DESIRE: Curiosity      STATEMENT: I have a thirst for knowledge.      SELF-RATING:___________      DESIRE: Acceptance      STATEMENT: I have a hard time coping with criticism.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Order      STATEMENT: It upsets me when things are out of place.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Physical Activity      STATEMENT: Physical fitness is very important to me.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Honor      STATEMENT: I am a highly principled and loyal person.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Power      STATEMENT: I often seek leadership roles.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Independence      STATEMENT: Self-reliance is essential to my happiness.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Social Contact      STATEMENT: I am known as a fun-loving person.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Family      STATEMENT: My children come first.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Status      STATEMENT: I am impressed by people who own expensive things.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Idealism      STATEMENT: Compared with most people, I am very concerned with social causes.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Vengeance      STATEMENT: It is very important to me to get even with those who insult or offend me.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Romance      STATEMENT: Compared with my peers, I spend much more time pursuing or having sex.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Eating      STATEMENT: I love to eat and often fantasize about food.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Saving      STATEMENT: I hate throwing things away.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Tranquility      STATEMENT: It scares me when my heart beats rapidly.      SELF-RATING: __________

Feel-good happiness is sensation-based pleasure. When we joke around or have sex, we experience feel-good happiness. Since feel-good happiness is ruled by the law of diminishing returns, the kicks get harder to come by. This type of happiness rarely lasts longer than a few hours at a time.      Value-based happiness is a sense that our lives have meaning and fulfill some larger purpose. It represents a spiritual source of satisfaction, stemming from our deeper purpose and values. We experience value-based happiness when we satisfy any of the 16 basic desires--the more desires we satisfy, the more value-based happiness we experience. Since this form of happiness is not ruled by the law of diminishing returns, there is no limit to how meaningful our lives can be.      Malcolm X's life is a good example of both feel-good and value-based happiness. When racial discrimination denied him the opportunity to pursue his childhood ambition of becoming a lawyer, he turned to a life of partying, drugs and sex. Yet this pleasure seeking produced little happiness--by the age of 21, he was addicted to cocaine and sent to jail for burglary. He had experienced a lot of pleasure, yet he was unhappy because his life was inconsistent with his own nature and deeper values. He had known feel-good happiness but not value-based happiness.      After reaching rock bottom, he embraced the teachings of the Nation of Islam and committed himself to his most fundamental values. He led his followers toward greater social justice, married, had a family of his own and found happiness. Although he experienced less pleasure and more anxiety as a leader, he was much happier because he lived his life in accordance with his values.

The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.

Who are these characters who are so damn happy? The first one is Jim Wright. Some of you are old enough to remember: he was the chairman of the House of Representatives and he resigned in disgrace when this young Republican named Newt Gingrich found out about a shady book deal he had done. He lost everything. The most powerful Democrat in the country lost everything. He lost his money, he lost his power. What does he have to say all these years later? "I am so much better off physically, financially, mentally and in almost every other way." What other way would there be to be better off? Vegetably? Minerally? Animally? He's pretty much covered them there. 06:10 Moreese Bickham is somebody you've never heard of. Moreese Bickham uttered these words upon being released. He was 78 years old. He'd spent 37 years in a Louisiana State Penitentiary for a crime he didn't commit. [He was ultimately released for good behavior halfway through his sentence.] What did he say about his experience? "I don't have one minute's regret. It was a glorious experience." Glorious! He is not saying, "Well, there were some nice guys. They had a gym." "Glorious," a word we usually reserve for something like a religious experience. 06:39 Harry S. Langerman uttered these words, and he's somebody you might have known but didn't, because in 1949 he read a little article in the paper about a hamburger stand owned by two brothers named McDonalds. And he thought, "That's a really neat idea!" So he went to find them. They said, "We can give you a franchise on this for 3,000 bucks." Harry went back to New York, asked his brother, an investment banker, to loan him the $3,000, and his brother's immortal words were, "You idiot, nobody eats hamburgers." He wouldn't lend him the money, and of course, six months later Ray Kroc had exactly the same idea. It turns out people do eat hamburgers, and Ray Kroc, for a while, became the richest man in America. 07:15 And then finally -- you know, the best of all possible worlds -- some of you recognize this young photo of Pete Best, who was the original drummer for the Beatles, until they, you know, sent him out on an errand and snuck away and picked up Ringo on a tour. Well, in 1994, when Pete Best was interviewed -- yes, he's still a drummer; yes, he's a studio musician -- he had this to say: "I'm happier than I would have been with the Beatles."

Because happiness can be synthesized. Sir Thomas Brown wrote in 1642, "I am the happiest man alive. I have that in me that can convert poverty to riches, adversity to prosperity.

