Happiness
Happiness, in the context of mental or emotional states, is positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishing and eudaimonia.
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”― Mahatma Gandhi
Since the 1960s, happiness research has been conducted in a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including gerontology, social psychology and positive psychology, clinical and medical research and happiness economics.
Definitions
"Happiness" is subject to debate on usage and meaning, and on possible differences in understanding by culture.
The word is mostly used in relation to two factors:
- the current experience of the feeling of an emotion (affect) such as pleasure or joy, or of a more general sense of 'emotional condition as a whole'. For instance Daniel Kahneman has defined happiness as "what I experience here and now". This usage is prevalent in dictionary definitions of happiness.
- appraisal of life satisfaction, such as of quality of life. For instance Ruut Veenhoven has defined happiness as "overall appreciation of one's life as-a-whole.": 2 Kahneman has said that this is more important to people than current experience.
Some usages can include both of these factors. Subjective well-being (swb) includes measures of current experience (emotions, moods, and feelings) and of life satisfaction.[nb For instance Sonja Lyubomirsky has described happiness as "the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one's life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile." Eudaimonia, is a Greek term variously translated as happiness, welfare, flourishing, and blessedness. Xavier Landes has proposed that happiness include measures of subjective wellbeing, mood and eudaimonia.
Measurement
Worldwide levels of happiness as measured by the World Happiness Report (2016). People have been trying to measure happiness for centuries. In 1780, the English utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed that as happiness was the primary goal of humans it should be measured as a way of determining how well the government was performing.
Today, happiness is typically measured using self-report surveys. Self-reporting is prone to cognitive biases and other sources of errors, such as peak–end rule. Studies show that memories of felt emotions can be inaccurate. Affective forecasting research shows that people are poor predictors of their future emotions, including how happy they will be.
Happiness economists are not overly concerned with philosophical and methodological issues and continue to use questionaries to measure average happiness of populations.
Several scales have been developed to measure happiness:
- The Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) is a four-item scale, measuring global subjective happiness from 1999. The scale requires participants to use absolute ratings to characterize themselves as happy or unhappy individuals, as well as it asks to what extent they identify themselves with descriptions of happy and unhappy individuals.
- The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) from 1988 is a 20-item questionnaire, using a five-point Likert scale (1 = very slightly or not at all, 5 = extremely) to assess the relation between personality traits and positive or negative affects at "this moment, today, the past few days, the past week, the past few weeks, the past year, and in general". A longer version with additional affect scales was published 1994. The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) is a global cognitive assessment of life satisfaction developed by Ed Diener. A seven-point Likert scale is used to agree or disagree with five statements about one's life. The Cantril ladder method has been used in the World Happiness Report. Respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale. *Positive Experience; the survey by Gallup asks if, the day before, people experienced enjoyment, laughing or smiling a lot, feeling well-rested, being treated with respect, learning or doing something interesting. 9 of the top 10 countries in 2018 were South American, led by Paraguay and Panama. Country scores range from 85 to 43.
- The Ryff scale uses six dimensions to define well-being, they are autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations, purpose in life and self-acceptance. 20 questions are comprised for each aspect of well-being.
Since 2012, a World Happiness Report has been published. Happiness is evaluated, as in "How happy are you with your life as a whole?", and in emotional reports, as in "How happy are you now?," and people seem able to use happiness as appropriate in these verbal contexts. Using these measures, the report identifies the countries with the highest levels of happiness. In subjective well-being measures, the primary distinction is between cognitive life evaluations and emotional reports.
The UK began to measure national well-being in 2012, following Bhutan, which had already been measuring gross national happiness.
Academic economists and international economic organizations are arguing for and developing multi-dimensional dashboards which combine subjective and objective indicators to provide a more direct and explicit assessment of human wellbeing. There are many different contributors to adult wellbeing, that happiness judgements partly reflect the presence of salient constraints, and fairness, autonomy, community and engagement are key aspects of happiness and wellbeing throughout the life course. Although these factors play a role in happiness, they do not all need to improve simultaneously to help one achieve an increase in happiness.
Happiness has been found to be quite stable over time.