Great thinkers, philosophers, scientists, and artists from History have often been concerned about one of the most important elements of life: happiness. The study had four goals: (1) To analyze possible differences in feelings of happiness as a function of sex and age; (2) To explore the relations of happiness with risk factors (psychopathological symptoms, behavior problems) and protective fa...

Does money buy happiness? Or is happiness derived from looking outwards towards our social networks? Many researchers have answered these questions by exploring whether the best predictor of well-being is either economic or social (or some fixed combination of the two). This paper argues for a dynamic perspective on the capacity for economic and social factors to predict well-being. In two stud...

OBJECTIVES The main aim of this study was to examine the roles of physical passivity and extraversion in the relationship between daily engagement in activities and daily happiness among older adults. METHOD A day reconstruction method was used to accurately examine day-to-day activities and happiness. In total, 438 participants completed a monthly electronic diary survey over a 2-year period...

The “Hedonistic Paradox” states that homo economicus, or someone who seeks happiness for himor herself, will not find it, but the person who helps others will. This study examines two questions in connection with happiness and generosity. First, do more generous people, as identified in dictator experiments, report on average greater happiness, or subjective well-being, as measured by responses...

Subjective happiness has been assessed in the U.S. since 1972 by the General Social Survey (GSS). We examine trends in happiness over the last 25 years, and investigate the objective causes of these trends. We present a model of how objective indicators of QOL (such as GDP/person, crime rates, etc.) affect satisfaction with domains of life, with overall happiness of citizens, and with behaviora...

Happiness is generally considered a source of good outcomes. Research has highlighted the ways in which happiness facilitates the pursuit of important goals, contributes to vital social bonds, broadens people's scope of attention, and increases well-being and psychological health. However, is happiness always a good thing? This review suggests that the pursuit and experience of happiness might ...

BACKGROUND Happiness is one of the most important factors affecting women's mental health. Several factors contribute to happiness in different societies. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to investigate the level of happiness in married women and its related factors. MATERIALS AND METHODS This was a cross-sectional study with stratified sampling proportional to different age groups of m...

AND OVER TIME IN THE UNITED STATES: Editor’s Note: One of the contemporary foundations of quality-of-life and social indicators research is studies of subjective well-being in general and happiness in particular. In this issue, I review two recent contributions to this subject. The first is a recent article by Yang Yang in the American Sociological Review. This article sets new standards for th...

This paper presents a literature review that indicate happiness as a state of freely available or surplus energy. Happiness is associated with good metabolism and glucose levels, fewer demands (from parenting, work, difficult social relationships, or personal threats), and goal achievement, as well as increased ease of processing, mental resources, social support, and monetary wealth. Each of t...