The research that my laboratory has been doing, that economists and psychologists around the country have been doing, has revealed something really quite startling to us, something we call the "impact bias," which is the tendency for the simulator to work badly. For the simulator to make you believe that different outcomes are more different than in fact they really are. 03:31 From field studies to laboratory studies, we see that winning or losing an election, gaining or losing a romantic partner, getting or not getting a promotion, passing or not passing a college test, on and on, have far less impact, less intensity and much less duration than people expect them to have. This almost floors me -- a recent study showing how major life traumas affect people suggests that if it happened over three months ago, with only a few exceptions, it has no impact whatsoever on your happiness.

The Bard said everything best, of course, and he's making my point here but he's making it hyperbolically: "'Tis nothing good or bad / But thinking makes it so." It's nice poetry, but that can't exactly be right. Is there really nothing good or bad? Is it really the case that gall bladder surgery and a trip to Paris are just the same thing? That seems like a one-question IQ test. They can't be exactly the same.

Natural happiness is what we get when we get what we wanted, and synthetic happiness is what we make when we don't get what we wanted. And in our society, we have a strong belief that synthetic happiness is of an inferior kind.

the secret of happiness. Here it is, finally to be revealed. First: accrue wealth, power, and prestige, then lose it. 07:49 (Laughter) 07:52 Second: spend as much of your life in prison as you possibly can. 07:55 (Laughter) 07:56 Third: make somebody else really, really rich. And finally: never ever join the Beatles.

But how exactly can we attain a healthy dose of happiness? This is the million-dollar question. First, it is important to experience happiness in the right amount. Too little happiness is just as problematic as too much. Second, happiness has a time and a place, and one must be mindful about the context or situation in which one experiences happiness. Third, it is important to strike an emotional balance. One cannot experience happiness at the cost or expense of negative emotions, such as sadness or anger or guilt. These are all part of a complex recipe for emotional health and help us attain a more grounded perspective. Emotional balance is crucial. Finally, it is important to pursue and experience happiness for the right reasons. Too much focus on striving for happiness as an end in itself can actually be self-defeating. Rather than trying to zealously find happiness, we should work to build acceptance of our current emotional state, whatever it may be. True happiness, it seems, comes from fostering kindness toward others—and toward yourself.

Groundbreaking work by Iris Mauss has recently supported the counterintuitive idea that striving for happiness may actually cause more harm than good. In fact, at times, the more people pursue happiness the less they seem able to obtain it. Mauss shows that the more people strive for happiness, the more likely they will be to set a high standard for happiness—then be disappointed when that standard is not met. 

Not surprisingly, most people want to be happy. We seem hardwired to pursue happiness, and this is especially true for Americans—it’s even ingrained in our Declaration of Independence.

self-focused positive emotions like pride may actually hinder our ability to empathize, or take another person’s perspective during difficult emotional times. The bottom line: Certain kinds of happiness may at times hinder our ability to connect with those around us.

However, my research with Sheri Johnson and Dacher Keltner finds that when we experience too much pride or pride without genuine merit, it can lead to negative social outcomes, such as aggressiveness towards others, antisocial behavior, and even an increased risk of mood disorders such as mania.

Our emotions help us adapt to new circumstances, challenges, and opportunities. Anger mobilizes us to overcome obstacles; fear alerts us to threats and engages our fight-or-flight preparation system; sadness signals loss. These emotions enable us to meet particular needs in specific contexts.

Take this function of happiness to the extreme. Imagine someone who has an overpowering drive to attend only to the positive things around them and take risks of enormous proportions. They might tend to overlook or neglect warning signs in their environment, or take bold leaps and risky steps even when outward signs suggest gains are unlikely.

But according to Mark Alan Davis’s 2008 meta-analysis of the relationship between mood and creativity, when people experience intense and perhaps overwhelming amounts of happiness, they no longer experience the same creativity boost. And in extreme cases like mania, people lose the ability to tap into and channel their inner creative resources. What’s more, psychologist Barbara Fredrickson has found that too much positive emotion—and too little negative emotion—makes people inflexible in the face of new challenges.

We know that they motivate us to pursue important goals and overcome obstacles, protect us from some effects of stress, connect us closely with other people, and even stave off physical and mental ailments.

As one might expect, people’s happiness levels were positively correlated with whether they saw their lives as meaningful.

More broadly, the findings suggest that pure happiness is about getting what we want in life—whether through people, money, or life circumstances. Meaningfulness, in contrast, seems to have more to do with giving, effort, and sacrifice.

When it comes to thinking about how to be happier, many of us fantasize about taking more vacations or finding ways to avoid mundane tasks. We may dream about skipping housework and instead doing something fun and pleasurable. However, tasks which don’t make us happy can, over time, add up to a meaningful life. Even routine activities — talking on the phone, cooking, cleaning, housework, meditating, emailing, praying, waiting on others, and balancing finances — appeared to bring more meaning to people’s lives, but not happiness in the moment. 

spending more time with friends was related to greater happiness but not more meaning. In contrast, spending more time with people one loves was correlated with greater meaning but not with more happiness.

