Level and Inequality of Happiness in Nations: Does Greater Happiness of a Greater Number Imply Greater Inequality in Happiness?

Utilitarians and egalitarians have different priorities. Utilitarians prioritize the greatest level of happiness in society and are prepared to accept inequality, while egalitarians prioritize the smallest differences and are willing to accept a loss of happiness for this purpose. In theory these moral tenets conflict, but do they really clash in practice? This question is answered in two steps. First I consider the relation between level and inequality of happiness in nations; level of happiness is measured using average responses to a survey question on life satisfaction and inequality is measured with the standard deviation. There appears to be a strong negative correlation; in nations where average happiness is high, the standard deviation tends to be low. This indicates harmony instead of tension. Secondly I consider the institutional factors that are likely to affect happiness. It appears that level and equality of happiness depend largely on the same institutional context, which is another indication for harmony. We may conclude that the discussion between utilitarians and egalitarians is of little practical importance. This conclusion implies that increasing income inequality can go together with decreasing inequality in happiness and this conclusion provides moral support for Governments developing modern market economics     

Lay Understanding of Happiness and the Experience of Well-Being: Are Some Conceptions of Happiness More Beneficial than Others?

The aim of the study was to understand aspects of life that men and women associate with happiness and to explore the connections between these associations and well-being (measured as positive affect, negative affect and life satisfaction) in different periods of life. Participants were 785 people who were asked to list associations that came to mind on hearing the word ‘happiness’. The moderating roles of gender and period of life (adolescence/adulthood, transition/no transition) were analysed. Participants associated happiness mostly with health and relationships. Other categories included knowledge, work, material goods and freedom. Those who associated happiness with work had higher levels of positive affect. Associating happiness with relationships predicted greater life satisfaction, whereas associating it with material goods predicted lower satisfaction. Gender moderated the relationship between associations and positive affect: associating happiness with material goods decreased positive affect among men but no such effect was observed among women; associating happiness with relationships was beneficial for women but unbeneficial for men. Additionally, associations with material goods predicted lower positive affect, especially in times of transition. Associating happiness with knowledge decreased positive affect in adolescents and increased it in adults. Some ways of understanding happiness improved life satisfaction but none were related to negative affect. The relationship between concepts of happiness and positive affect is complex; some concepts are unbeneficial only for some people and during certain periods of life.     

Cross-National Pattern of Happiness: Do Higher Education and Less Urbanization Degrade Happiness?

Traditionally, happiness has been recognized as the result of a positive relationship with one's income level. However, income level may not be the only factor that affects one’s happiness. In this paper, the effects of education and urbanization factors among 67 countries were analyzed by using World Value Survey data and World Bank Indicator. Generally, the urbanization positively affects happiness in the cross-country analysis, but happiness has a negative correlation with education level. More specifically, four geographical trends have been found in this paper. First, if two variables have very low values, the nation's happiness will drop. Second, according to the moderated education ratio (10 < E < 35), East Asia (non-OECD) is found to be happier than Middle East/North Africa. Third, according to the high education ratio (E > 50), East Asia (OECD) has a lower level of happiness than other countries. Lastly, in Europe, urbanization and education are not significant factors in terms of happiness, but the economic level is the most important factor. Those results provide evidence that there are different effects of education/urbanization on happiness in terms of 1) general implication and 2) sub-divided regions (geographic or norm difference).     

The Determinants of Happiness of China’s Elderly Population

“Three generations under one roof” is an old Chinese saying used to describe a desired living arrangement. The traditional concept of happiness for a Chinese elderly person is being able to “play with grandchildren with candy in mouth, enjoy life with no cares.” In a fast-changing economy like China, how does society, especially the elderly themselves, view these traditional values? Using the 2005 Chinese General Social Survey, we study the determinants of happiness of the Chinese elderly. We are particularly interested in whether living with their child and whether living with their grandchild affect the happiness of the elderly. An important empirical concern is that unobserved permanent income may affect both the living arrangements of the elderly and their level of happiness. We include property ownership variables as proxies and also adopt an instrument variable approach to identify the causal relationship between the elderly’s happiness and their living arrangements. We find that, conditional on living with a grandchild, living with one’s child has a negative effect on the elderly’s happiness. Furthermore, elderly Chinese who live with grandchildren are associated with a much higher degree of happiness than their counterparts.     

