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The focus on happiness rather than success or wealth accumulation in one’s life seems to be a rather recent trends, shown by a multitude of books, quotes and conversations about it. In fact, the idea of promoting people’s happiness is as old as Ancient Greece. The thing that changes over the decades is what “happy” consists of, how it is defined. The big question has always been how to become happy, saying which factors make us happy and what should we focus on in our lives to achieve the state of happiness, or even just experience moments of it.
Thus, a drive for success or wealth is not in direct opposition to happiness - it has rather become more or less clear that exactly those two factors don’t always lead to happiness, at least not exclusively. But what is happiness? You are probably thinking that there are different types of it. True. But have there already been certain factors that for sure lead to happiness, or at least have a pretty good chance of achieving it?
To try and answer these questions, we may have to start by defining happiness, and discuss what constitutes it. In common language the word “happiness” has multiple meanings, and scientifically there are plenty of definitions and dimensions of it, as well. Of course, why would something ever be easy?
My favourite definitions are twofold, and already make it clear that there are two dimensions of the concept - an affective (about feelings) and a cognitive (about thoughts) one. One definition explains happiness as an affective state, either as a rather strong and positive emotion or as a pleasurable but passing mood-state. The cognitive one is about happiness as a rather permanent but also pleasant state of mind, similar to “contentment” and “satisfaction”.
Philosophically, happiness has been used in multiple ways by the ancient Greeks and described 1. good fortune, 2. supreme joy of bliss, 3. general life satisfaction or appreciation of one’s own life and 4. the possession of supreme goods, which is rather about one’s quality of life. Already then, it was questioned whether fame and wealth were necessary for such a high quality of life, and how much of both. Later on, philosophers saw happiness more as the sum of pleasures in one’s life, and that it didn’t matter how these pleasures were achieved - with some critiques who advocated a need for good reasons to be happy, like “adequate” and “healthy” preferences and life-conditions.
Currently, the term usually refers to a measurable condition or state of being, or the level of satisfaction with one's life. We have moved away from equating happiness with some certain standards of living, because we have become more and more aware that even wealthy and successful individuals don't easily accomplish happiness. We probably all know certain individuals ourselves who, no matter that their life is objectively going in a good way, just can’t seem to be happy.
In psychology, happiness is typically defined as "a state of well-being characterized by relative permanence, by dominantly agreeable emotion ranging in value from mere contentment to deep and intense joy in living, and by a natural desire for its continuation". In line with this definition, psychological research on happiness has focused on a person’s long-term emotional state and the positive evaluation of one’s life. In other words, a happy person is a person who has pleasant feelings.
Important add-on: pleasant feelings most of the time, and one who feels satisfied with his/her life overall - and not just on Fridays ;-)
Researchers concerned with happiness usually collect data on it with self-reports, i.e. asking individuals about their own level of life satisfaction or happiness. These self-reports are pretty stable over time and show convergence when compared to reports from other people rating the subjects’ happiness.
Recently, when happiness was looked at in a more intercultural way, researchers found that there are vast differences between how different cultures evaluate happiness. While Americans on average think of happiness in terms of personal achievement and other positive experiences, many Japanese see it in terms of its short-lived nature and that it creates social disruption via envy from others.
Recent studies furthermore show that the conscious pursuit of happiness might also backfire, just like any desirable goal can: constantly being aware of the desire or requirement to be happy in life can make people anxious and stressed. It sets people up to be disappointed when their happiness does not reach their own, or a certain societal target level.
As you probably guessed, many environmental factors have been shown to be strongly correlated with happiness, such as work, money, and leisure activities. Of course does money allow for some pleasures that naturally make us happy, as do certain activities, like sports, that lead to the release of serotonin and other “happy hormones”.
More interesting is the finding that personality seems to be a greater factor for happiness than race, social class, money, social relationships, work, leisure, religion, or other external variables (Diener et al., 1999).
