According to Csikszentmihalyi (1999), creating conditions that make flow experiences possible should be a top social and political priority. How might this goal be achieved? How might flow be promoted in school systems? In the workplace? What potential benefits might be accrued from such efforts?

In an ideal world, scientific research endeavors should inform us on how to bring about a better world for all people. The field of positive psychology promises to be instrumental in helping us understand what truly builds hope, optimism, happiness, healthy relationships, flow, and genuine personal fulfillment.

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• Authors: Rose M. Spielman, William J. Jenkins, Marilyn D. Lovett
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• Book title: Psychology 2e
• Publication date: Apr 22, 2020
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• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/1-introduction
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Happiness and Life Satisfaction

Self-reported life satisfaction differs widely between people and between countries. What explains these differences?

By Esteban Ortiz-Ospina and Max Roser

First published in 2013; most recent substantive revision February 2024.

How happy are people today? Were people happier in the past? How satisfied with their lives are people in different societies? And how do our living conditions affect all of this?

These are difficult questions to answer, but they are questions that undoubtedly matter for each of us personally. Indeed, today, life satisfaction and happiness are central research areas in the social sciences, including in ‘mainstream’ economics.

Social scientists often recommend that measures of subjective well-being should augment the usual measures of economic prosperity, such as GDP per capita . 1 But how can happiness be measured? Are there reliable comparisons of happiness across time and space that can give us clues regarding what makes people declare themselves ‘happy’?

In this topic page, we discuss the data and empirical evidence that might answer these questions. Our focus here will be on survey-based measures of self-reported happiness and life satisfaction. Here is a preview of what the data reveals.

• Surveys asking people about life satisfaction and happiness do measure subjective well-being with reasonable accuracy.
• Life satisfaction and happiness vary widely both within and among countries. It only takes a glimpse at the data to see that people are distributed along a wide spectrum of happiness levels.
• Richer people tend to say they are happier than poorer people; richer countries tend to have higher average happiness levels; and across time, most countries that have experienced sustained economic growth have seen increasing happiness levels. So, the evidence suggests that income and life satisfaction tend to go together (which still doesn’t mean they are one and the same).
• Important life events such as marriage or divorce do affect our happiness but have surprisingly little long-term impact. The evidence suggests that people tend to adapt to changes.

See all interactive charts on Happiness and Life Satisfaction ↓

Other research and writing on happiness and life satisfaction on Our World in Data:

• Are Facebook and other social media platforms bad for our well-being?
• Are people more likely to be lonely in so-called 'individualistic' societies?
• Are we happier when we spend more time with others?
• Collective pessimism and our inability to guess the happiness of others
• How important are social relations for our health and well-being?
• Is there a loneliness epidemic?
• There is a 'happiness gap' between East and West Germany

Happiness across the world today

The World Happiness Report is a well-known source of cross-country data and research on self-reported life satisfaction. The map here shows, country by country, the ‘happiness scores’ published this report.

The underlying source of the happiness scores in the World Happiness Report is the Gallup World Poll —a set of nationally representative surveys undertaken in more than 160 countries in over 140 languages.

The main life evaluation question asked in the poll is: “Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you, and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?” (This is also known as the “Cantril Ladder”.)

The map plots the average answer that survey respondents provided to this question in different countries. As with the steps of the ladder, values in the map range from 0 to 10.

There are large differences across countries. According to the most recent figures, European countries top the ranking: Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, and the Netherlands have the highest scores. In the same year, the lowest national scores correspond to Afghanistan, South Sudan, and other countries in central Sub-Saharan Africa.

You can click on any country on the map to plot time series for specific countries.

Self-reported life satisfaction tends to correlate with other measures of well-being—richer and healthier countries tend to have higher average happiness scores. (More on this in the section below .)

Happiness over time

Findings from the integrated values surveys.

In addition to the Gallup World Poll (discussed above), the Integrated Values Surveys provides cross-country data on self-reported life satisfaction. These are the longest available time series of cross-country happiness estimates that include non-European nations.

The Integrated Values Surveys collect data from a series of representative national surveys covering almost 100 countries, with the earliest estimates dating back to 1981. In these surveys, respondents are asked: “Taking all things together, would you say you are (i) Very happy, (ii) Rather happy, (iii) Not very happy, or (iv) Not at all happy”. This visualization plots the share of people answering they are “very happy” or “rather happy”.

As we can see, in most countries, the trend is positive: In most countries with data from two or more surveys, the most recent observation is higher than the earliest. In some cases, the improvement has been very large; in Albania, for example, the share of people who reported being ‘very happy’ or ‘rather happy’ went from 33.4% in 1998 to 73.9% in 2022.

Findings from Eurobarometer

The Eurobarometer survey collects data on life satisfaction as part of their public opinion surveys. For several countries, these surveys have been conducted at least annually for more than 40 years. The visualization here shows the share of people who report being ‘very satisfied’ or ‘fairly satisfied’ with their standards of living.

Two points are worth emphasizing. First, estimates of life satisfaction often fluctuate around trends. In France, for example, we can see that the overall trend is positive, yet there is a pattern of ups and downs. And second, despite fluctuations, decade-long trends have been generally positive for most European countries.

In most cases, the share of people who say they are ‘very satisfied’ or ‘fairly satisfied’ with their life has gone up over the full survey period. 2 Yet there are some clear exceptions, of which Greece is the most notable example. In 2007, around 67% of the Greeks said they were satisfied with their life, but five years later, after the financial crisis struck, the corresponding figure was down to 32.4%. Despite recent improvements, Greeks today are, on average, much less satisfied with their lives than they were before the financial crisis. No other European country in this dataset has gone through a comparable negative shock.

The distribution of life satisfaction

More than averages — the distribution of life satisfaction scores.

Most of the studies comparing happiness and life satisfaction among countries focus on averages. However, distributional differences are also important.

Life satisfaction is often reported on a scale from 0 to 10, with 10 representing the highest possible level of satisfaction. This is the so-called ‘Cantril Ladder’. This visualization shows how responses are distributed across steps in this ladder. In each case, the height of the bars is proportional to the fraction of answers at each score. Each differently-colored distribution refers to a world region, and for each region, we have overlaid the distribution for the entire world as a reference.

These plots show that in Sub-Saharan Africa—the region with the lowest average scores—the distributions are consistently to the left of those in Europe.

This means that the share of people who are ‘happy’ is lower in Sub-Saharan Africa than in Western Europe, independently of which score in the ladder we use as a threshold to define ‘happy’. Similar comparisons can be made by contrasting other regions with high average scores (e.g., North America, Australia, and New Zealand) against those with low average scores (e.g., South Asia).

Another important point to notice is that the distribution of self-reported life satisfaction in Latin America and the Caribbean is high across the board—it is consistently to the right of other regions with roughly comparable income levels, such as Central and Eastern Europe.

This is part of a broader pattern: Latin American countries tend to have a higher subjective well-being than other countries with comparable levels of economic development. As we will see in the section on the social environment , culture, and history matter for self-reported life satisfaction.

If you want data on country-level distributions of scores, the Pew Global Attitudes Survey provides such figures for more than 40 countries.

Differences in happiness within countries

Happiness inequality, happiness inequality in the us and other rich countries.

The General Social Survey (GSS) in the US is a survey administered to a nationally representative sample of about 1,500 respondents each year since 1972 and is an important source of information on long-run trends of self-reported life satisfaction in the country. 3

Using this source, Stevenson and Wolfers (2008) 4 show that while the national average has remained broadly constant, inequality in happiness has fallen substantially in the US in recent decades.

The authors further note that this is true both when we think about inequality in terms of the dispersion of answers, and also when we think about inequality in terms of gaps between demographic groups. They note that two-thirds of the black-white happiness gap has been eroded (although today, white Americans remain happier on average, even after controlling for differences in education and income), and the gender happiness gap has disappeared entirely (women used to be slightly happier than men, but they are becoming less happy, and today there is no statistical difference once we control for other characteristics). 5

The results from Stevenson and Wolfers are consistent with other studies looking at changes of happiness inequality (or life satisfaction inequality) over time. In particular, researchers have noted that there is a correlation between economic growth and reductions in happiness inequality—even when income inequality is increasing at the same time. The visualization here uses data from Clark, Fleche, and Senik (2015) 6 shows this. It plots the evolution of happiness inequality within a selection of rich countries that experienced uninterrupted GDP growth.