Participants in the study who were more likely to agree with the statement, “I am a giver,” reported less happiness than people who were more likely to agree with, “I am a taker.” However, the “givers” reported higher levels of meaning in their lives compared to the “takers.”

This same disconnect was recently found in a multi-national study conducted by Shigehiro Oishi and Ed Diener, who show that people from wealthy countries tend to be happier, however, they don’t see their lives as more meaningful. In fact, Oishi and Diener found that people from poorer countries tend to see their lives as more meaningful.

Interestingly, their findings suggest that money, contrary to popular sayings, can indeed buy happiness. Having enough money to buy what one needs in life, as well as what one desires, were also positively correlated with greater levels of happiness.

survey items that asked detailed questions about people’s feelings and moods, their relationships with others, and their day-to-day activities.

Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl once wrote, “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”

Instead, when aspiring to a well-lived life, it might make more sense to look for things you find meaningful—deep relationships, altruism, and purposeful self-expression, for example—than to look for pleasure alone… even if pleasure augments one’s sense of meaning, as King suggests. “Work toward long-term goals; do things that society holds in high regard—for achievement or moral reasons,” he says. “You draw meaning from a larger context, so you need to look beyond yourself to find the purpose in what you’re doing.”

But one piece of warning: If you are aiming strictly for a life of hedonic pleasure, you may be on the wrong path to finding happiness. “For centuries, traditional wisdom has been that simply seeking pleasure for its own sake doesn’t really make you happy in the long run,” he says. In fact, seeking happiness without meaning would probably be a stressful, aggravating, and annoying proposition, argues Baumeister.

Can you have it all? Baumeister, though, clearly believes it is useful to make distinctions between meaning and happiness—in part to encourage more people to seek meaningful pursuits in life whether or not doing so makes them feel happy. Still, he recognizes that the two are closely tied. More on Meaning & Happiness Register for the new GGSC online course, "The Science of Happiness." Discover five ways giving is good for you. Read Meredith Maran's article on how activism and volunteering improves health and resilience. Explore how to find more meaningful work. How altruistic are you? Take our quiz! Take our quiz to measure how much you identify with your neighborhood, nation, and humanity. “Having a meaningful life contributes to being happy and being happy may also contribute to finding life more meaningful,” he says. “I think that there’s evidence for both of those.”

Like Lyubomirsky, she insists that meaning and happiness go hand-in-hand. She points to the work of researchers who’ve found that positive emotions can help establish deeper social ties—which many argue is the most meaningful part of life—and to University of Missouri psychologist Laura King’s research, which found that feeling positive emotions helps people see the “big picture” and notice patterns, which can help one aim for more meaningful pursuits and interpret one’s experience as meaningful.

But happiness researcher Elizabeth Dunn thinks the distinction between eudaimonic and hedonic happiness is murky.

eudaimonic

A recent study by Steven Cole of the UCLA School of Medicine, and Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found that people who reported more eudaimonic happiness had stronger immune system function than those who reported more hedonic happiness, suggesting that a life of meaning may be better for our health than a life seeking pleasure. Similarly, a 2008 article published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, found several positive health effects associated with eudaimonic happiness, including less reactivity to stress, less insulin resistance (which means less chance of developing diabetes), higher HDL (“good”) cholesterol levels, better sleep, and brain activity patterns that have been linked to decreased levels of depression.

Is there happiness without pleasure? But is it ever helpful to separate out meaning from pleasure? Some researchers have taken to doing that by looking at what they call “eudaimonic happiness,” or the happiness that comes from meaningful pursuits, and “hedonic happiness”—the happiness that comes from pleasure or goal fulfillment.

Lyubomirsky feels that researchers who try to separate meaning and happiness may be on the wrong track, because meaning and happiness are inseparably intertwined. “When you feel happy, and you take out the meaning part of happiness, it’s not really happiness,” she says.

Some have equated happiness with transient emotional states or even spikes of activity in pleasure centers of the brain, while others have asked people to assess their overall happiness or life satisfaction.

One of the more surprising findings from the study was that giving to others was associated with meaning, rather than happiness, while taking from others was related to happiness and not meaning. Though many researchers have found a connection between giving and happiness, Baumeister argues that this connection is due to how one assigns meaning to the act of giving. 

Happy people satisfy their wants and needs, but that seems largely irrelevant to a meaningful life. Therefore, health, wealth, and ease in life were all related to happiness, but not meaning. Happiness involves being focused on the present, whereas meaningfulness involves thinking more about the past, present, and future—and the relationship between them. In addition, happiness was seen as fleeting, while meaningfulness seemed to last longer. Meaningfulness is derived from giving to other people; happiness comes from what they give to you. Although social connections were linked to both happiness and meaning, happiness was connected more to the benefits one receives from social relationships, especially friendships, while meaningfulness was related to what one gives to others—for example, taking care of children. Along these lines, self-described “takers” were happier than self-described “givers,” and spending time with friends was linked to happiness more than meaning, whereas spending more time with loved ones was linked to meaning but not happiness. Meaningful lives involve stress and challenges. Higher levels of worry, stress, and anxiety were linked to higher meaningfulness but lower happiness, which suggests that engaging in challenging or difficult situations that are beyond oneself or one’s pleasures promotes meaningfulness but not happiness. Self-expression is important to meaning but not happiness. Doing things to express oneself and caring about personal and cultural identity were linked to a meaningful life but not a happy one. For example, considering oneself to be wise or creative was associated with meaning but not happiness.

