Benefits of Happiness 1 Running Head: Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success?

Numerous studies show that happy individuals are successful across multiple life domains, including marriage, friendship, income, work performance, and health. We suggest a conceptual model to account for these findings, arguing that the happiness-success link exists not only because success makes people happy, but because positive affect engenders success. Three classes of evidence – cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental – are documented to test our model. Relevant studies are described and their effect sizes combined meta-analytically. The results reveal that happiness is associated with and precedes numerous successful outcomes, as well as behaviors paralleling success. Further, the evidence suggests that positive affect – the hallmark of well-being – may be the cause of many of the desirable characteristics, resources, and successes correlated with happiness. Limitations, empirical issues, and, important future research questions are discussed. Benefits of Happiness 3 The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success? “A merry heart goes all the day, Your sad tires in a mile-a.” William Shakespeare “The joyfulness of a man prolongeth his days.” Sirach 30: 22 “The days that make us happy make us wise.” John Masefield Research on well-being consistently reveals that the characteristics and resources valued by society correlate with happiness. For example, marriage (Mastekaasa, 1994), a comfortable income (Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2002), superior mental health (Koivumaa-Honkanen et al., 2004), and a long life (Danner, Snowdon, & Friesen, 2001) all covary with reports of high happiness levels. Such associations between desirable life outcomes and happiness have led most investigators to assume that success makes people happy. This assumption can be found throughout the literature in this area. For example, Diener, Suh, Lucas, and H. L. Smith (1999) review the correlations between happiness and a variety of resources, desirable characteristics, and favorable life circumstances. Although the authors recognize that the causality can be bidirectional, they frequently use wording implying that cause flows from the resource to happiness. For example, they suggest that marriage might have “greater benefits for men than for women” (p. 290), apparently overlooking the possibility that sex differences in marital patterns could be due to differential selection into marriage based on well-being. Similarly, after reviewing links between money and well-being, Diener and his colleagues point out that “Even when extremely wealthy individuals are examined, the effects [our italics] of income are small” (p. 287), again assuming a causal direction from income to happiness. We use quotes from one of us to avoid pointing fingers at others, but such examples could be garnered from the majority of scientific publications in this area. The quotes underscore the pervasiveness of the assumption among well-being investigators that successful outcomes foster happiness. The purpose of our review is not to disconfirm that resources and success lead to well-being – a notion that is likely valid to some degree. Our aim is to show that the alternative causal pathway – that happy people are likely to acquire favorable life circumstances – is at least partly responsible for the associations found in the literature. Benefits of Happiness 4 A Preliminary Conceptual Model In this article, we review evidence suggesting that happy people – those who experience a preponderance of positive emotions – tend to be successful and accomplished across multiple life domains. Why is happiness linked to successful outcomes? We propose that this is not merely because success leads to happiness, but because positive affect (PA) engenders success. Positively-valenced moods and emotions lead people to think, feel, and act in ways that promote both resource building and involvement with approach goals (Elliot & Thrash, 2002; Lyubomirsky, 2001). An individual experiencing a positive mood or emotion is encountering circumstances that he or she interprets as desirable. Positive emotions signify that life is going well, the person’s goals are being met, and resources are adequate (e.g., Cantor et al., 1991; Carver & Scheier, 1998; Clore, Wyer, Dienes, Gasper, & Isbell, 2001). In these circumstances, as Fredrickson (1998, 2001) has so lucidly described, people are ideally situated to “broaden-and-build.” In other words, because all is going well, individuals can expand their resources and friendships; they can take the opportunity to build their repertoire of skills for future use; or they can rest and relax to rebuild their energy after expending high levels of effort. Fredrickson’s model suggests that a critical adaptive purpose of positive emotions is to help prepare the organism for future challenges. Following Fredrickson, we suggest that people experiencing positive emotions take advantage of their time in this state – free from immediate danger and unmarked by recent loss – to seek new goals that they have not yet attained (see