In this chart, happiness inequality is measured by the dispersion — specifically the standard deviation — of answers in the World Values Survey . As we can see, there is a broad negative trend. In their paper, the authors show that the trend is positive in countries with falling GDP.

Why could it be that happiness inequality falls with rising income inequality?

Clark, Fleche, and Senik argue that part of the reason is that the growth of national income allows for the greater provision of public goods, which in turn tightens the distribution of subjective well-being. This can still be consistent with growing income inequality since public goods such as better health affect incomes and well-being differently.

Another possibility is that economic growth in rich countries has translated into a more diverse society in terms of cultural expressions (e.g., through the emergence of alternative lifestyles), which has allowed people to converge in happiness even if they diverge in incomes, tastes, and consumption. Steven Quartz and Annette Asp explain this hypothesis in a New York Times article , discussing evidence from experimental psychology.

The link between happiness and income

The link across countries, higher national incomes go together with higher average life satisfaction.

If we compare life satisfaction reports from around the world at any given point in time, we immediately see that countries with higher average national incomes tend to have higher average life satisfaction scores. In other words, people in richer countries tend to report higher life satisfaction than people in poorer countries. The scatter plot here shows this.

Each dot in the visualization represents one country. The vertical position of the dots shows the national average self-reported life satisfaction in the Cantril Ladder (a scale ranging from 0-10 where 10 is the highest possible life satisfaction), while the horizontal position shows GDP per capita based on purchasing power parity (i.e., GDP per head after adjusting for inflation and cross-country price differences).

This correlation holds even if we control for other factors: Richer countries tend to have higher average self-reported life satisfaction than poorer countries that are comparable in terms of demographics and other measurable characteristics. You can read more about this in the World Happiness Report 2017 , specifically the discussion in Chapter 2.

As we show below, income and happiness also tend to go together within countries and across time .

The link within countries

Higher personal incomes go together with higher self-reported life satisfaction.

Above; we point out that richer countries tend to be happier than poorer countries. Here, we show that the same tends to be true within countries: richer people within a country tend to be happier than poorer people in the same country. The visualizations here show us this by looking at happiness by income quintiles.

Firstly, we show each country in individual panels: within each panel is a connected scatter plot for a specific country. This means that for each country, we observe a line joining five points: each point marks the average income within an income quintile (horizontal axis) against the average self-reported life satisfaction of people at that income quintile (vertical axis).

What does this visualization tell us? We see that in all cases, lines are upward sloping: people in higher income quintiles tend to have higher average life satisfaction. Yet in some countries, the lines are steep and linear (e.g., in Costa Rica, richer people are happier than poorer people across the whole income distribution), while in some countries, the lines are less steep and non-linear (e.g., the richest group of people in the Dominican Republic is as happy as the second-richest group).

In a second visualization, we present the same data, but instead of plotting each country separately, showing all countries in one grid.

The resulting connected scatter plot may be messy, resembling a ‘spaghetti’ chart, but it is helpful to confirm the overall pattern: despite kinks here and there, lines are, by and large, upward-sloping.

Looking across and within countries

A snapshot of the correlation between income and happiness—between and within countries.

Do income and happiness tend to go together? The visualization here shows that the answer to this question is yes, both within and across countries.

It may take a minute to wrap your head around this visualization, but once you do, you can see that it handily condenses the key information from the previous three charts into one.

To show the income-happiness correlation across countries, the chart plots the relationship between self-reported life satisfaction on the vertical axis and GDP per capita on the horizontal axis. Each country is an arrow on the grid, and the location of the arrow tells us the corresponding combination of average income and average happiness.

To show the income-happiness correlation within countries, each arrow has a slope corresponding to the correlation between household incomes and self-reported life satisfaction within that country. In other words, the slope of the arrow shows how strong the relationship between income and life satisfaction is within that country. ( This chart gives you a visual example of how the arrows were constructed for each country). 7

If an arrow points northeast, that means richer people tend to report higher life satisfaction than poorer people in the same country. If an arrow is flat (i.e., points east), that means rich people are, on average, just as happy as poorer people in the same country.

As we can see, there is a very clear pattern: richer countries tend to be happier than poorer countries (observations are lined up around an upward-sloping trend), and richer people within countries tend to be happier than poorer people in the same countries (arrows are consistently pointing northeast).

It’s important to note that the horizontal axis is measured on a logarithmic scale. The cross-country relationship we would observe on a linear scale would be different since, at high national income levels, slightly higher national incomes are associated with a smaller increase in average happiness than at low levels of national incomes. In other words, the cross-country relationship between income and happiness is not linear on income (it is ‘log-linear’). We use the logarithmic scale to highlight two key facts: (i) at no point in the global income distribution is the relationship flat, and (ii) a doubling of the average income is associated with roughly the same increase in the reported life satisfaction, irrespective of the position in the global distribution.

These findings have been explored in more detail in a number of recent academic studies. Importantly, the much-cited paper by Stevenson and Wolfers (2008) 8 shows that these correlations hold even after controlling for various country characteristics, such as the demographic composition of the population, and are robust to different sources of data and types of subjective well-being measures.

Economic growth and happiness

In the charts above, we show that there is robust evidence of a strong correlation between income and happiness across and within countries at fixed points in time. Here, we want to show that, while less strong, there is also a correlation between income and happiness across time. Or, put differently, as countries get richer, the population tends to report higher average life satisfaction.

The chart shown here uses data from the World Values Survey to plot the evolution of national average incomes and national average happiness over time. To be specific, this chart shows the share of people who say they are ‘very happy’ or ‘rather happy’ in the World Values Survey (vertical axis) against GDP per head (horizontal axis). Each country is drawn as a line joining the first and last available observations across all survey waves. 9

As we can see, countries that experience economic growth also tend to experience happiness growth across waves in the World Values Survey. This is a correlation that holds after controlling for other factors that also change over time (in this chart from Stevenson and Wolfers (2008), you can see how changes in GDP per capita compare to changes in life satisfaction after accounting for changes in demographic composition and other variables).

An important point to note here is that economic growth and happiness growth tend to go together on average . Some countries, in some periods, experience economic growth without increasing happiness. The experience of the US in recent decades is a case in point. These instances may seem paradoxical given the evidence—we explore this question in the following section.

The Easterlin Paradox

The observation that economic growth does not always go together with increasing life satisfaction was first made by Richard Easterlin in the 1970s. Since then, there has been much discussion over what came to be known as the ‘Easterlin Paradox’.

At the heart of the paradox was the fact that richer countries tend to have higher self-reported happiness, yet in some countries for which repeated surveys were available over the course of the 1970s, happiness was not increasing with rising national incomes. This combination of empirical findings was paradoxical because the cross-country evidence (countries with higher incomes tended to have higher self-reported happiness) did not, in some cases, fit the evidence over time (countries seemed not to get happier as national incomes increased).

Notably, Easterlin and other researchers relied on data from the US and Japan to support this seemingly perplexing observation. If we look closely at the data underpinning the trends in these two countries, however, these cases are not, in fact, paradoxical.

Let us begin with the case of Japan. There, the earliest available data on self-reported life satisfaction came from the so-called ‘Life in Nation surveys’, which date back to 1958. At first glance, this source suggests that mean life satisfaction remained flat over a period of spectacular economic growth (see, for example, this chart from Easterlin and Angelescu 2011). 10 Digging a bit deeper, however, we find that things are more complex.