Their findings suggest that meaning (separate from happiness) is not connected with whether one is healthy, has enough money, or feels comfortable in life, while happiness (separate from meaning) is.

And so, the meaningful life guides actions from the past through the present to the future, giving one a sense of direction. It offers ways to value good and bad alike, and gives us justifications for our aspirations. From achieving our goals to regarding ourselves in a positive light, a life of meaningfulness is considerably different than mere happiness. "People have strong inner desires that shape their lives with purpose and focus – qualities that ultimately make for a uniquely human experience," said Aaker.

Self and personal identity: If happiness is about getting what you want, then meaningfulness is about expressing and defining yourself. A life of meaning is more deeply tied to a valued sense of self and one's purpose in the larger context of life and community.

The unhappy but meaningful life involves difficult undertakings and can be characterized by stress, struggle and challenges. However, while sometimes unhappy in the moment, these people – connected to a larger sense of purpose and value – make positive contributions to society.

Struggles and stresses: Highly meaningful lives encounter lots of negative events and issues, which can result in unhappiness. Raising children can be joyful but it is also connected to high stress – thus meaningfulness – and not always happiness. While the lack of stress may make one happier – like when people retire and no longer have the pressure of work demands – meaningfulness drops.

Social life: Connections to other people are important both for meaning and happiness. But the nature of those relationships is how they differ. Deep relationships – such as family – increase meaning, while spending time with friends may increase happiness but had little effect on meaning. Time with loved ones involves hashing out problems or challenges, while time with friends may simply foster good feelings without much responsibility

When people spend time thinking about the future or past, the more meaningful, and less happy, their lives become.

Getting what you want and need: While satisfying desires was a reliable source of happiness, it had nothing to do with a sense of meaning

"Happiness was linked to being a taker rather than a giver, whereas meaningfulness went with being a giver rather than a taker,"

"The quest for meaning is a key part of what makes us human,"

We also found some interesting non-correlations. People who have children are no happier than those who don’t, after controlling for marital status. Retirees are no happier than workers. Pet owners are no happier than those without pets.

Several of them stand out: Married people are happier than unmarrieds. People who worship frequently are happier than those who don’t. Republicans are happier than Democrats. Rich people are happier than poor people. Whites and Hispanics are happier than blacks. Sunbelt residents are happier than those who live in the rest of the country.

So much for happiness. What about the other side of the coin? Which Americans are “not too happy”? Well, as one would expect, the unhappy campers are for the most part the demographic mirror image of the happy campers. But there are a few wrinkles. The first has to do with race. As already noted, whites and Hispanics are about equally likely to say they are very happy, and both groups are happier than blacks. But looking only at unhappiness, the relationship between the three groups changes: many fewer whites (12%) than blacks or Hispanics (each 23%) say they are not too happy. On the health front, while there’s a strong association between feeling healthy and happy, there’s an even stronger association between feeling unhealthy and unhappy. Fully 55% of people who say their health is poor also report that they are “not too happy.” No other characteristic measured in this report comes close to rivaling poor health as a predictor of unhappiness. The unhappiness data also highlight the plight of another demographic group — single parents with minor age children. More than a quarter of them (27%) report being not too happy – by far the largest percentage for any marital or parenting sub-group in the survey.

The same regression analysis also finds that education, gender, and race do not have a statistically significant independent effect on predicting happiness, once all the other factors are controlled.

That analysis shows that the most robust correlations of all those described in this report are health, income, church attendance, being married and, yes, being a Republican. Indeed, being a Republican is associated not only with happiness, it is also associated with every other trait in this cluster. Even so, the factor that makes the most difference in predicting happiness is neither being a Republican nor being wealthy – it’s being in good health.

Here most of the findings are pretty predictable – healthier people tend to be happier, and so do better-educated people.

Religiosity People who attend religious services weekly or more are happier (43% very happy) than those who attend monthly or less (31%); or seldom or never (26%).

Much of the research into the field of happiness — to say nothing of simple common sense – suggests that at the level of the individual, happiness is heavily influenced by life events (Did you get the big promotion? Have a fight with your boyfriend?) as well as by psychological traits (self-esteem, optimism, a sense of belonging, the capacity to love, etc.).

There are, in fact, any number of possible causes of this correlation. Perhaps money leads to happiness. Perhaps happiness leads to money.

Alas, only so-so. Just a third (34%) of adults in this country say they’re very happy, according to the latest Pew Research Center survey. Another half say they are pretty happy and 15% consider themselves not too happy.