Modernity and Happiness – The Case of Germany

The question asked in this article is whether modern societies enable the individual to lead a happier life. It was hoped during the Age of the Enlightenment that rationally designed social conditions would lead in the future to greater prosperity, more security and increased happiness for all. Only a little of this optimism has survived into the twentieth century. In their studies on anomie, sociologists such as Durkheim, Merton and Sennett have drawn attention to the darker sides of progress. Current theories of anomie – explicit social critiques – entirely ignore the successes of modernity and discuss only its crises. In these theories, anomie is described as a structural feature of modern societies, whose destructive consequences are manifested by growing alienation, increasing social isolation and rising suicidality. Empirical analyses of data from Germany show, however, that these theses diverge from the reality. Despite rapid processes of modernisation, anomic patterns of perception and behaviour have not become more widespread over the last 20 years; on the contrary, in some areas anomie has decreased significantly. Proceeding from this insight, this article proposes a correction of those models of anomie that are blind to progress. The crises of modernity are confronted with its successes, which have helped considerably to reduce anomic reactions and to stabilise subjective well-being at a high level. Finally, the article points out that this is not a stable equilibrium, rather that temporal and structural imbalances may occur in the course of modernisation processes, whose magnitudes may, however, be curbed – albeit not entirely or in every respect.     

The Mystery of Chinese People’s Happiness

The great improvement in economic wealth and social welfare over the decade doesn’t promote the Chinese people’s happiness. We construct a theoretical framework which covers economic wealth, social welfare, individual functional capability to explore the impact factors and determinants of the Chinese people’s happiness. Based on a national wide questionnaire survey in China, we test and modify the framework by the method of structural equation model. The empirical findings indicate that there are direct and indirect effects on the formation of happiness. For the direct effect, both the increasing of economic wealth and social welfare improves the national happiness, while the individual functional capability reduces it. For the indirect effect, the individual functional capability also reduces happiness by negatively affecting economic wealth and social welfare. The negative effect that played by individual functional capability overwhelms the positive effect played by economic wealth and social welfare. This causes the Chinese people’s happiness goes down while the economic wealth and social welfare are improving. Finally, we conclude that the Chinese people’s happiness is more about individual functional capability rather than social welfare or economic wealth.     

Development as Happiness: The Subjective Perception of Happiness and UNDP’s Analysis of Poverty, Wealth and Development

This paper examines to what extent the concept of happiness is complementary to the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) human development approach in the evaluation of poverty, wealth and development. The deconstruction of UNDP's discourse on and its measurement of these concepts show that its perspective is highly arbitrary. Poverty is exclusively defined as lack and state of ill-being, inferior to wealth regarded as a state of abundance and well-being. Development then becomes a teleological process trying to promote well-being through abundance. Yet, this external perspective of UNDP on well-being is questioned by the subjective perception of the individuals themselves. Happiness studies—which define happiness as the degree to which an individual judges the overall quality of his life-as-a-whole favorably—prove that higher levels of UNDP's development indicators are not necessarily better for subjective well-being. Despite methodological and conceptual problems, happiness studies discover that the individuals' perception of poverty, wealth and development can differ considerably from UNDP's perspective. Increased income, better objective health and higher levels of education do not automatically lead to greater happiness. Furthermore, additional dimensions essential for human happiness are detected by the research, yet not taken into account by UNDP. A country ranking comparison between the two approaches confirms the different visions of well-being. The integration of a happiness indicator in its analysis of poverty, wealth and development is thus indispensable for UNDP in order to correct its analytical and also practical approach to development.     