Stevenson and Wolfers (2008) 8 show that the life satisfaction questions in the ‘Life in Nation surveys’ changed over time, making it difficult—if not impossible—to track changes in happiness over the full period. The visualization here splits the life satisfaction data from the surveys into sub-periods where the questions remained constant. As we can see, the data is not supportive of a paradox: the correlation between GDP and happiness growth in Japan is positive within comparable survey periods. The reason for the alleged paradox is, in fact mismeasurement of how happiness changed over time.

In the US, the explanation is different but can once again be traced to the underlying data. Specifically, if we look more closely at economic growth in the US over the recent decades, one fact looms large: growth has not benefitted the majority of people. Income inequality in the US is exceptionally high and has been on the rise in the last four decades, with incomes for the median household growing much more slowly than incomes for the top 10%. As a result, trends in aggregate life satisfaction should not be seen as paradoxical: the income and standard of living of the typical US citizen have not grown much in the last couple of decades. (You can read more about this in our page on inequality and incomes across the distribution .)

Health and life satisfaction

Life expectancy and life satisfaction.

Health is an important predictor of life satisfaction, both within and among countries. In this visualization, we provide evidence of the cross-country relationship.

Each dot in the scatterplot represents one country. The vertical position of the dots shows national life expectancy at birth, and the horizontal position shows the national average self-reported life satisfaction in the Cantril Ladder (a scale ranging from 0-10, where 10 is the highest possible life satisfaction).

As we can see, there is a strong positive correlation: countries where people tend to live longer are also countries where people tend to say more often that they are satisfied with their lives. A similar relationship holds for other health outcomes (e.g., life satisfaction tends to be higher in countries with lower child mortality ).

The relationship plotted in the chart clearly reflects more than just the link between health and happiness since countries with high life expectancy also tend to be countries with many other distinct characteristics. However, the positive correlation between life expectancy and life satisfaction remains after controlling for observable country characteristics, such as income and social protection. You can read more about this in the World Happiness Report 2017 , specifically the discussion in Chapter 2.

Life satisfaction through life events

How do common life events affect happiness.

Do people tend to adapt to common life events by converging back to a baseline level of happiness?

Clark et al. (2008) 12 use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel to identify groups of people experiencing significant life and labor market events and trace how these events affect the evolution of their life satisfaction. The visualization here shows an overview of their main findings. In each individual chart, the red lines mark the estimated effect of a different event at a given point in time (with ‘whiskers’ marking the range of confidence of each estimate).

In all cases, the results are split by gender, and time is labeled so that 0 marks the point when the corresponding event took place (with negative and positive values denoting years before and after the event). All estimates control for individual characteristics, so the figures show the effect of the event after controlling for other factors (e.g., income, etc.).

The first point to note is that most events denote the evolution of a latent situation: People grow unhappy in the period leading up to a divorce, while they grow happy in the period leading up to a marriage.

The second point is that single life events do tend to affect happiness in the short run, but people often adapt to changes. Of course, there are clear differences in the extent to which people adapt. In the case of divorce, life satisfaction first drops, then goes up and stays high. For unemployment, there is a negative shock both in the short and long run, notably among men. And for marriage, life satisfaction builds up before the wedding and fades out after it.

In general, the evidence suggests that adaptation is an important feature of well-being. Many common but important life events have a modest, long-term impact on self-reported happiness. Yet adaptation to some events, such as long-term unemployment, is neither perfect nor immediate.

Does disability correlate with life satisfaction?

A number of papers have noted that long-term paraplegics do not report themselves as particularly unhappy when compared to non-paraplegics (see, for example, the much-cited paper by Brickman, Coates, and Janoff-Bulman, 1978). 13

This assertion has received attention because it tells us something about the very meaning of well-being and has important consequences for policy. It is, for example, considered in courts of law with respect to compensation for disability.

However, comparing differences in self-reported life satisfaction among people with different disability statuses is not an ideal source of evidence regarding the effect of tragedy on happiness. Non-paraplegics are potentially different from paraplegics in ways that are hard to measure. Better sources of evidence are longitudinal surveys, where people are tracked over time.

Oswald and Powdthavee (2008) 14 use data from a longitudinal survey in the UK to explore whether accidents leading to disability imply long-term shocks to life satisfaction.

The chart here, from Oswald and Powdthavee, shows the average reported life satisfaction of a group of people who became seriously disabled (at time T) and remained seriously disabled in the two following years (T+1 and T+2). Here, ‘seriously disabled’ means that disability prevented them from being able to do day-to-day activities.

As we can see—and as the authors show more precisely through econometric techniques—those entering disability suffer a sudden drop in life satisfaction and recover only partially. This supports the idea that while adaptation plays a role in common life events, the notion of life satisfaction is indeed sensitive to tragic events.

Life satisfaction and society

Culture and life satisfaction.

Comparisons of happiness among countries suggest that culture and history shared by people in a given society matter for self-reported life satisfaction. For example, as the chart here shows, culturally and historically similar Latin American countries have a higher subjective well-being than other countries with comparable levels of economic development. (This chart plots self-reported life satisfaction as measured in the 10-point Cantril ladder on the vertical axis against GDP per capita on the horizontal axis).

Latin America is not a special case in this respect. Ex-communist countries, for example, tend to have lower subjective well-being than other countries with comparable characteristics and levels of economic development.

Academic studies in positive psychology discuss other patterns. Diener and Suh (2002) write: “In recent years cultural differences in subjective well-being have been explored, with a realization that there are profound differences in what makes people happy. Self-esteem, for example, is less strongly associated with life satisfaction, and extraversion is less strongly associated with pleasant affect in collectivist cultures than in individualist cultures”. 15

To our knowledge, there are no rigorous studies exploring the causal mechanisms linking culture and happiness. However, it seems natural to expect that cultural factors shape the way people collectively understand happiness and the meaning of life.

Sense of freedom and life satisfaction

A particular channel through which social environment may affect happiness is freedom: the society we live in may crucially affect the availability of options that we have to shape our own life.

This visualization shows the relationship between self-reported sense of freedom and self-reported life satisfaction using data from the Gallup World Poll . The variable measuring life satisfaction corresponds to country-level averages of survey responses to the Cantril Ladder question (a 0-10 scale, where 10 is the highest level of life satisfaction), while the variable measuring freedom corresponds to the share of people who agree with the statement “In this country, I am satisfied with my freedom to choose what I do with my life”. 16

As we can see, there is a clear positive relationship: countries, where people feel free to choose and control their lives, tend to be countries where people are happier. As Inglehart et al. (2008) 17 show this positive relationship holds even after we control for other factors, such as income and strength of religiosity.

Interestingly, this chart also shows that while there are some countries where the perceived sense of freedom is high but average life satisfaction is low (e.g., Rwanda), there are no countries where the perceived sense of freedom is low but average life satisfaction is high (i.e., there are no countries in the top left area of the chart).

To our knowledge, there are no rigorous studies exploring the causal mechanisms linking freedom and happiness. However, it seems natural to expect that self-determination and the absence of coercion are important components of what people consider a happy and meaningful life.

The link between media and gloominess

A number of studies have found that there is a link between emotional exposure to negative content in news and changes in mood.

Johnston and Davey (1997), 18 , for example, conducted an experiment in which they edited short TV news to display positive, neutral, or negative material and then showed them to three different groups of people. The authors found that people who watched the ‘negative’ clip were more likely to report a sad mood.

This link between emotional content in news and changes in mood is all the more important if we consider that media gatekeepers tend to prefer negative to positive coverage of newsworthy facts (see, for example, Combs and Slovic 1979 19 ).

Of course, mood is not the same as life satisfaction. Yet, as we discuss below in the section on measurement and data quality , surveys measuring happiness often do capture emotional aspects of well-being. In any case, people’s perceptions of what it means to lead a meaningful life are heavily influenced by their expectations of what is possible and likely to occur in their lives, and this has also been shown to depend on media exposure. 20

Data Quality and Measurement

Can ‘happiness’ really be measured.

The most natural way to attempt to measure subjective well-being is to ask people what they think and feel. Indeed, this is the most common approach.