Are We Happy Yet? Americans have always had a thing about happiness. We all have certain unalienable rights, declares our Declaration of Independence, among them “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Are We Happy Yet?

CONTENTMENT      WHAT IT IS: Feeling safe and calm.      WAYS TO GET IT: A friendly, nonthreatening environment is key. If you're not so lucky, relaxation exercises may mimic the body's response to contentment. Rebecca Shaw finds it in marriage to Ray Shaw, and in her two children, Christian, 3, and Sierra, 2--and by not putting up with mean people.      CHANGE      WHAT IT IS: What you need when your goals aren't satisfying you.      WAYS TO GET IT: Figure out why what you're doing isn't working. Allison Waxberg, a scientist in the cosmetics industry, wanted more creativity in her life. She took art classes, realized she had talent, and now attends Brooklyn's Pratt Institute.      FLOW      WHAT IT IS: The state of intense concentration that occurs during challenging, goal-directed activities.      WAYS TO GET IT: Flow can arise from pastimes, like playing sports or music, but also from reading and good conversation. College sophomore Jason Vincens finds flow in competitive wrestling.      PERSPECTIVE      WHY GET IT: It helps people see the good in their lives when things are going badly.      WAYS TO GET IT: Comparing one's situation with a worst-case scenario really can make people feel better. After a potentially fatal brain tumor, not much fazes Jay Van Houten these days. He volunteers with the mentally and physically disabled.      SPIRITUALITY      WHAT IT DOES: People with some form of spiritual belief (not just religion) are often happier and more optimistic.      WHY IT WORKS: Possibly because it can promote hope and social support. Michael Lee started Lighthouse, a faith-sharing group. He prays with his wife, Agatha Chung, at a meeting.

The Laughing Club of India

Psychologist Laura King of the University of Missouri has found that people at least say they know these things and consistently rate meaning and happiness above money. But in a study with colleague Christie Scollon, she found that people were all for meaning, yet most said they didn't want to work for it. Other evidence echoes her findings: People say one thing but do another. "One of the problems," says King, "might be that people don't understand that lives of happiness and meaning probably involve some hard work."      Will people work to learn happiness? Positive psychologists think that if they can tease out the best in people, happiness will follow. To Seligman, happiness is "the emotion that arises when we do something that stems from our strengths and virtues." And those, anyone can cultivate. "There's no set point for honesty," he says. The idea that happiness is the sum of what's best in people may sound suspiciously simple, but it's a whole lot easier than finding that happy man's shirt.

 There's no disputing that positive psychology's findings echo the exhortations of ancient wisdom, and let's face it--Oprah. Be grateful and kind and true to yourself. Find meaning in life. Seek silver linings. But then, what did you expect--be mean to children and animals?

With age, serenity. Wait around if you must, as some research suggests that people grow happier with age. You don't have the high highs of youth, but neither do you have the low lows. Older people often pursue goals less out of guilt or social pressure and more for their own satisfaction. Also, age often brings wisdom, which adds depth to happiness. You could think of happiness growing out, rather than up.

Dubbed "flow" by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, director of the Quality of Life Research Center in Claremont, Calif., it's the single-minded focus of athletes and artists, scientists and writers, or anyone doing anything that poses a challenge and demands full attention. People in flow are too busy to think about happiness, but afterward they think of the experience as incredibly positive. And it's followed by well-earned contentment.

Nurturing optimism is a key way to help hope and happiness flourish. Optimism predisposes people toward positive emotions, whereas pessimism is a petri dish for depression.

"Positive emotions and broadened thinking are mutually building on one another, making people even more creative problem-solvers over time, and even better off emotionally," she says. Coping with one problem well--as Van Houten did with humor--may make people more resilient next time trouble comes along.

Waxberg tried a series of jobs, including making prosthetic limbs, but had yet to combine her technical and creative sides. Finally, she took some art classes and proved to herself that she had talent. She's now earning an industrial design master's from Brooklyn's Pratt Institute, where she has won acclaim for her ceramics, and is doing her thesis on skin. She hopes to start a new career as a design consultant this year.

When people feel they have no choice in the goals they pursue, they're not going to be satisfied. Goals that derive from fear, guilt, or social pressure probably won't make you happier, even if you attain them. "Ask yourself, 'Is this intrinsically interesting and enjoyable?' If it isn't, do I at least believe in it strongly?" says Sheldon. "If I don't, why the hell am I doing it?"

 One way is to find the right goals and pursue them. Sheldon's research suggests that goals reflecting your interests and values can help you attain and maintain new levels of happiness, rather than returning to base line.

Michael Lee, too, believes happiness can be learned. "You practice it day in and day out,"

Some have more of a head start than others. University studies of twins suggest that about half of one's potential for happiness is inherited. Researchers think happiness is influenced not by a single "happy gene," but by inborn predispositions toward qualities that help or hinder happiness, such as optimism or shyness. And personality doesn't fluctuate that much over an average life span. People seem to have "happiness set points"--base lines that mood drifts back to after good and bad events.