Many studies have examined the relation of personality traits (e.g. the Big Five Personality Traits) to happiness and show consistent findings that extraversion and neuroticism seem to be the strongest predictors of one’s happiness level. The positive emotions of happiness seem to be related to easy sociability, such as in natural, pleasant interactions with other people, and so it makes sense that happiness can be associated with extraversion. Similarly, as neuroticism has to do a lot with negative affect, it can impact a person's happiness strongly as well, just in a reversed, negative way - it can lead to more experienced unhappiness.
If happiness is so strongly related to emotions, does that mean that emotional intelligence, i.e. the ability to perceive and express, understand, reason with and regulate emotion in the self and in others, also impacts someone’s happiness?
An increasing number of studies finds that this is indeed the case, and that an individual’s emotional intelligence was a positive predictor of happiness, with quite the impact on how happy individuals report themselves to be. According to Furnham and Petrides (2003), emotionally intelligent people believe that they are more “in touch” with their emotions and that they can regulate them in a way that promotes well-being.
The mechanism behind this is that emotional intelligence fosters the occurrence of positive emotions and decreases the frequency of negative emotions, which in turn leads to a higher life satisfaction or sense of subjective well-being - a variable often used in research to investigate people’s happiness. Positive emotions are especially important, as they have the power to undo some negative emotions (for more on how emotions develop, read my first article).
People are, to a certain extent, able to modulate the emotions they experience by employing certain emotion regulation strategies during emotional episodes, i.e. savouring or enhancing positive ones or dampening and getting over negative ones more quickly. The strategies individuals use to influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience or express them is called emotion regulation and is a major aspect of emotional intelligence (Gross, 1998).
Personally, I like this focus of happiness as an emotion, because this means there is some way to understand where it comes from, and to control it. A very fitting quote:
“Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990)
What exactly makes us experience emotions that make us happy is different for each individual, which is why it is so difficult (or even impossible) to find a one-size-fits-all approach.This is probably why each book or recommendation about pursuing a happy life is about first finding out what makes YOU happy, and then going after that.
An idea put forward by Morris (2004) is that there are various distinguishable (but probably related) types of happiness, which refer to the different basic sources of happiness. The researcher proposes 17 different types that all seem to exist due to some evolutionary developments.
“Target happiness,” the joy of anticipating new experiences and challenges, for example is explained to come from our ancient hunting past, and “competitive happiness,” the happiness from winning, is derived from our social background, as we evolved in small tribes that needed to do succeed and survive when in direct comparison with another tribe (survival of only the fittest…).
In contrast, “cooperative happiness”, the happiness from helping others and pleasing those we care for is based on our need to support one another to survive. And, of course, our biological urges to eat, drink, mate, and keep warm; were also all designed to give us various forms of “sensual happiness” so we would make sure to satisfy them.
If you’re interested, here are the 17 types explained (copy pasted from Furnham, A., & Christoforou, 2007). Otherwise...
Target happiness: The happiness of anticipating new projects, experiences, and challenges, working with them, and (possibly) being successful in reaching these personal goals. Target happiness is happiness through being an achiever.
Competitive happiness: The happiness of winning at the expense of a rival, usually through the expenditure of huge effort. Competitive happiness is happiness through being a winner.
Cooperative happiness: The happiness derived from helping others, either by small cooperative gestures or by doing “good works” and/or helping other species. Cooperative happiness is happiness through being a helper.
Genetic happiness: The happiness of falling in love, pair-bonding, giving birth and successfully rearing one’s offspring, and the happiness of caring for one’s grandchildren. Genetic happiness is happiness through being a relative.
Sensual happiness: The happiness of experiencing a primary biological pleasure such as a delicious meal, a sexual experience, or some other pleasure of the flesh such as bathing, oiling, and massaging. Sensual happiness is happiness through being a hedonist.
Cerebral happiness: The happiness derived from playing games with one’s brain where no ulterior motive is involved—from the most trivial (card games and computer games, puzzles and brain teasers) to the most profound (artistic creativity and scientific research). Cerebral happiness is happiness through being an intellectual.
Rhythmic happiness: The happiness associated with intensely rhythmic activities like music, dancing, singing, aerobics, gymnastics, athletics, and even with activities such as revivalist religious celebrations, synchronized swimming, dervish whirling, voodoo possession rituals, and military marching (i.e., any activity that involves a “beat”). Rhythmic happiness is happiness through being a dancer.