In practice, social scientists tend to rely on questions inquiring directly about happiness or on questions inquiring about life satisfaction. The former tends to measure the experiential or emotional aspects of well-being (e.g., “I feel very happy”), while the latter tends to measure the evaluative or cognitive aspects of well-being (e.g., “I think I lead a very positive life”).

Self-reports about happiness and life satisfaction are known to correlate with things that people typically associate with contentment, such as cheerfulness and smiling. (In this scatter plot , you can see that countries where people have higher self-reported life satisfaction are also countries where people tend to smile more).

Experimental psychologists have also shown that self-reports of well-being from surveys turn out to correlate with activity in the parts of the brain associated with pleasure and satisfaction. Various surveys have confirmed that people who say they are happy also tend to sleep better and express positive emotions verbally more frequently.

Is ‘life satisfaction’ the same as ‘happiness’?

In this topic page, we discuss data and empirical research on happiness and life satisfaction. However, it is important to bear in mind that “life satisfaction” and “happiness” are not really synonyms. This is, of course, reflected in the data since self-reported measures of these two variables come from asking different kinds of questions.

The Integrated Values Surveys asks directly about happiness: “Taking all things together, would you say you are (i) Very happy, (ii) Rather happy, (iii) Not very happy, (iv) Not at all happy, (v) Don’t know.”

The Gallup World Poll, on the other hand, uses the Cantril Ladder question and asks respondents to evaluate their life: “Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you, and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”

As the following scatter plot shows, these two measures tend to be related (countries that score high in one measure also tend to score high in the other), yet they are not identical (there is substantial dispersion, with many countries sharing the same score in one variable but diverging in the other).

The differences in responses to questions inquiring about life satisfaction and happiness are consistent with the idea that subjective well-being has two sides: an experiential or emotional side and an evaluative or cognitive side. Of course, the limits between emotional and cognitive aspects of well-being are blurred in our minds, so in practice, both kinds of questions measure both aspects to some degree. Indeed, social scientists often construct ‘subjective well-being indexes’ where they simply average out results from various types of questions.

Are happiness averages really meaningful?

The most common way to analyze data on happiness consists of taking averages across groups of people. Indeed, cross-country comparisons of self-reported life satisfaction, such as those presented in ‘happiness rankings’, rely on national averages of reports on a scale from 0 to 10 (the Cantril Ladder).

Is it reasonable to take averages of life satisfaction scores? Or, in more technical terms, are self-reports of Cantril scores really a cardinal measure of well-being?

The evidence tells us that survey-based reports on the Cantril Ladder do allow cardinal measurement reasonably well—respondents have been found to translate verbal labels, such as ‘very good’ and ‘very bad’, into roughly the same numerical values. 21 22

But as with any other aggregate indicator of social progress, averages need to be interpreted carefully, even if they make sense arithmetically. For example, if we look at happiness by age in a given country, we may see that older people do not appear to be happier than younger people. Yet this may be because the average-by-age figure from the snapshot confounds two factors: the age effect (people from the same cohort do get happier as they grow older, across all cohorts) and the cohort effect (across all ages, earlier generations are less happy than more recent generations). If the cohort effect is very strong, the snapshot can even give a picture that suggests people become less happy as they grow older, even though the exact opposite is actually true for all generations.

This example is, in fact, taken from the real world: using data from the US, Sutin et al. (2013) 23 showed that self-reported feelings of well-being tend to increase with age across generations, but overall levels of well-being depend on when people were born.

How much does language matter for cross-country comparisons of happiness?

Linguistic differences are often seen as a major obstacle for making cross-country comparisons of happiness. However, there is evidence suggesting that comparability issues, at least with respect to language, are less problematic than many people think.

Studies have shown, for example, that in interviews in which respondents are shown pictures or videos of other individuals, respondents can broadly identify whether the individual shown to them was happy or sad; this is also true when respondents were asked to predict the evaluations of individuals from other cultural communities. (For evidence of this, see Sandvik et al., 1993; Diener and Lucas, 1999). 24

Studies have also shown that ‘indigenous emotions’ across cultures (i.e., feelings that are unique in that they do not have equivalents in the English language) are not experienced any more frequently or differently than commonly translated emotions. (See Scollon et al. 2005). 25

The conclusion, therefore, seems to be that there is some basic understanding among humans about what it means to be ‘happy’. Survey-based measures of self-reported life satisfaction are informative about cross-country differences, even if these comparisons are obviously noisy.

A French translation of this topic page is available on our site: Bonheur et satisfaction .

Interactive charts on happiness and life satisfaction

Particularly important was the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission . It also relates to Bhutan’s famous measurement of Gross National Happiness (GNH) as an indicator of progress (Wikipedia here ).

To be precise, in 27 out of 31 countries with data spanning longer than one decade, the estimate for 2016 is higher than the earliest available estimate.

The GSS asks people a very similar question to the Integrated Values Survey: “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?”

Stevenson, Betsey, and Justin Wolfers. “Happiness inequality in the United States.” The Journal of Legal Studies 37.S2 (2008): S33-S79. An ungated earlier version of the paper is available here .

These results have been discussed in various blogs. Freakonomics provides a quick and interesting overview of the debate, specifically with regard to gender gaps .

Clark, Andrew E., Sarah Flèche, and Claudia Senik. “Economic growth evens out happiness: Evidence from six surveys.” Review of Income and Wealth (2015). An ungated earlier version of the paper is available here

To be precise, the gradients correspond, country by country, to the regression coefficients between income quintiles and the related average life satisfaction reported by people within each income quintile.

Stevenson, B. and Wolfers, J. (2008). Economic growth and subjective well-being: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 1-87. An earlier version is available online here .

The dataset includes observations for Egypt. However, we have excluded these observations from our analysis. This is because the survey for Egypt in the wave labeled 2014 is from 2012, which was a year characterized by extreme political instability in that country.

R.A. Easterlin and L. Angelescu – ‘Modern Economic Growth and Quality of Life: Cross-Sectional and Time Series Evidence’ in Land, Michalos, and Sirgy (ed.) (2011) – Handbook of Social Indicators and Quality of Life Research. Springer.

Chart from Stevenson B, Wolfers J (2008) - Economic Growth and Subjective Well-Being: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox. Brookings Paper Econ Activ 2008 (Spring):1–87. Underlying data source: Life in Nation surveys, 1958–2007. Note from the authors: “The series in each of the four panels reports responses to a different life satisfaction question, and therefore comparisons should be made only within each panel. GDP per capita is at purchasing power parity in constant 2000 international dollars.”

Clark, A. E., Diener, E., Georgellis, Y., & Lucas, R. E. (2008). Lags and leads in life satisfaction: A test of the baseline hypothesis. The Economic Journal, 118(529).

Brickman, P., Coates, D., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? . Journal of personality and social psychology, 36(8), 917. Chicago.

Oswald, A. J., & Powdthavee, N. (2008). Does happiness adapt? A longitudinal study of disability with implications for economists and judges. Journal of Public Economics, 92(5), 1061-1077.

Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Lucas, R. E. (2009). Subjective well-being: The Science of Happiness and Life Satisfaction. Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, 2, 187-194.

To be precise, the Gallup World Poll asks: “In this country, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your freedom to choose what you do with your life?”

Inglehart, R., Foa, R., Peterson, C., & Welzel, C. (2008). Development, freedom, and rising happiness: A global perspective (1981–2007). Perspectives on psychological science, 3(4), 264-285.

Johnston, W. M., & Davey, G. C. (1997). The Psychological Impact of Negative TV News Bulletins: The Catastrophizing of Personal Worries. British Journal of Psychology, 88(1), 85-91.

Combs, B., & Slovic, P. (1979). Newspaper coverage of causes of death. Journalism Quarterly, 56(4), 837-849.

Riddle (2010), for example, found that people watching more vivid violent media gave higher estimates of the prevalence of crime in the real world. (Riddle, K. (2010). Always on my mind: Exploring how frequent, recent, and vivid television portrayals are used in the formation of social reality judgments. Media Psychology, 13(2), 155–179.)

