The Prospects, Practices, and Prescriptions for the Pursuit of Happiness

HAPPINESS IS A CENTRAL criterion of mental health (Keyes, 2005; Taylor & Brown, 1988) and has been found to be associated with numerous tangible bene!ts, such as enhanced physical health, reduced psychopathology, greater productivity, more ful!lling relationships, and even longer life (see Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005, for a review). Thus, an important goal for psychology is advancing knowledge about how to help people increase their levels of happiness, positivemental health, and personal thriving. During the last decade, researchers have made a great deal of progress investigating intentional ways to increase happiness—yielding both theory (Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, & Schkade, 2005) and empirical evidence (see Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009, for a meta-analysis) supporting the notion that happiness levels can be increased. Furthermore, growing research is pointing to the optimal conditions under which happiness-enhancing activities work to increase well-being, as well as the processes underlying these strategies’ success (Lyubomirsky & Layous, 2013). Finally, preliminary studies suggest that increasing happiness through positive activities may lead to multiple favorable downstream effects on people’s health, work, and relationships (e.g., Fredrickson, Cohn, Coffey, Pek, & Finkel, 2008). Although the concept of happiness is widely understood by laypeople, it is important to de!ne it scienti!cally. Our de!nition corresponds to the growing consensus that happiness (or subjective well-being) comprises a global feeling that life is going well (i.e., general satisfaction with life), as well as the frequent experience of positive emotions and infrequent experience of negative emotions (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999). Notably, although our de!nition of happiness does not explicitly include meaning and purpose in life (concepts that laypeople typically associate with overall well-being), research has shown that satisfaction with life, positive emotions, and (fewer) negative emotions are highly correlated with these constructs (Ryff, 1989). Despite the growing body of evidence supporting the notion that happiness can be improved, some contemporary theories indicate that trying to increase one’s happiness levels is futile—an endeavor doomed from the start. This pessimism is rooted in several assumptions about the nature of well-being, including the in"uence