Circles of Happiness: Students’ Perceptions of Bidirectional Crossovers of Subjective Well-Being

The mental well-being of the world’s adolescents has decreased in the last 20–30 years. Such a trend is visible also in Sweden, a country otherwise considered a positive example in terms of child well-being. In Sweden, students in lower secondary school are especially exposed. From a salutogenic orientation, this study qualitatively explored 200 Swedish students’ (grades 5–9) perceptions of the role of happiness in school. Students perceived happiness as both promoting and being promoted by five aspects: learning, school engagement, appreciation of subjects or lesson content, others’ happiness, and prosocial behavior. Hence, five perceived bidirectional crossovers of subjective well-being were found. These were compared to the findings of previous research about the determinants and effects of happiness. The students’ perceptions both add new direction for future research and align in several respects with decades of earlier research.     

Children’s and Adolescents’ Conceptions of Happiness

Previous research on children’s and adolescents’ happiness has mainly focused on the different variables that may contribute to it. However, very few studies have investigated the beliefs that children and adolescents hold about happiness. It is important to study developmental and gender differences in the conceptions of happiness as beliefs affect people’s emotions and behaviors, and they may help explain how children and adolescents strive for their own (and potentially others’) happiness. To that aim, we conducted two different studies. In Study 1a 20 people (lay judges) completed two categorization tasks to obtain categorization systems that may include all the relevant content categories identified in previous literature with adults, adolescents and children. In Study 1b, we asked 162 children and adolescents to define—in their own words—what happiness meant for them. Their responses were coded according to two different systems derived from previous finding with adults and children and to an alternative coding system derived from the qualitative analyses of children’s and adolescents’ responses. Overall, results showed that hedonic conceptualization of happiness were mainly present in late childhood; whereas eudaimonic conceptualizations were mainly present in adolescence. No significant gender differences were found.     

What Drives Happiness? The Interviewer’s Happiness

Journal of Happiness Studies - Interviewers in face-to-face surveys can potentially introduce bias both in the recruiting and the measurement phase. One reason behind this is that the measurement...     

Are Happiness and Life Satisfaction Different Across Religious Groups? Exploring Determinants of Happiness and Life Satisfaction

This study explores whether different religions experience different levels of happiness and life satisfaction and in case this is affected by country economic and cultural environment. Using World Value Survey (from 1981 to 2014), this study found that individual religiosity and country level of development play a significant role in shaping people’s subjective well-being (SWB). Protestants, Buddhists and Roman Catholic were happier and most satisfied with their lives compared to other religious groups. Orthodox has the lowest SWB. Health status, household’s financial satisfaction and freedom of choice are means by which religious groups and governments across the globe can improve the SWB of their citizens.     

What do we Want from a Theory of Happiness?

I defend a methodology for theorizing about happiness. I reject three methods: conceptual analysis; scientific naturalism; and the “pure normative adequacy” approach, where the best conception of happiness is the one that best fills a role in moral theory. The concept of happiness is a folk notion employed by laypersons who have various practical interests in the matter, and theories of happiness should respect this fact. I identify four such interests in broad terms and then argue for a set of desiderata that theories of happiness ought to satisfy. The theory of happiness falls within the province of ethics. It should, however, be viewed as autonomous and not merely secondary to moral theory.     

The Contribution of Social Relationships to Children’s Happiness

The association between happiness and social relationships was examined in 9- to 12-year-old children. Participants included 432 children and their parents. Children’s happiness was assessed using self-rating scales, parent’s ratings, and the Happiness and Satisfaction Subscale from the Piers-Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale, Second Edition (Piers and Herzberg 2002). Children’s social relations were assessed with items from the Piers-Harris scale and questionnaires given to the children and their parents. These items were grouped into two positive (i.e., family and friends) and two negative categories (i.e., negative relations with peers and behaving badly toward others). Variance in children’s happiness was partially accounted for by positive social interactions involving the family (e.g., children agreeing that they are important members of their family) and friends (e.g., parents reporting that their children visit with friends more frequently). Negative social interactions also explained variance in children’s happiness including negative relations with peers (e.g., children agreeing that they feel left out of things) and behaving badly toward others (e.g., children agreeing that they are often mean to other people, and they cause trouble for their family). Demographic variables related to the family (i.e., number of siblings, age of parents, and marital status of parents) were only weakly, or not at all, associated with children’s happiness. The results parallel findings from the literature involving adults and adolescents; social relationships are significant correlates and predictors of happiness.     