Ferrer‐i‐Carbonell, A., & Frijters, P. (2004). How important is methodology for the estimates of the determinants of happiness?. The Economic Journal, 114(497), 641-659.

Van Praag, B.M.S. (1991). ‘Ordinal and cardinal utility: an integration of the two dimensions of the welfare concept’, Journal of Econometrics, vol. 50, pp. 69–89.

Sutin, A. R., Terracciano, A., Milaneschi, Y., An, Y., Ferrucci, L., & Zonderman, A. B. (2013). The effect of birth cohort on well-being The legacy of economic hard times. Psychological science, 0956797612459658.

Sandvik, E., Diener, E. and Seidlitz, L. (1993). ‘Subjective well-being: the convergence and stability of self and non-self report measures’, Journal of Personality, vol. 61, pp. 317–42. Diener, E. and Lucas, R.E. (1999). ‘Personality and subjective well-being’, in Kahneman et al. (1999) chapter 11.

Scollon, C. N., Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2004). Emotions across cultures and methods. Journal of cross-cultural psychology, 35(3), 304-326.

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Scientists Look Beyond the WEIRD World of Happiness

Psychological scientists once equated happiness with well-being, but recent research suggests that there is significant cultural variation in the ingredients of a good life..

• Cross Cultural Differences
• Featured - Observer

• People from WEIRD cultures tend to equate happiness with well-being, but people from collectivist or holistic cultures may place a higher value on meaning, spirituality, and social harmony. 
• WEIRD cultures often encourage people to pursue the maximum possible levels of happiness, freedom, and other positive states, possibly because historically benign ecological conditions made more resources available for personal pleasure. 
• People from more holistic cultures, which embrace continuous change and contradiction, tend to pursue a balance of positive and negative experiences and may view excessive happiness as socially disruptive. 
• There is also cultural variation in how emotions are experienced. People from more independent cultures tend to view emotions as emerging from within individuals, while people from more interdependent cultures may view emotions as emerging from a social context. 
• Acknowledging that living a good life is about more than maximizing happiness is an important step toward more accurately assessing well-being across cultures. 

Holism, happiness, and harmony   •   Feeling interdependent emotions together • An imperfect approach to happiness

People from Western cultures often equate “well-being” with “being happy” but the way that WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) societies prioritize the pursuit of happiness is far from universal. 

Well-being , in addition to economic development, is one of the primary compasses that international policymakers use to guide decisions about how to serve a given society, said Kuba Krys, a psychological scientist who studies the cultural nuances of well-being at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Reevaluating how we measure well-being could be an important step toward conducting more culturally informed science, he asserted. 

Related content: APS’s Global Spotlight series highlights authors across the globe who share unique and personal perspectives on the issues affecting their work and careers.

“We need to broaden our thinking about well-being from just being focused on happiness to studying the interdependent network of components that constitute a good life for people in the West and around the world,” said Krys. “There is a lot of research into how to make happy people happier, which is fine, but this research ignores fact that happy people may already be happy enough.”  

Happiness is just one of the components that people use to evaluate the subjective quality of their lives, Krys, APS Fellow Yukiko Uchida (Kyoto University), and colleagues wrote in a 2024 Perspectives on Psychological Science article . Though Edward Diener’s 1995 theory of subjective well-being originally framed well-being as consisting of life satisfaction, frequent positive emotions , and infrequent negative emotions, subsequent work has since expanded this concept to include a sense of existential meaning, spiritual connection, harmony with the world, and other elements of a good life, Krys and colleagues explained. Additionally, although Diener’s model positions happiness as the end result of a satisfying life, a new paradigm considers happiness to be one of many ingredients that contribute to individual well-being.  

The significance of this contribution also appears to vary across cultural contexts. Japanese culture, for example, often emphasizes interpersonal harmony and self-improvement, while Islamic culture emphasizes religion and morality , which could lead people to have different perspectives on well-being, the authors wrote. 

“If subjective well-being is a network of interdependent components, then various ‘ideal mixtures’ of these components are plausible. Some people may idealize happiness above all, others may idealize sense of meaning over happiness, and yet others may idealize spirituality over happiness,” Krys and colleagues wrote. “The ‘recipe’ may vary across people and cultures.” 

Holism, happiness, and harmony  

Krys and another group of researchers further explored cultural variations in happiness through a 2020 analysis of 13,000 people from 49 countries . In a survey, 97% of participants reported wanting to be at least a little happy, and just 15% of respondents reported that their ideal happiness level was the maximum possible. WEIRD societies reported higher ideal happiness levels. In Germany and Iceland, for example, over 80% of participants reported an ideal happiness level above “very happy” while 70% of participants from Bhutan, Ghana, Nigeria, Japan, and Pakistan reported an ideal happiness level below “very happy” (Krys et al., 2020). 

These cultural differences could reflect the longstanding effects of ecological conditions, Krys and colleagues suggest. WEIRD societies tend to occupy more benign geographic regions with cool, navigable waters, fewer pathogens, and a low risk of natural disasters. These cultures may place a high value on happiness because, historically, people could afford to spend more resources pursuing it, the researchers explained. 

“These exceptional eco-environmental conditions might have fostered the emergence of cultures prioritizing happiness maximization,” they wrote. “In Northwestern Europe, it was easier to escape much human suffering and in consequence to idealize high levels of happiness.” A culture’s philosophical orientation also appears to influence how people value happiness and other components of well-being. 

“For most people happiness (and many other positive things) is not seen as perfect ideals that people strive toward,” said psychological researcher Paul Bain of the University of Bath. The vast majority of people want their lives to have more happiness than sadness but do not want to eradicate sadness from their lives.”  

In a pair of studies published in Psychological Science , a research team including Bain found that people from holistic cultures that emphasize dialecticism—a philosophical perspective that embraces the continuously changing, contradictory nature of life—reported lower ideal levels of happiness and other positive states than those from cultures that have a lower tolerance for contradiction. Holism, with philosophical roots in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism, is more common in East Asian cultures than in Western societies, the researchers noted. 

In their initial study of 2,392 people, the researchers found that participants from all cultures reported an average ideal of 70% to 80% of possible happiness, freedom, self-esteem, pleasure, longevity, and intelligence. 

“Generally, the key idea is that most people aspire to a reasonable balance of positive and negative things in their lives, a bit like what Aristotle called the ‘golden mean,’” Bain said. Only a few people see their ideal lives as being blissfully and perfectly happy. A more provocative implication is that the findings suggest it’s possible to have too much happiness.” There were important cultural variations in these findings, however. Participants from the holistic countries of China, Hong Kong, India, and Japan reported lower ideal personal levels of these traits than participants from the nonholistic countries of Australia, Chile, Peru, Russia, and the United States. 

Furthermore, while Eastern societies also tend to be more collectivist, Bain and colleagues found no correlation between each country’s levels of collectivism, indicating that these represent separate cultural constructs. 

In the same Psychological Science article, a second study of 6,874 participants from 27 countries notably included the Philippines and Indonesia—societies with collectivist but not holistic cultures. In addition to replicating their previous findings, the researchers found that the Philippines and Indonesia ranked third and fourth highest for maximalization among countries in the study, indicating that holism and not collectivism may be responsible for cultural preferences for moderation (Bain et al., 2018). 

Feeling interdependent emotions together  

Cultural differences can also influence people’s conception of emotions, Uchida said in an interview. In more independent cultures, people tend to view emotions as emerging from within, but people from more interdependent cultures may view emotions as emerging from a social context in which they are shared with other people, Uchida, Masataka Nakayama, and Kimberly S. Bowen (Kyoto University) explained in an article in Current Directions in Psychological Science . 

“The characteristics of interdependent happiness emerge because an individual’s state of happiness is considered to be inseparable from and interdependent with the happiness of other people in the context to which the individual belongs,” they wrote. “Hence, there is an understanding that sustainable happiness is achieved by seeking harmony with other individuals who share the same context.” These cultural conceptions of agency have implications for how people experience happiness and for their ideal levels of happiness. In interdependent contexts that emphasize balance and harmony, being too happy could be considered socially disruptive, the researchers explained (Uchida et al., 2022). 