Carver, 2003, for a related review). The characteristics related to positive affect include confidence, optimism, and selfefficacy; likeability and positive construals of others; sociability, activity, and energy; prosocial behavior; immunity and physical well-being; effective coping with challenge and stress; and originality and flexibility. What these attributes share is that they all encourage active involvement with goal pursuits and with the environment. When all is going well, a person is not well served by withdrawing into a self-protective stance in which the primary aim is to protect his or her existing resources and to avoid harm – a process marking the experience of negative emotions. Positive emotions produce the tendency to approach rather than to avoid, and to prepare the Benefits of Happiness 5 individual to seek out and undertake new goals. Thus, we propose that the success of happy people rests on two main factors. First, because happy people experience frequent positive moods, they have a greater likelihood of working actively toward new goals while experiencing those moods. Second, happy people are in possession of past skills and resources, which they have built over time during previous pleasant moods. This unifying framework builds on several earlier bodies of work – the broaden-and-build model of positive emotions (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001), the notion that positive emotions convey specific information to the person (Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988), the idea of positivity offset (Ito & Cacioppo, 1999), work on the approach-related aspects of PA (Watson, 2000), and, finally, Isen’s (e.g., 2000) groundbreaking research on the behaviors that follow positive mood inductions. We extend the earlier work in predicting that chronically happy people are in general more successful, and that their success is in large part a consequence of their happiness and frequent experience of PA. Although the vast majority of research on emotions has been on negative states, a body of literature has now accumulated that highlights the importance of positive emotions in people’s long-term flourishing. Classes of Evidence Figure 1 displays our general conceptual model, which proposes that successful outcomes are caused by happiness and do not merely correlate with it or follow from it. Specifically, below the conceptual model, we display four classes of evidence that can be employed to test it. The first type of evidence (Type A) represents positive correlations derived from cross-sectional studies. Although it is a truism that correlation does not imply causation, correlations must generally be positive to be consistent with propositions about causality. Except in the rare case where strong third-variable suppressor effects exist across studies, an absence of correlation between two variables indicates an absence of causality in either direction. Thus, correlational evidence is germane to our argument because the absence of positive correlations suggests that happiness does not cause success. Benefits of Happiness 6 The second class of evidence (Type B) is based on longitudinal research, and is somewhat more informative about causal direction than cross-sectional correlations. If one variable precedes another in time and other potential causal variables are statistically controlled, the resulting causal model can be used to reject a causal hypothesis. In cases where changes in Variable X are shown to precede changes in Variable Y, this form of evidence is even more strongly supportive of a causal connection, although the influence of third variables might still contaminate the conclusions and leave the direction of cause in doubt. Evidence of Type C, the classic laboratory experiment, is commonly believed to represent the strongest evidence for causality, although even in this case it can be difficult to determine exactly what aspect of the experimental manipulation led to changes in the dependent variable. Finally, long-term experimental intervention studies (Type D evidence) would offer the strongest test of our causal model, although again the active ingredients in the causal chain are usually not known with certainty. Empirical Tests of Model and Organizational Strategy Because no single study or type of evidence is definitive, an argument for causality can best be made when various classes of evidence all converge on the same conclusion. Therefore, we document several types of evidence in our paper in order to most rigorously test the idea that happiness leads to success. Our review covers the first three classes of evidence (Types A, B, and C) and is organized around five focal questions arising from these three categories: 1) Cross-sectional studies (Type A) Question 1: Are happy people successful people? Question 2: Are long-term happiness and short-term PA associated with behaviors paralleling success – that is, with adaptive characteristics and skills? 2) Longitudinal studies (Type B) Question 3: Does happiness precede success? Question 4: Do happiness and PA precede behaviors paralleling success? 