Scientists also know what works. Strong marriages, family ties, and friendships predict happiness, as do spirituality and self-esteem. Hope is crucial, as is the feeling that life has meaning. Yes, happy people may be more likely to have all these things at the start. But causality, researchers find, goes both ways. Helping people be a little happier can jump-start a process that will lead to stronger relationships, renewed hope, and a general upward spiraling of happiness.

Researchers have scads of information on what isn't making people happy. For example, once income provides basic needs, it doesn't correlate to happiness. Nor does intelligence, prestige, or sunny weather. People grow used to new climates, higher salaries, and better cars. Not only does the novelty fade but such changes do nothing to alleviate real problems--like that niggling fear that nobody likes you.

Decades of studying depression have helped millions become less sad, but not necessarily more happy--a crucial distinction. When you alleviate depression (no mean task), "the best you can ever get to is zero," says Seligman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

MOOD MEASUREMENT      How happy are you? Find out      One way scientists measure happiness is by simply asking people to evaluate their overall satisfaction with their lives. This scale of life satisfaction was developed by psychologist Ed Diener of the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign and is used worldwide to gather data on happiness. The scoring at the bottom shows how you compare with other Americans.      Taking the test      For each of the five items below (A-E), select an answer from the 0-to-6 response scale. Place a number on the line next to each statement, indicating your agreement or disagreement with that statement. 6: Strongly agree 5: Agree 4: Slightly agree 3: Neither agree nor disagree 2: Slightly disagree 1: Disagree 0: Strongly disagree A)______ Your life is very close to your ideal. B)______ The conditions of your life are excellent. C)______ You are completely satisfied with your life. D)______ So far you have obtained the important things you want in your life. E)______ If you could live your life over, you would change nothing.      TOTAL 26 to 30: Extremely satisfied, much above average 21 to 25: Very satisfied, above average 15 to 20: Somewhat satisfied, average for Americans 11 to 14: Slightly dissatisfied, a bit below average 6 to 10: Dissatisfied, clearly below average 0 to 5: Very dissatisfied, much below average

Hector: 1. Making comparisons can spoil your happiness. Hector: 2. A lot of people think happiness means being richer or more important. Hector: 3. Many people only see happiness in their future. Hector: 4. Happiness could be the freedom to love more than one woman at the same time. Hector: 5. Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story. Hector: 6. Avoiding unhappiness is not the road to happiness. Hector: 7. Does this person bring you predominantly a. up b. down? Hector: 8. Happiness is answering your calling. Hector: 9. Happiness is being loved for who you are. Hector: 10. Sweet Potato Stew! Hector: 11. Fear is an impediment to happiness. Hector: 12. Happiness is feeling completely alive. Hector: 13. Happiness is knowing how to celebrate. Hector: 14. Listening is loving. Hector: 15. Nostalgia is not what it used to be.

Professor Coreman: We should concern ourselves, not so much with the pursuit of happiness, but with the happiness of pursuit.

Hector: I mean, searching for happiness is one thing, but making it the goal, it just doesn't work, does it? Old Monk: Higher than that, Hector. More important than what we are searching for is what we are avoiding. Hector: Like unhappiness. So, don't make unhappiness *not* the goal? Old Monk: Higher than that. Hector: Avoiding unhappiness is *not* the road to happiness.

THE 16 KEYS to HAPPINESS      To increase your value-based happiness, first read the following statements and mark whether they describe you strongly (+), somewhat (0), or very little (-). The ones that describe you strongly show the keys to your happiness--you should aim to satisfy these to increase your happiness. Some tips to help you do this can be found in the main article, and more can be found in the author's book, WHO AM I: THE 16 BASIC DESIRES THAT MOTIVATE OUR HAPPINESS AND DEFINE OUR PERSONALITIES.      DESIRE: Curiosity      STATEMENT: I have a thirst for knowledge.      SELF-RATING:___________      DESIRE: Acceptance      STATEMENT: I have a hard time coping with criticism.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Order      STATEMENT: It upsets me when things are out of place.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Physical Activity      STATEMENT: Physical fitness is very important to me.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Honor      STATEMENT: I am a highly principled and loyal person.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Power      STATEMENT: I often seek leadership roles.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Independence      STATEMENT: Self-reliance is essential to my happiness.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Social Contact      STATEMENT: I am known as a fun-loving person.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Family      STATEMENT: My children come first.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Status      STATEMENT: I am impressed by people who own expensive things.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Idealism      STATEMENT: Compared with most people, I am very concerned with social causes.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Vengeance      STATEMENT: It is very important to me to get even with those who insult or offend me.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Romance      STATEMENT: Compared with my peers, I spend much more time pursuing or having sex.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Eating      STATEMENT: I love to eat and often fantasize about food.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Saving      STATEMENT: I hate throwing things away.      SELF-RATING: __________      DESIRE: Tranquility      STATEMENT: It scares me when my heart beats rapidly.

it is the contrast in life that really brings happiness. If you live in sunny weather day after day, you begin to take it for granted. If every once in a while it rains, you then appreciate your sunshine. That's what happens in our lives--it's the change that makes us appreciate what we have. There are no wild ups without a certain amount of wild downs.