“In many Western societies, people say that happiness allows them to contribute to society, gives them confidence, and empowers them to change the world,” Uchida said. “In a Japanese context, people avoid maximizing because it does not feel like a verification of self-worth, and if they seek more and more there could be negative impacts toward other people. There is an intuitive understanding of this.” 

The culture in which a person experiences particular emotions may even influence the relationship between emotions and health . In a Japanese context, for example, experiencing culturally congruent interdependent happiness has been found to prevent the activation of proinflammatory genes. But Japanese people do not appear to receive the same benefits from pleasure-based independent happiness, Uchida, Nakayama, and Bowen noted. 

“It’s a philosophical question, but it’s very important to think about in psychology how each person intuitively understands the culturally constructed meaning system and the consequences of maximalization,” Uchida said. “In some contexts, individual seeking is fine, in other contexts group-level family, group, or nation seeking may be more approved or appreciated.” 

An imperfect approach to happiness  

These findings have significant implications for how well-being is measured in psychological science, Bain said. 

“Many approaches to well-being implicitly or explicitly have ‘perfect’ happiness as an endpoint,” Bain said. “However, our findings suggest it’s possible that some people’s desired levels of happiness are lower than the top of the scale. Pretty happy may be as much as they want.” 

Acknowledging that, for many people, well-being is about more than just happiness is an important step toward conceptual pluralism in psychological science, Krys and colleagues noted. 

“Applying WEIRD theorizing on subjective well-being to other parts of the world bears the risk of imposing WEIRD standards to ‘educate’ or ‘help develop’ others—often people in former colonialized regions,” Krys and colleagues wrote. “Recognizing that happiness is not tantamount to subjective well-being and that subjective well-being is a much more complex and multidimensional phenomenon is a step toward decolonizing psychology.” 

In addition to providing new directions for research, reframing happiness as a byproduct of desirable activities, such as socializing, rather than a goal in and of itself, could help make well-being more achievable, Bain proposed. 

“Perversely, I think there is an impetus to present ‘ideal’ happiness as always something ‘beyond our reach,’” he said. “It’s supposed unachievability means that we are susceptible to influences that promise to move us closer to that ideal. This means that we can never fully be happy — but our research indicates that this doesn’t correspond to how most people think about happiness. Not everyone wants to be fully happy.” 

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References  

Hornsey, M. J., Bain, P. G., Harris, E. A., Lebedeva, N., Kashima, E. S., Guan, Y., González, R., Chen, S. X., & Blumen, S. (2018). How much is enough in a perfect world? Cultural variation in ideal levels of happiness, pleasure, freedom, health, self-esteem, longevity, and intelligence. Psychological Science , 29(9), 1393-1404. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618768058   

Krys, K., et al. (2024). Happiness maximization is a WEIRD way of living. Perspectives on Psychological Science . https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916231208367

Kryś, K., Park, J., Kocimska‐Zych, A., Kosiarczyk, A., Selim, H. A., Wojtczuk‐Turek, A., Haas, B. W., Uchida, Y., Torres, C., Capaldi, C. A., Bond, M. H., Zelenski, J. M., Lun, V. M., Maricchiolo, F., Vauclair, C., Šolcová, I. P., Sirlopú, D., Xing, C., Vignoles, V. L., . . . Adamovic, M. (2020). Personal life satisfaction as a measure of societal happiness is an individualistic presumption: Evidence from fifty countries. Journal of Happiness Studies , 22 (5), 2197–2214. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00311-y  

Uchida, Y., Nakayama, M., & Bowen, K. S. (2022). Interdependence of emotion: Conceptualization, evidence, and social implications from cultural psychology. Current Directions in Psychological Science , 31(5), 451-456. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214221109584   

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High status leads to increased happiness—sometimes

by Tom Fleischman, Cornell University

Is it worth the effort to seek high status in a group or setting for which a person has no real passion? New Cornell research suggests the answer is "no."

"In talking to friends and colleagues, I would ask them about where they stand in their groups and how they feel about it," said Angus Hildreth, assistant professor of management and organizations at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

"I'd ask them if it mattered, and they'd always ask, 'Matter for what?'" he said. "And I'd say, 'For your happiness,' and I'd always get back that it depends."

The dependent factor, Hildreth contends, is the level of importance a particular group holds for a person—say, the difference between being a team leader in a job you're not exactly thrilled with, versus being the captain of your rec league soccer team.

"You usually belong to more than one group, and some of those groups matter a lot more to you than others," said Hildreth, whose paper, "In the Pursuit of Happiness: Attaining a Greater Number of High-status Positions Increases Well-being But Only in Select Groups," appears in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology .

Hildreth tested his theory in 10 experiments involving 3,554 participants, and found that attaining a greater number of high-status positions generally increased one's well-being, but only in groups that were central or relevant to a person's identity. Holding high status in important groups increased well-being, he found, because such positions bolstered individuals' self-esteem and increased their sense of acceptance in those groups; but not because such positions bolstered their sense of power and control, he found.

Conversely, well-being was not positively correlated to status in unimportant groups, no matter how that status was measured.

"The more I researched this, I discovered that maybe we can differentiate groups according to how intrinsically important they are to you," Hildreth said. "That's a bit of a subjective idea. There's quite a bit of research looking at how we identify in our groups, and that we can identify more with some groups than others. And then the question becomes, to what extent does the importance of your groups—and your standing in those groups—matter?"

Hildreth's first five studies explored the relationship between status and well-being in the participants' current groups. In the first study, 309 participants were asked to identify all the groups they belonged to, rate their status in those groups, their current well-being, the importance of each group and various personality and demographic measures.

Status in those groups was positively correlated to well-being; what's more, the proportion and number of groups in which participants enjoyed high status was significantly positively related to well-being. Similarly, average or low status in groups was related to lower well-being.

In Study 2 (plus three conceptual replications), Hildreth randomly assigned 2,156 workers to different experimental conditions in which the status they held in two groups (important vs. unimportant) was manipulated. He found that well-being was significantly higher for those in the important-group condition than in the unimportant-group condition.

Study 3 employed a longitudinal design, with participants reporting their status and well-being at two instances, a year apart. The participants were 212 college sophomores who listed all their face-to-face groups at the university, indicated their status in each group and its subjective importance to them. At both times, the participants' status in their important groups was positively correlated to greater well-being.

The fact that the participants didn't view a sense of power in those groups as being important to them was unexpected, Hildreth said.

"Your standing in your group is often associated with your power," he said, "and that's not to say that high status doesn't increase your sense of control and influence. It's that even if it does, that doesn't make you happy."

One theory: With greater influence and power comes greater responsibility, Hildreth said, and for some, that might be unappetizing.

Future work will address the idea of having low status in an important group, and whether one's participation in that group—or their view of the group as "important"—would change over time.

"Would you just subjectively reconstruct how important that group is?" he said. "It's like, 'Yeah, I happen not to enjoy much status at work. Well, work's not that important to me anyway, so that's OK.'"

Journal information: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Provided by Cornell University

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Meditation: a simple, fast way to reduce stress.

Meditation can wipe away the day's stress, bringing with it inner peace. See how you can easily learn to practice meditation whenever you need it most.

If stress has you anxious, tense and worried, you might try meditation. Spending even a few minutes in meditation can help restore your calm and inner peace.

Anyone can practice meditation. It's simple and doesn't cost much. And you don't need any special equipment.

You can practice meditation wherever you are. You can meditate when you're out for a walk, riding the bus, waiting at the doctor's office or even in the middle of a business meeting.

Understanding meditation

Meditation has been around for thousands of years. Early meditation was meant to help deepen understanding of the sacred and mystical forces of life. These days, meditation is most often used to relax and lower stress.

Meditation is a type of mind-body complementary medicine. Meditation can help you relax deeply and calm your mind.

During meditation, you focus on one thing. You get rid of the stream of thoughts that may be crowding your mind and causing stress. This process can lead to better physical and emotional well-being.