3) Experimental studies (Type C) Question 5: Does PA lead to behaviors paralleling success? Benefits of Happiness 7 First, we document the extensive cross-sectional correlational evidence (Type A), as shown in Figure 1. The first question addressed by this evidence is the one that forms the basis of our causal hypothesis – that is, are happy people more likely to succeed at culturally-valued goals (e.g., concerning work, love, and health) than their less happy peers? However, the large number of available correlational studies in this category also include relevant research examining behavior and cognition that parallel successful life outcomes – that is, the characteristics, resources, and skills that help people succeed (e.g., attributes such as self-efficacy, creativity, sociability, altruism, immunity, and coping). Accordingly, the second question addressed by this evidence explores the relations of behavior paralleling success to long-term happiness and short-term PA. Because we define happiness as the frequent experience of positive emotions over time (see below), our model assumes that the correlations involving long-term happiness are parallel to those of short-term positive moods. In conclusion, only if the correlations generated by Questions 1 and 2 are generally positive will we consider our causal hypothesis further. Second, we consider longitudinal studies, which address two further questions. Is happiness at Time 1 associated with successful outcomes at Time 2 (Question 3)? And, is happiness and PA at Time 1 correlated with behaviors paralleling success at Time 2 (Question 4)? In sum, prior levels of happiness and positive affect must correlate with later levels of successful outcomes and behavior for our causal hypothesis not to be rejected. In laboratory experimentation, the third type of evidence, causality is put to a stronger test. In this case, however, because of the limits of the laboratory, only short-term changes in behavior and cognitions that parallel successful life outcomes are assessed. Thus, the fifth and final question we address is whether PA causes the cognitive and behavioral characteristics paralleling success. Again, because positive affect is defined here as the basic constituent of happiness, our model requires that the outcomes of short-term positive moods are parallel to the successful outcomes in our conceptual model. Furthermore, this question is critical, as it speaks to whether PA may be a mediator underlying the relationship between happiness and flourishing – that is, whether PA causes the adaptive characteristics that help happy people succeed. Benefits of Happiness 8 Although the fourth type of evidence shown in Figure 1 (Type D) would provide the strongest type of data for our model, unfortunately, to our knowledge no studies of this type exist. Nevertheless, support for our conceptual model from all three of the above types of evidence, while not definitive, will suggest a likelihood that our causal model is correct. Furthermore, combining the three types of evidence represents an advance beyond laboratory experimentation alone, because the relatively greater rigor and control provided by experimentation is supplemented by the relatively greater ecological validity provided by the other types of studies. Thus, the first two classes of evidence (Types A and B) speak to the plausibility of generalizing the causal laboratory findings to the context of success and thriving in everyday life. Meanwhile, by revealing the processes uncovered in the laboratory, the experimental evidence (Type C) illuminates the possible causal sequence suspected in the correlational data. Taken together, consistent findings from all three types of data offer a stronger test than any single type of data taken alone. After describing our methodology and defining our terms, we address each of the five focal questions in order, documenting the three classes (A, B, and C) of relevant empirical evidence. Then, we turn to a discussion of several intriguing issues and questions arising out of this review, caveats and limitations, and important further research questions. Methodological Approach To identify the widest range of published papers and dissertations, we employed several search strategies (Cooper, 1998). First, we searched the PsycINFO online database, using a variety of key words (e.g., happiness, satisfaction, affect, emotion, mood, etc.). Next, using the ancestry method, the reference list of every empirical, theoretical, and review paper and chapter was further combed for additional relevant articles. To obtain any papers that might have been overlooked by our search criteria, as well as to locate work that is unpublished or in press, we contacted two large electronic listserves, many of whose members conduct research in the area of well-being and emotion – the Society of Personality and Social Psychology listserv and the Quality of Life Studies listserv. Twenty-four additional relevant articles were identified with this method. Benefits of Happiness 9 The final body of literature was composed of 225 papers, of which 11 are unpublished or dissertations. From these 225 papers, we examined 293 samples, comprising over 275,000 participants, and computed 313 independent effect