I've always been fascinated with people who remain happy through tough times. Who are they?      DR. B: They're people who aim to be happy. Most of us don't make happiness a priority. We race through the lists of things we ought to do, we get to bed exhausted, we get up in the morning and dread the day. But there are people who have found that happiness is a byproduct of doing what they want to do.

Almost invariably they say their greatest happiness has come from their family and from the people they love. So when you start to look at all the good things, you get a perspective on the bad things.

 DR. B: You can't buy happiness.

Value-based happiness is the great equalizer in life. You can find value-based happiness if you are rich or poor, smart or mentally challenged, athletic or clumsy, popular or socially awkward. Wealthy people are not necessarily happy, and poor people are not necessarily unhappy. Values, not pleasure, are what bring true happiness, and everybody has the potential to live in accordance with their values.

One of the deepest ways to satisfy our desires is through spirituality

Our basic desires can also be satisfied through leisure activities. Watching sports, for example, provides us with opportunities to repeatedly experience the intrinsically valued feelings of competition, loyalty, power and revenge.

One way to become happier is to find a job or career that is more fulfilling than the one you have now. To do this, you need to analyze how you can use work to better satisfy your five or six most important basic desires.

How can we repeatedly satisfy our most important basic desires and find value-based happiness? Most people turn to relationships, careers, family, leisure and spirituality to satisfy their most important desires.

  After you identify your most important desires, you need to find effective ways to satisfy them. There is a catch, however. Shortly after you satisfy a desire, it reasserts itself, motivating you to satisfy the desire all over again. After a career success, for example, you feel competent, but only for a period of time. Therefore, you need to satisfy your desires repeatedly.

 The 16 basic desires make us individuals. Although everybody embraces these desires, individuals prioritize them differently.

Although he experienced less pleasure and more anxiety as a leader, he was much happier because he lived his life in accordance with his values.

 Harvard social psychologist William McDougall wrote that people can be happy while in pain and unhappy while experiencing pleasure. To understand this, two kinds of happiness must be distinguished: feel-good and value-based. Feel-good happiness is sensation-based pleasure. When we joke around or have sex, we experience feel-good happiness. Since feel-good happiness is ruled by the law of diminishing returns, the kicks get harder to come by. This type of happiness rarely lasts longer than a few hours at a time.      Value-based happiness is a sense that our lives have meaning and fulfill some larger purpose. It represents a spiritual source of satisfaction, stemming from our deeper purpose and values. We experience value-based happiness when we satisfy any of the 16 basic desires--the more desires we satisfy, the more value-based happiness we experience. Since this form of happiness is not ruled by the law of diminishing returns, there is no limit to how meaningful our lives can be.

The results of our research showed that nearly everything we experience as meaningful can be traced to one of 16 basic desires or to some combination of these desires. We developed a standardized psychological test, called the Reiss Profile, to measure the 16 desires. (See "The 16 Keys to Happiness.)

So is maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain the ultimate key to human happiness? No. When I was in the hospital analyzing what made my life satisfying, I didn't focus on the parties. In fact, pleasure and pain were not even considerations.

I started to question the Pleasure Principle, which says that we are motivated to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.

Sometimes we are so consumed with our daily lives that we forget to look at the larger picture of who we are and what we need to be happy. We work, raise our children, and manage our chores, but it takes an extraordinary event such as a life-threatening illness, or the death of a loved one, to focus our attention on the meaning of our lives.

PSYCHOLOGY TODAY MAGAZINE

 Echoing Branden's sentiments was another Californian, Andrew Mecca, a prominent public health official in the state. Mecca was quoted as saying that "virtually every social problem can be traced to people's lack of self-love."

In 1998, John P. Hewitt, a University of Massachusetts sociologist, weighed in with The Myth of Self-Esteem: Finding Happiness and Solving Problems in America (Contemporary Issues).

In May 2003, the society's journal, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, published a 44-page synthesis of the findings entitled "Does High Self-Esteem Cause Better Performance, Interpersonal Success, Happiness, or Healthier Lifestyles?"

Is the pursuit of happiness alone ample justification for keeping the fires burning under the self-esteem enterprise pervading today's educational system?

if high self-esteem produces happiness,

Broader definitions of happiness—for example, as the opportunity to lead a fulfilling life—suggest deeper objectives that may cause unhappiness, at least in the short term. Overthrowing the French monarch, or defeating the Taliban, are not exercises that bring immediate happiness to mind. Closer to home, efforts to reform our health-care system or address the ballooning budget deficit are unlikely to produce happiness anytime soon. Yet we know that these problems must be addressed to preserve the welfare of our citizens—and our children—over the long term.