Benefits of meditation

Meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace and balance that can benefit your emotional well-being and your overall health. You also can use it to relax and cope with stress by focusing on something that calms you. Meditation can help you learn to stay centered and keep inner peace.

These benefits don't end when your meditation session ends. Meditation can help take you more calmly through your day. And meditation may help you manage symptoms of some medical conditions.

Meditation and emotional and physical well-being

When you meditate, you may clear away the information overload that builds up every day and contributes to your stress.

The emotional and physical benefits of meditation can include:

• Giving you a new way to look at things that cause stress.
• Building skills to manage your stress.
• Making you more self-aware.
• Focusing on the present.
• Reducing negative feelings.
• Helping you be more creative.
• Helping you be more patient.
• Lowering resting heart rate.
• Lowering resting blood pressure.
• Helping you sleep better.

Meditation and illness

Meditation also might help if you have a medical condition. This is most often true if you have a condition that stress makes worse.

A lot of research shows that meditation is good for health. But some experts believe there's not enough research to prove that meditation helps.

With that in mind, some research suggests that meditation may help people manage symptoms of conditions such as:

• Chronic pain.
• Depression.
• Heart disease.
• High blood pressure.
• Irritable bowel syndrome.
• Sleep problems.
• Tension headaches.

Be sure to talk to your healthcare professional about the pros and cons of using meditation if you have any of these or other health conditions. Sometimes, meditation might worsen symptoms linked to some mental health conditions.

Meditation doesn't replace medical treatment. But it may help to add it to other treatments.

Types of meditation

Meditation is an umbrella term for the many ways to get to a relaxed state. There are many types of meditation and ways to relax that use parts of meditation. All share the same goal of gaining inner peace.

Ways to meditate can include:

Guided meditation. This is sometimes called guided imagery or visualization. With this method of meditation, you form mental images of places or things that help you relax.

You try to use as many senses as you can. These include things you can smell, see, hear and feel. You may be led through this process by a guide or teacher.

• Mantra meditation. In this type of meditation, you repeat a calming word, thought or phrase to keep out unwanted thoughts.

Mindfulness meditation. This type of meditation is based on being mindful. This means being more aware of the present.

In mindfulness meditation, you focus on one thing, such as the flow of your breath. You can notice your thoughts and feelings. But let them pass without judging them.

• Qigong. This practice most often combines meditation, relaxation, movement and breathing exercises to restore and maintain balance. Qigong (CHEE-gung) is part of Chinese medicine.
• Tai chi. This is a form of gentle Chinese martial arts training. In tai chi (TIE-CHEE), you do a series of postures or movements in a slow, graceful way. And you do deep breathing with the movements.
• Yoga. You do a series of postures with controlled breathing. This helps give you a more flexible body and a calm mind. To do the poses, you need to balance and focus. That helps you to focus less on your busy day and more on the moment.

Parts of meditation

Each type of meditation may include certain features to help you meditate. These may vary depending on whose guidance you follow or who's teaching a class. Some of the most common features in meditation include:

Focused attention. Focusing your attention is one of the most important elements of meditation.

Focusing your attention is what helps free your mind from the many things that cause stress and worry. You can focus your attention on things such as a certain object, an image, a mantra or even your breathing.

• Relaxed breathing. This technique involves deep, even-paced breathing using the muscle between your chest and your belly, called the diaphragm muscle, to expand your lungs. The purpose is to slow your breathing, take in more oxygen, and reduce the use of shoulder, neck and upper chest muscles while breathing so that you breathe better.

A quiet setting. If you're a beginner, meditation may be easier if you're in a quiet spot. Aim to have fewer things that can distract you, including no television, computers or cellphones.

As you get more skilled at meditation, you may be able to do it anywhere. This includes high-stress places, such as a traffic jam, a stressful work meeting or a long line at the grocery store. This is when you can get the most out of meditation.

• A comfortable position. You can practice meditation whether you're sitting, lying down, walking, or in other positions or activities. Just try to be comfortable so that you can get the most out of your meditation. Aim to keep good posture during meditation.
• Open attitude. Let thoughts pass through your mind without judging them.

Everyday ways to practice meditation

Don't let the thought of meditating the "right" way add to your stress. If you choose to, you can attend special meditation centers or group classes led by trained instructors. But you also can practice meditation easily on your own. There are apps to use too.

And you can make meditation as formal or informal as you like. Some people build meditation into their daily routine. For example, they may start and end each day with an hour of meditation. But all you really need is a few minutes a day for meditation.

Here are some ways you can practice meditation on your own, whenever you choose:

Breathe deeply. This is good for beginners because breathing is a natural function.

Focus all your attention on your breathing. Feel your breath and listen to it as you inhale and exhale through your nostrils. Breathe deeply and slowly. When your mind wanders, gently return your focus to your breathing.

Scan your body. When using this technique, focus attention on each part of your body. Become aware of how your body feels. That might be pain, tension, warmth or relaxation.

Mix body scanning with breathing exercises and think about breathing heat or relaxation into and out of the parts of your body.

• Repeat a mantra. You can create your own mantra. It can be religious or not. Examples of religious mantras include the Jesus Prayer in the Christian tradition, the holy name of God in Judaism, or the om mantra of Hinduism, Buddhism and other Eastern religions.

Walk and meditate. Meditating while walking is a good and healthy way to relax. You can use this technique anywhere you're walking, such as in a forest, on a city sidewalk or at the mall.

When you use this method, slow your walking pace so that you can focus on each movement of your legs or feet. Don't focus on where you're going. Focus on your legs and feet. Repeat action words in your mind such as "lifting," "moving" and "placing" as you lift each foot, move your leg forward and place your foot on the ground. Focus on the sights, sounds and smells around you.

Pray. Prayer is the best known and most widely used type of meditation. Spoken and written prayers are found in most faith traditions.

You can pray using your own words or read prayers written by others. Check the self-help section of your local bookstore for examples. Talk with your rabbi, priest, pastor or other spiritual leader about possible resources.

Read and reflect. Many people report that they benefit from reading poems or sacred texts and taking a few moments to think about their meaning.

You also can listen to sacred music, spoken words, or any music that relaxes or inspires you. You may want to write your thoughts in a journal or discuss them with a friend or spiritual leader.

• Focus your love and kindness. In this type of meditation, you think of others with feelings of love, compassion and kindness. This can help increase how connected you feel to others.

Building your meditation skills

Don't judge how you meditate. That can increase your stress. Meditation takes practice.

It's common for your mind to wander during meditation, no matter how long you've been practicing meditation. If you're meditating to calm your mind and your mind wanders, slowly return to what you're focusing on.

Try out ways to meditate to find out what types of meditation work best for you and what you enjoy doing. Adapt meditation to your needs as you go. Remember, there's no right way or wrong way to meditate. What matters is that meditation helps you reduce your stress and feel better overall.

Related information

• Relaxation techniques: Try these steps to lower stress - Related information Relaxation techniques: Try these steps to lower stress
• Stress relievers: Tips to tame stress - Related information Stress relievers: Tips to tame stress
• Video: Need to relax? Take a break for meditation - Related information Video: Need to relax? Take a break for meditation

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• Meditation: In depth. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. https://nccih.nih.gov/health/meditation/overview.htm. Accessed Dec. 23, 2021.
• Mindfulness meditation: A research-proven way to reduce stress. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/mindfulness/meditation. Accessed Dec. 23, 2021.
• AskMayoExpert. Meditation. Mayo Clinic. 2021.
• Papadakis MA, et al., eds. Meditation. In: Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment 2022. 61st ed. McGraw Hill; 2022. https://accessmedicine.mhmedical.com. Accessed Dec. 23, 2021.
• Hilton L, et al. Mindfulness meditation for chronic pain: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Annals of Behavioral Medicine. 2017; doi:10.1007/s12160-016-9844-2.
• Seaward BL. Meditation. In: Essentials of Managing Stress. 5th ed. Jones & Bartlett Learning; 2021.
• Seaward BL. Managing Stress: Principles and Strategies for Health and Well-Being. 9th ed. Burlington, Mass.: Jones & Bartlett Learning; 2018.