sizes. A study was included in our tables if it satisfied the following criteria. First, measures of happiness, PA, or a closely related construct had to be included, in addition to assessment of at least one outcome, characteristic, resource, skill, or behavior. Second, the data had to include either a zero-order correlation coefficient or information that could be converted to an r-effect size (e.g., t-tests, F-tests, means and standard deviations, chisquares, etc.). If a study did not report an r-effect size, we computed one from descriptive statistics, t-statistics, F-ratios, and tables of counts (see Rosenthal, 1991). If no relevant convertible statistics were presented, other than a p-value, we calculated the t-statistic from the pvalue and an r-sub(equivalent) (Rosenthal & Rubin, 2003). When a paper reported p < .05, p < .01, or ns, we computed r-sub(equivalent) with p-values of .0245, .005, and .50 (one-tailed), respectively, which likely yielded a highly conservative estimate of the effect size. Finally, the sample N had to be available. When possible, we also contacted authors for further information. Descriptions of the critical elements of each study (i.e., authors, year, N, happiness/PA measure or induction, related construct, and effect size [r]) are included in Tables 1, 2, and 3, which present cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental work, respectively. Table 2 additionally presents the length of time between assessments, and Table 3 includes the comparison groups used in the studies. Studies with asterisks after their name are those that appear in more than a single section or table, usually because multiple outcome variables are included. Furthermore, mirroring our documentation of the literature below, Tables 1-3 are subdivided into substantive categories (or panels). For example, Table 1 is subdivided into nine categories – work life, social relationships, health, perceptions of self and others, sociability and activity, likeability and cooperation, prosocial behavior, physical well-being and coping, and, finally, problem solving and creativity. The mean and median effect size (r), weighted and unweighted by sample size, as well as a test of heterogeneity, is provided for each category for the three classes of data (cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental) in Table 4. Benefits of Happiness 10 Tables 1, 2, and 3 report all effect sizes of interest to readers – including instances of two or more effect sizes generated from the same sample or dataset. For example, the relation of happiness with income and marital status derived from a single study may appear in two different panels of a table (i.e., work life and social relationships). Alternatively, the correlation between happiness and coping derived from a single longitudinal study may appear in two different tables (e.g., the cross-sectional table and the longitudinal table). However, in order to meta-analytically combine the 464 effect sizes listed in Tables 1-3, we had to ensure a degree of independence among them. To this end, several guidelines were followed. First, when more than one effect size was generated from the same sample, and these effect sizes involved moderately-to-highly correlated constructs (e.g., judgments of friendliness, gregariousness, and assertiveness), they were not treated independently. As a result, the unweighted average of each set of correlated effect sizes was used in our analyses. This procedure was employed for effect sizes generated from the same sample and reported within a particular panel of a table (e.g., those involving work life in Table 1). Second, as mentioned above, we recognized that sometimes the same sample was used to generate effect sizes in more than one panel of a table (e.g., sociability/activity and health) or even across tables (e.g., supervisory evaluations assessed at a single point in time [in Table 1], as well as two points in time [in Table 2]). In such instances, we selected only one specific effect size for our analyses. If the r’s came from the same table, the effect size tapping the best-fitting construct was chosen. If the r’s spanned Tables 1 and 2, the effect size reflecting a longitudinal correlation was selected, as longitudinal data speak relatively more strongly to causation. Third, even when generated from the same sample or dataset, effect sizes were considered independent if they involved variables that are not highly correlated with one another (e.g., income and alcohol consumption) (see Meng, Rosenthal, & Rubin, 1992). Defining Our Terms What Is the Hallmark of Happiness? Benefits of Happiness 11 Our focus in this paper is on happy individuals – that is, those who experience frequent positive emotions, such as joy, interest, and pride, and infrequent (though not absent) negative emotions, such as sadness, anxiety, and anger. Although many definitions of happiness have been used in the literature, ranging from life satisfaction and an appreciation of life to momentary feelings of pleasure, we define happiness here as a shorthand way of referring to the frequent experience of positive emotions. In our theoretical framework, it is the experience of positive