Painful happiness: The pleasure derived from sado-masochistic rituals or mental masochism (seeing any form of indulgence as disgusting and wicked and living a life where such things are prohibited by oneself). Mental masochists may include health fanatics, dietslaves, teetotallers, vegans, anti-smokers, celibates, and even terrorists. Painful happiness is happiness through being a masochist.
Dangerous happiness: The happiness derived from deliberate, voluntary risk-taking, such as the excitement of successfully surviving a self-imposed hazard such as gambling or an extreme sport (e.g., bungee-jumping, hang-gliding). Dangerous happiness is happiness through being a risk-taker.
Selective happiness: The happiness depending on ignoring the horrors of life all around one (i.e., the joy experienced by refusing to recognise the problems that life throws at you). Selective happiness is happiness through being selective.
Tranquil happiness: The form of happiness obtained by contemplation and isolation from the cares of the world (i.e., a deliberate philosophical or religious shutting out of the rest of the world and a turning in on oneself, reaching a deep inner feeling of freedom and nonattachment). Tranquil happiness is happiness through being a meditator.
Devout happiness: The spiritual happiness experienced by deeply religious individuals by having total, blind faith in the tenets of a particular religion. Devout happiness is happiness through being a believer.
Negative happiness: The happiness felt when moments of occasional pleasure interrupt constant mental anguish or the happiness felt at the moment of relief from prolonged physical pain (when pills are taken) or the happiness felt when there is a brief interruption of constant boredom, lack of direction, insecurity, or anxiety. Negative happiness is happiness through being a sufferer.
Chemical happiness: The happiness obtained from a narcotic-induced state. This could include use of “hard-drugs” or “soft-drugs” such as tea, coffee, tobacco, and alcohol. Chemical happiness is happiness through being a drug-taker.
Fantasy happiness: The happiness obtained when suspending one’s sense of reality long enough to enjoy fiction of some sort (e.g., when daydreaming, storytelling, enjoying fictional writing and theatre, watching soap operas/cartoons/films). Fantasy happiness is happiness through being a day-dreamer.
Comic happiness: The pleasure of confronting one’s fears in a completely secure context (e.g., when listening to the outrageous comments made by a comedian, when riding in a roller coaster, or enjoying a horror film safely in the cinema). Comic happiness is happiness through being a laugher.
Accidental happiness: The happiness derived from an accidental positive event (e.g., finding a banknote in the street, winning the lottery, or having your suitcase come up first on the carousel after a long, tiring flight). Accidental happiness is happiness through being fortunate.
If these are all actually different kinds of happiness, or simply different sources of it, is questionable. Is it a different kind of happy when I win a competition versus when I fall in love with someone and they love me back? Perhaps.
Positive psychology is a whole area of psychology that is concerned with the search for the “good life”. Martin Seligman, founder of positive psychology, defines the “good life” as using your signature strengths every day to produce authentic happiness and abundant gratification. It includes positive connections to others, positive individual traits, and life regulation qualities.
I like this concept with regard to the pursuit for happiness, as all these factors seem to need to be adequately fulfilled to even have a chance of happiness, and they are at interplay with each other. Thus, positive psychology is concerned with the consideration of factors that lead to the greatest sense of well-being, satisfaction or simply - happiness. How you can use positive psychology is subject of another article, or rather a whole lifetime of studying yourself and what is good for you.
What I want you to take away from this short introduction into the concept of happiness is that is has to do mostly with positive emotions, and can thus be influenced - even though the factors by which it is influenced are manyfold and very individualistic.
So, after all, one of those self-help books may a good way to start your conscious pursuit of happiness - if you haven’t already.
As always,
lots of love, and stay curious!
Valli
xx
Sources:
Oishi, S., & Gilbert, E. A. (2016). Current and future directions in culture and happiness research.
Furnham, A., & Christoforou, I. (2007). Personality Traits, Emotional Intelligence, and Multiple Happiness.
Veenhoven, R. (2013). Conditions of happiness.
Furnham, A., & Petrides, K. V. (2003). Trait emotional intelligence and happiness.
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