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High status leads to increased happiness – sometimes

By tom fleischman, cornell chronicle.

Is it worth the effort to seek high status in a group or setting for which a person has no real passion? New Cornell research suggests the answer is “no.”

“In talking to friends and colleagues, I would ask them about where they stand in their groups and how they feel about it,” said Angus Hildreth , assistant professor of management and organizations at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.

“I’d ask them if it mattered, and they’d always ask, ‘Matter for what?’” he said. “And I’d say, ‘For your happiness,’ and I’d always get back that it depends.”

The dependent factor, Hildreth contends: The level of importance a particular group holds for a person – say, the difference between being a team leader in a job you’re not exactly thrilled with, versus being the captain of your rec league soccer team.

“You usually belong to more than one group, and some of those groups matter a lot more to you than others,” said Hildreth, whose paper, “ In the Pursuit of Happiness: Attaining a Greater Number of High-status Positions Increases Well-being But Only in Select Groups ,” published May 3 in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Hildreth tested his theory in 10 experiments involving 3,554 participants, and found that attaining a greater number of high-status positions generally increased one’s well-being, but only in groups that were central or relevant to a person’s identity. Holding high status in important groups increased well-being, he found, because such positions bolstered individuals’ self-esteem and increased their sense of acceptance in those groups; but not because such positions bolstered their sense of power and control, he found.

Conversely, well-being was not positively correlated to status in unimportant groups, no matter how that status was measured.

“The more I researched this, I discovered that maybe we can differentiate groups according to how intrinsically important they are to you,” Hildreth said. “That’s a bit of a subjective idea. There’s quite a bit of research looking at how we identify in our groups, and that we can identify more with some groups than others. And then the question becomes, to what extent does the importance of your groups, and your standing in those groups, matter?”

Hildreth’s first five studies explored the relationship between status and well-being in the participants’ current groups. In the first study, 309 participants were asked to identify all the groups they belonged to, rate their status in those groups, their current well-being, the importance of each group and various personality and demographic measures.

Status in those groups was positively correlated to well-being; what’s more, the proportion and number of groups in which they enjoyed high status was significantly positively related to well-being. Similarly, average or low status in groups was related to lower well-being.

In Study 2 (plus three conceptual replications), Hildreth randomly assigned 2,156 workers to different experimental conditions in which the status they held in two groups (important vs. unimportant) was manipulated. He found that well-being was significantly higher for those in the important-group condition than in the unimportant-group condition.

Study 3 employed a longitudinal design, with participants reporting their status and well-being at two instances, a year apart. The participants were 212 college sophomores who listed all their face-to-face groups at the university, indicated their status in each group and its subjective importance to them. At both times, the participants’ status in their important groups was positively correlated to greater well-being.

The fact that the participants didn’t view a sense of power in those groups as being important to them was unexpected, Hildreth said.

“Your standing in your group is often associated with your power,” he said, “and that’s not to say that high status doesn’t increase your sense of control and influence. It’s that even if it does, that doesn’t make you happy.”

One theory: With greater influence and power comes greater responsibility, Hildreth said, and for some, that might be unappetizing.

Future work will address the idea of having low status in an important group, and whether one’s participation in that group – or their view of the group as “important” – would change over time.

“Would you just subjectively reconstruct how important that group is?” he said. “It’s like, ‘Yeah, I happen not to enjoy much status at work. Well, work’s not that important to me anyway, so that’s OK.’”

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Growth Mindset

What is manifestation science-based ways to manifest, here's what the research says about manifestation..

Updated December 3, 2023 | Reviewed by Jessica Schrader

What is manifestation?

The word " manifestation " means to turn an idea into a reality. Usually, we want to manifest things that improve our happiness and well-being (take this well-being quiz to check your current level of well-being). People generally talk about manifestation as the process of using thoughts, feelings, and beliefs to bring something into reality, but given the science behind manifestation, it seems important to also include actions as a key part of the manifestation process.

What does manifestation really mean?

Manifestation has become popular thanks to books like The Secret and The Law of Attraction . Unfortunately, most psychological scientists will tell you that these books are based on pseudoscience—they claim to be scientific and factual, but they're not actually based on scientific evidence.

So as a psychological scientist I can't, in good conscience , recommend these books. However, I feel like many psychologists throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to the idea of "manifestation." They'll often say it's junk science. But I say: Of course we can manifest positive things in our lives—if we couldn't then what would be the point of therapy , wellness interventions, or any of the tools we use to help people?

So what does the science actually say about manifestation ? How can we take a goal or idea we have in our heads and make it real?

What is the science behind manifestation?

There actually is science behind the idea of manifestation—that is, turning an idea into a real thing. Here are some areas of research and how they lend support to manifestation:

A growth mindset can help you manifest your dreams and reach your goals

Research by Dr. Carol Dweck clearly shows that believing you can do something makes it more likely that you'll successfully do it. That means that our beliefs about our ability to learn, grow, and succeed—our growth mindset —can indeed affect whether we effectively manifest what we desire.

Importantly, this research suggests that if we truly believe we can achieve something, we are willing to do the hard work to achieve it. This is in contrast to law-of-attraction style manifestation which suggests that belief alone is enough to bring about manifestation. Ultimately, the science suggests that our beliefs bring about behaviors (and responses from others) that lead to the outcomes we desire.

Self-fulfilling prophecies may explain manifestation

Research shows that our expectations, positive or negative, tend to be confirmed. This is what is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy. So if we expect to bring our idea to life or reach our goal, we're more likely to.

For example, if you don't think you can succeed in some goal, let's say getting your dream job, you'll set in motion events that will actually make it more likely that you won't get your dream job. Maybe you'll be cold or grumpy during a job interview. Maybe you'll engage in negative self-talk with someone who could help you. Or maybe you'll just feel angry and not spend the necessary time required to reach your goal. Your beliefs set in motion circumstances that affect your ability to manifest an outcome.

Negativity bias may explain perceptions about manifestation

Research shows that if we're already feeling bad, we're more likely to interpret neutral circumstances in a negative way. It may be that someone with a more positive attitude just pays more attention to the ways in which they have successfully manifested parts of their dreams. Another person with a more negative outlook may experience the exact same things and only see where they failed to manifest what they desired. That's how bias may affect manifestation .

Upward spirals of positive emotion may explain manifestation success

Dr. Barbara Fredrickson's research has also shown that positive emotions enable us to think more creatively. Similarly, Dr. Sonja Lyubomirsky has shown that happiness leads to success and not the other way around. People who are generally happy and positive attract more opportunities, have better relationships, and seem to be able to manifest what they set their minds to more easily.

It makes sense when you think about it, right? We prefer to be around positive, optimistic people. And being around people with a negative attitude? It's off-putting and doesn't lead us to want to help these people.

How do we use science to manifest what we want?

1. Get clear on what you want to manifest

What do you actually want? Spend some time focusing to get clarity on your manifestation goal. Mindful meditation can be a useful tool for this—it quiets the mind and helps increase self-awareness . Or, you could talk to a friend. Sometimes just talking can help you gain the clarity you need to manifest something.

2. Manifest what matters to you

When deciding what to manifest, ask yourself a few reflection questions:

• Will this make me happy and fulfilled?
• Does it feel right for me? (Or is there something or someone influencing me?)
• Will this do any harm to myself or others?

By asking yourself these questions you can choose the right things to manifest—things that you will be more likely to believe in, things that you have positive expectations about, and things that make you feel more positive. As a result, you'll be more likely to manifest them.

3. Visualize your manifestation to generate positive emotions

Visualizing what you desire can help you feel positive emotions related to it more strongly. And those emotions can help you believe in yourself more. Just close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and imagine a scene from your future life as you desire it. Here's a future visualization exercise if you need more help.

Created with content from The Berkeley Well-Being Institute.

Tchiki Davis, Ph.D. , is a consultant, writer, and expert on well-being technology.

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