emotions that leads to the behavioral outcomes we review, and “happiness” describes people who experience such emotions a large percentage of the time (Diener, Sandvik, & Pavot, 1991). Although more inclusive definitions of happiness have been offered by others (e.g., Veenhoven, 1984), we restrict our definition to the experience of frequent positive affect because that definition encompasses the findings we review. The notion that frequent positive affect is the hallmark of happiness has strong empirical support. Diener and his colleagues (1991) found that the relative proportion of time that people felt positive relative to negative emotions was a good predictor of self-reports of happiness, whereas the intensity of emotions was a weaker predictor. That is, happy people feel mild or moderate PA the majority of the time; they do not appear to experience frequent intense positive states. In several studies and using a variety of happiness measures, Diener and his colleagues (1991) found that happy people experienced positive moods and emotions most of the time (see also Diener, Larsen, Levine, & Emmons, 1985). Indeed, people who report high levels of happiness appear to have predominantly positive affect – that is, stronger positive feelings than negative ones – 80% or more of the time. For example, in a large international sample of over 7,000 college students in 41 diverse nations collected by Diener’s laboratory, individuals who reported that they were pleased with their lives expressed feelings of joy over half of the time. In the World Value Survey I, which comprises probability samples of almost 60,000 adults in 41 nations, 64% of the respondents reported more positive than negative affect, with only 18% reporting more negative than positive affect (World Value Survey Group, 1994). Notably, of those reporting above-neutral happiness on this survey, nearly everyone reported more positive than Benefits of Happiness 12 negative affect, prompting Diener et al. (1991) to conclude that happiness is best regarded as a state in which people feel a preponderance of positive emotions most of the time. One reason for the tendency of happy people to feel positive emotions more frequently may be that the chronically happy are relatively more sensitive to rewards in their environment – that is, they have a more reactive behavioral approach system (Gray, 1994) – and are more likely to approach, rather than avoid, rewarding situations (Watson, 1988). In addition, Larsen and colleagues demonstrated that dispositional positive affectivity involves a susceptibility to experience positive moods (Larsen & Ketelaar, 1991; Rusting & Larsen, 1997). Characterizing and Measuring High Average Positive Affect In short, the research evidence supports the notion that it is the amount of time that people experience positive affect that defines happiness, not necessarily the intensity of that affect. Furthermore, happy people have been found to experience positive emotions the majority of the time. Thus, in this paper, we identify happy individuals as those who experience high average levels of PA. These high average levels of PA, which we variously refer to as chronic happiness, trait PA, or subjective well-being (SWB), may be rooted in personality predispositions (e.g., a genetically-determined “set-point”; Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, & Schkade, in press), the person’s current life circumstances, the person’s intentional activities, or all of these. Because the existing literature does not discriminate which effects of long-term PA come from which of these different sources, we refer in our article to individuals who show high average level of PA, without reference to the source of this state. However, the findings from the experimental studies suggest that positive emotions can produce desirable outcomes even in the absence of a very happy disposition, although a happy disposition is likely to be a cause of positive emotions. The research we cite uses a variety of measures of long-term PA, happiness, and wellbeing. The vast majority of assessment of chronic PA is by self-report measures, which have been validated in a number of studies (e.g., Sandvik, Diener, & Seidlitz, 1993; Watson, 2000). In experimental research on induced moods, positive moods are operationalized by the manipulations that induce them; in longitudinal research, the measures depend on moods at the moment or over a Benefits of Happiness 13 recent period such as the past week or month; and, in individual difference research on chronic positive emotions, the measures usually ask about the person’s moods in general. Although these methods are not without shortcomings, they appear to be at least moderately valid. A more detailed discussion of measurement issues is available elsewhere (see Diener, 1994; Diener et al., 1999; Sandvik et al., 1993). Discriminating Happiness and Positive Affect From Related Constructs Notably, a large number of studies have assessed life satisfaction as an indicator of wellbeing, and such investigations are occasionally included here. Although the construct of satisfaction is not identical to positive affect – some researchers argue that it