Well-Being, Quality of Life, and the Naïve Pursuit of Happiness

The pursuit of happiness is a long-enshrined tradition that has recently become the cornerstone of the American Positive Psychology movement. However, “happiness” is an over-worked and ambiguous word, which, it is argued, should be restricted and only used as the label for a brief emotional state that typically lasts a few seconds or minutes. The corollary proposal for positive psychology is that optimism is a preferable stance over pessimism or realism. Examples are presented both from psychology and economics that illustrate the dangers of optimism, and in which better outcomes can occur with a pessimistic stance. A more sophisticated approach is then presented in which, in relation to well-being and quality of life, neither optimism nor pessimism is seen as inherently better than the other, but, rather, in which psychological flexibility may contribute optimally to health and well-being.     

Children’s and Adolescents’ Conceptions of Happiness at School and Its Relation with Their Own Happiness and Their Academic Performance

Previous research on children’s and adolescents’ well-being at school has been focused on the possible determinants. However, no previous research has analysed children’s and adolescents’ lay-beliefs or conceptualizations of happiness at school. In the present work, we studied children’s (N = 104, 9–10-year-olds) and adolescents’ (N = 113, 15–16-year-olds) conceptualizations of happiness at school and its link with self-reported happiness (assessed 3 months later) and academic achievement (assessed 7 months later). For both samples, seven conceptualizations emerged: happiness as ‘being with friends’, ‘being praised’, ‘getting good grades’, ‘learning’, ‘leisure’, ‘enjoyment’, and ‘helping’. Age differences appeared for the conceptualizations of ‘being friends’ and ‘helping’, as children mentioned significantly more the former and adolescents the latter. No gender differences emerged. For adolescents, the conceptualizations of happiness at school as ‘being with friends’, ‘being praised’, ‘helping’, and not ‘having leisure time’ were positively related to self-reported happiness, which was positively related to academic achievement. For children, none of the conceptualizations were positively related to self-reported happiness. The conceptualization of happiness as ‘learning’ was positively related to academic achievement. The results are discussed in regards to their implications for children’s and adolescents’ well-being at school.     

Does Mealtime Communication Improve Happiness? Considering the Trait of Shyness1

Shared mealtimes have been found to be important daily rituals with positive effects on behavior and mental health, such as increasing subjective well-being. However, most previous studies have not considered possible barriers to these positive effects, specifically shyness. We investigated the relationships among shared mealtime quality, shyness, and subjective well-being, and the moderating role of shyness in the relationship between the other two variables by surveying a sample of college students (n = 305). Correlational analyses revealed that shared mealtime quality was negatively associated with shyness and positively associated with subjective well-being. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that shared mealtime quality was significantly associated with subjective well-being, as was the interaction between the friend factor of shared mealtime quality and shyness. Therefore, shared mealtime quality might help improve happiness, but shyness should be considered a possible barrier to this beneficial effect when meals are shared with friends.     

Transhumanism and the Wisdom of Old Genes is Neurotechnology as Source of Future Happiness?

Technological progress seems to open ways for redesigning the human organism. This means that the affective system that is built into the brain by evolution can be redesigned with intent. One of the consequences will be that the word progress will get a new meaning. Progress won't be confined to enhancing the conditions of living, but it will change the way we react to the world. These possibilities are explored in a new kind of biological utopism called 'transhumanism'. This school foresees that a restructured human brain will give rise to 'more varied experience, lifelong happiness and exhilarating peak experiences everyday'. This essay considers the reality value of that expectation in the light of the current psychology of affects, in particular of presumed functions of hedonic experience. It is concluded that transhumanism overlooks that happiness will lose its meaning if it is treated as an isolated feeling. The affective system in our brain needs strong ties with the on-going interaction of the individual with its environment. Making people happier without enhancing the grip on their life will be contra-productive.