has an affective dimension (Veenhoven, 1997), whereas others define it as a purely cognitive judgment of life or its facets (Diener et al., 1999) – we review studies of satisfaction because they frequently represent the only available evidence in an area. Furthermore, life satisfaction and positive affect have been found to correlate at around .40 to .50 in undergraduates (Lucas, Diener, & Suh, 1996) and .52 in business students (Staw & Barsade, 1993). In addition, of people who say they are above neutral in satisfaction with their lives, 85% have been found to report that they feel happy at least half of the time (Lucas et al., 1996). Thus, life satisfaction is a defensible proxy for chronic happiness, in cases where no studies exist using more direct measures of happiness; Lucas and his colleagues demonstrated that it is separable but not independent from chronic PA. Similarly, Lucas et al. found that optimism is also related to positive affectivity, but separable from it. Again, we sometimes refer to findings based on measures of optimism because the findings can be striking, but we eagerly await the day when a full set of findings based on measures of positive affect, as well as related concepts, is available. The sections of this article that address research on positive affect similarly include studies using a variety of affect measures and mood inductions. Most researchers focus on global pleasant affect, without discriminating among specific positive emotions or between emotions and moods, and our review reflects this characteristic of the field. Finally, when no research on positive affect is available, we infrequently cite the literature on negative affect or depression. Although positive Benefits of Happiness 14 affect and negative affect often exhibit a degree of independence in the long run (e.g., Diener, H. L. Smith, & Fujita, 1995), these two types of affect regularly show moderate inverse relations across individuals, justifying the use of such negative states as the inverse of PA or SWB, to address our questions when more direct measures are absent. Furthermore, depression has been defined not only by high levels of NA, but also low levels of PA (Watson & L. A. Clark, 1995). CROSS-SECTIONAL EVIDENCE Question 1: Are Happy People Successful People? Being successful means accomplishing those things that are valued by one’s culture, flourishing in terms of the goals set forth by one’s society. Hence, our focal question is whether happy people on average are better able to achieve the values and goals they have been socialized to believe are worthwhile. As Sigmund Freud reportedly once said, lieben und arbeiten – to love and to work – are what a “normal” person should be able to perform well. Few people would oppose, in any culture, the addition of health to love and work as a critical ingredient to a successful life. Accordingly, the following section is divided into three parts – work life, social relationships, and health. Specifically, in this section, we review the cross-sectional evidence addressing the question of whether happy people are relatively more successful in various life domains, ranging from marriage to work, from altruistic community involvement to making money, and from mental health to physical health and longevity. Work Life In modern Western society, work fills a large number of people’s waking hours. Furthermore, it is important in terms of producing income, influencing self-esteem, creating opportunities for meaningful activities, and producing the goods and services needed by society. Thus, work is highly valued. Are happy people more successful than their less happy peers on jobrelated and performance variables? We will first review the correlational evidence bearing on this question (for study information and effect sizes, see Panel 1 of Table 1). Employment and Quality of Work Benefits of Happiness 15 The cross-sectional evidence reveals that happy workers enjoy multiple advantages over their less happy peers. Individuals high in SWB are more likely to secure job interviews, to be evaluated more positively by supervisors once they obtain a job, to show superior performance and productivity, and to handle managerial jobs better. They are also less likely to show counterproductive workplace behavior and job burnout. Even before entering the workforce, people with high SWB are more likely to graduate from college (Frisch et al., 2004). Furthermore, happy individuals appear to secure “better” jobs. In one study, employees high in dispositional positive affect had jobs, as rated by trained observers, that had more autonomy, meaning, and variety (Staw, Sutton, & Pelled, 1994). Finally, evidence from a variety of sources shows that happy people are more satisfied with their jobs (e.g., Connolly & Viswesvaran, 2000; Tait, Padgett, & Baldwin, 1989; Weiss, Nicholas, & Daus, 1999). In a meta-analysis of 27 studies of affect and job satisfaction, Connolly and Viswesvaran (2000) concluded that 10% to 25% of the variance in job satisfaction was accounted for by measures of dispositional affect. In their analyses, the mean corrected correlation between PA and job satisfaction was .49. Once a happy person obtains a job, he or she is more likely to succeed. Employees high in dispositional positive affect receive relatively more favorable evaluations from supervisors and others (Staw et al., 1994). For example, in Staw and colleagues’ (1994) study, managers of high PA employees of three midwestern organizations gave them higher evaluations for work quality, productivity, dependability, and creativity. Wright and his colleagues have replicated this effect, showing that happy people receive higher ratings from supervisors (Cropanzano & Wright, 1999; Wright & Staw, 1999). Finally, work performance may be more strongly predicted by well-being than by job satisfaction. In two studies, Wright and Cropanzano (2000) found that job performance, as judged by supervisors, was significantly correlated with well-being (r’s of .32 and .34, respectively), but uncorrelated with measures of job satisfaction (r’s of -.08 and .08). Staw and Barsade (1993) found that, as rated by objective observers, those high in dispositional positive affect performed objectively better on a manager assessment task (including Benefits of Happiness 16 “leadership” and “mastery of information”). Other evidence for happy people’s relative success on the job includes findings that individuals high in dispositional PA are more likely to be in the supervisory in-group (Graen, 1976). Dormitory resident advisors were rated by residents as being more effective if they were high on trait positive affect (DeLuga & Mason, 2000), and happier cricket players had higher batting averages (Totterdell, 2000). George (1995) found that service departments with happy leaders were more likely to receive high ratings from customers, and that the positive affective tone of the sales force was an independent predictor of customer satisfaction. Corroborating these results, a recent study showed that CEO’s of manufacturing companies with high PA were relatively more likely to have employees who rated themselves as happy and healthy, and who reported a positive, warm climate for performance. In turn, organizational climate was correlated with productivity (r = .31) and profitability (r = .36) (Foster, Hebl, West, & Dawson, 2004). Interestingly, these patterns were not found for negative affect. Finally, optimistic life insurance agents appear to sell more insurance (Seligman & Schulman, 1986), and optimistic CEO’s receive higher performance ratings from the chairpersons of their boards, and head companies with greater returns on investment (Pritzker, 2002). Coté (1999) reviewed the effects of well-being on job performance, and concluded that the causal relation between pleasant affect and strong performance is bi-directional. Undoubtedly, one of the reasons that happy, satisfied workers are more likely to be high performers on the job is that they are less likely to show “job withdrawal” – namely, absenteeism, turnover, job burnout, and retaliatory behaviors (Donovan, 2000; Locke, 1975; Porter & Steers, 1973; Thoresen, Kaplan, Barsky, Warren, & de Chermont, 2003). For example, positive moods at work predicted lower withdrawal and organizational retaliation and higher organizational citizenship behavior (Donovan, 2000; see also Credé, Chernyshenko, Stark, & Dalal, 2005; Miles, Borman, Spector, & Fox, 2002; Thoresen et al., 2003), as well as lower job burnout (Wright & Cropanzano, 1998). Positive affect at work has also been found to be directly associated with reduced absenteeism (George, 1989). Finally, those who experience low arousal positive affect on Benefits of Happiness 17 the job are less likely to want to quit and to be in conflict with other workers (Van Katwyk, Fox, Spector, & Kelloway, 2000). Income An important indicator of success in modern societies is income. Do happier people earn higher incomes? Several studies suggest the answer to be “yes.” For example, a study of 24,000 German residents revealed a correlation between income and life satisfaction of .20 (Lucas, A. E. Clark, Georgellis, & Diener, 2004), and a study of Russians revealed correlations between real household income and happiness of .48 in 1995 and .39 in 2000 (Graham, Eggers, & Sukhtankar, in press). Among indigenous Malaysian farmers, the correlation between life satisfaction and material wealth (their only available indicator of income) was found to be .23 (Howell, Howell, & Schwabe, in press). According to Diener and Biswas-Diener (2002), most surveys report correlations between income and happiness in the range of .13 to .24. In a meta-analysis of 286 empirical investigations of the elderly, income was significantly correlated with happiness and life satisfaction, and, surprisingly, more so than with education (Pinquart & Sörensen, 2000). Organizational Citizenship Are happy workers relatively better organizational “citizens”? Much of the cross-sectional evidence pertaining to this question comes from studies of individuals who are satisfied with their jobs. Notably, both positive affect on the job and chronic happiness have been found to predict job satisfaction (Weiss et al., 1999). In turn, job satisfaction predicts organizational citizenship behavior – that is, acts that go beyond the requirements of the job, such as spreading goodwill and aiding coworkers (Donovan, 2000; George & Brief, 1992; Organ, 1988). However, studies of recurring positive affect corroborate these results. Borman, Penner, Allen, and Motowildo (2001) review evidence showing that positive affect predicts organizational citizenship, and that negative affect inversely correlates with it, even when peer ratings rather than self-ratings of citizenship are used. In addition, George and Brief argue that habitual positive affect at work is pivotal in understanding so-called “organizational spontaneity,” which includes helping co-workers, Benefits of Happiness 18 protecting the organization, making constructive suggestions, and developing one’s own abilities within the organization (see also Donovan, 2000). Community Involvement Despite a scarcity of studies in this area, some evidence underscores the contributions of happy people to their communities. Happy people appear to volunteer at higher levels than their unhappy peers for charity and community service groups, including religious, political, educational, and health-related organizations (Krueger, Hicks, & McGue, 2001; Thoits & Hewitt, 2001) and to invest more hours in volunteer service (Thoits & Hewitt, 2001). Furthermore, in a study of Israeli high school students, those with high PA were more likely to be involved in community service and to express a desire to contribute to society and be of assistance to others (Magen & Aharoni, 1991). In sum, as we describe in the section on prosocial behavior, happy people seem to be relatively more inclined to help others (Feingold, 1983). Social Relationships Berscheid (2003) highlighted the centrality of social relationships to successful human functioning when she wrote that “relationships constitute the single most important factor responsible for the survival of homo sapiens” (p. 39). Do happy people have better social relationships than their less happy peers? Our review reveals this to be one of the most robust findings in the literature on well-being. Below, we begin by presenting cross-sectional evidence regarding the question whether individuals high in trait positive affect, happiness, and life satisfaction have more friends and more social support, and experience happier interpersonal relationships. Relevant study information is contained in Panel 2 of Table 1. Friendship and Social Support Do happy people have more friends and stronger social support networks than less happy people? Cross-sectional studies have documented an association between chronic happiness and the actual number of friends or companions people report they can rely on (Baldassare, Rosenfield, & Rook, 1984; Lee & Ishii-Kuntz, 1987; Mishra, 1992; Phillips, 1967; Requena, 1995), as well as overall social support and perceived companionship (Baldassare et al., 1984; see Pinquart & Benefits of Happiness 19 Sörensen, 2000, for a large meta-analysis). In the workplace, employees with high dispositional positive affect have been found to receive more emotional and tangible assistance both from coworkers and supervisors (Staw et al., 1994). Friendship has been found to have one of the highest positive correlations with self-rated happiness (Campbell, Converse, & Rogers, 1976). For example, the happiest college students (the top 10%) have been shown to have high quality social relationships (Diener & Seligman, 2002). In a meta-analysis of 286 studies, the quantity and quality of contacts with friends was a strong predictor of well-being, even stronger than that of contacts with family members (Pinquart & Sörensen, 2000). Happy people also report being more satisfied with their friends and their social activities (Cooper, Okamura, & Gurka, 1992; Gladow & Ray, 1986; Lyubomirsky, Tkach, DiMatteo, & Lepper, 2005) and less jealous of others (Pfeiffer & Wong, 1989). Not surprisingly, loneliness is negatively correlated with happiness, especially in older adults (Lee & Ishii-Kuntz, 1987), and positively correlated with depression (Peplau & Perlman, 1982; Seligman, 1991). Marriage and Romance More than 9 in 10 people worldwide eventually get married (Myers, 2000) and an even greater percentage are in committed intimate relationships. Surveys show that married people are happier than those who are single, divorced, or widowed (Diener et al., 1999). For example, in a study of 19 countries, Mastekaasa (1994) found that married people were happier than all the other groups. Numerous studies with respondents from diverse cultures support this finding (e.g., Diener, Gohm, Suh, & Oishi, 2000; Glenn & Weaver, 1979; Graham et al., in press; Kozma & Stones, 1983; Lee, Seccombe, & Shehan, 1991; Marks & Fleming, 1999; Stack & Eshleman, 1998). Happy individuals tend to have fulfilling marriages and to be more satisfied with their marriages. Indeed, several writers have suggested that satisfaction with marriage and family life is the strongest correlate of happiness (Headey, Veenhoven, & Wearing, 1991; Myers, 1992, 2000). For example, data from six U.S. national surveys indicate that marital happiness is more strongly related to global, personal happiness than any other kind of domain satisfaction (Glenn & Weaver, Benefits of Happiness 2