Yet if people can stay happy with less money, they can also become discontent with more. This is the paradox of unhappy growth.

People seem to be much better at dealing with unpleasant certainty than with the uncertainty of how bad a particular health condition or economic downturn will get.

The bottom line is that people can adapt to tremendous adversity and retain their cheerfulness, while they can also have virtually everything—including good health—and be miserable.

All of this seems rather logical, suggesting that if a government wants to get into the business of promoting happiness, it can pursue some straightforward policy goals, such as emphasizing health, jobs and economic stability as much as economic growth.

Wherever I look, some simple patterns hold: A stable marriage, good health and enough (but not too much) income are good for happiness. Unemployment, divorce and economic instability are terrible for it. On average, happier people are also healthier, with the causal arrows probably pointing in both directions. Finally, age and happiness have a consistent U-shaped relationship, with the turning point in the mid- to late-40s, when happiness begins to increase, as long as health and domestic partnerships stay sound.

For the past 10 years, I have been studying happiness around the world, in countries as different as Afghanistan, Chile and the United States. It has been an amazing foray into the complexity of the human psyche and the simplicity of what makes us happy. What is most remarkable is how similar the forces driving happiness are in various countries, regardless of a nation's level of development.

Though the success of the U.S. economic model has long been driven by individual initiative and economic growth, today, with millions of Americans dealing with the loss of jobs, incomes and assets, it does seem like a good time to find better measures of how we're doing.

And in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is incorporating novel measures of well-being into national health statistics.

It seems laudable to want people to be happier—in America, we're all about the pursuit of happiness—but should happiness supplant economic growth as an objective of government policy?

On standard formulations of utilitarianism, actions are judged by the amount of pleasure they produce for all (sentient beings);on some formulations of egoist views, actions are judged by their consequences for one’s own pleasure

It is thought that a truly happy person has achieved, is achieving, or stands to achieve, certain things respecting the “truly important” concerns of human life. Of course, such achievements will characteristically produce pleasant feelings; but, just as characteristically, they will involve states of active enjoyment of activities—where, as Aristotle first pointed out, there are no distinctive feelings of pleasure apart from the doing of the activity itself. In short, the Aristotelian thesis that happiness is the natural end of all human activities, even if it is true, does not seem to lend much support to hedonism—psychological or ethical.

In the tradition of Aristotle, happiness is broadly understood as something like well-being and has been viewed, not implausibly, as a kind of natural end of all human activities.

One difficulty for both sorts of hedonism is the hedonistic paradox, which may be put as follows. Many of the deepest and best pleasures of life (of love, of child rearing, of work) seem to come most often to those who are engaging in an activity for reasons other than pleasure seeking. Hence, not only is it dubious that we always in fact seek (or value only) pleasure, but also dubious that the best way to achieve pleasure is to seek it.

One contentious issue has been what activities yield the greatest quantity of pleasure—with prominent candidates including philosophical and other forms of intellectual discourse, the contemplation of beauty, and activities productive of “the pleasures of the senses.”(Most philosophical hedonists, despite the popular associations of the word, have not espoused sensual pleasure.) Another issue, famously raised by J.S. Mill, is whether such different varieties of pleasure admit of differences of quality (as well as quantity). Even supposing them to be equal in quantity, can we say, e.g., that the pleasures of intellectual activity are superior in quality to those of watching sports on television?

some philosophers have held that all choices of future actions are based on one’s presently taking greater pleasure in the thought of doing one act rather than another.

all motivation is based on the prospect of present or future pleasure

hedonism Listen Email Print Save Remove Cite Entry APA Chicago Harvard MLA EasyBib Reference Manager RefWorks Zotero Translate Entry Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bengali Bosnian Bulgarian Catalan Cebuano Chichewa Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch Esperanto Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hausa Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Icelandic Igbo Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Kazakh Khmer Korean Lao Latin Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malagasy Malay Malayalam Maltese Maori Marathi Mongolian Myanmar (Burmese) Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Sesotho Sinhala Slovak Slovenian Somali Spanish Sundanese Swahili Swedish Tajik Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish Yoruba Zulu Permalink × APA Chicago Harvard MLA Hedonism. (1999). In R. Audi (Ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of philosophy. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from http://proxy.jjc.edu/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/cupdphil/hedonism/0 Every effort has been made to have our citations be as accurate as possible, but please check our work! APA Style Every effort has been made to have our citations be as accurate as possible, but please check our work! Chicago Style Every effort has been made to have our citations be as accurate as possible, but please check our work! Harvard Style Every effort has been made to have our citations be as accurate as possible, but please check our work! MLA Style Save Remove × Permalink Use this URL to link directly to this page http://proxy.jjc.edu/login?url=http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/cupdphil/hedonism/0 The view that pleasure (including the absence of pain) is the sole intrinsic good in life

The Futile Pursuit of Happiness

gets at the fundamental difference between how we behave in ''hot'' states (those of anxiety, courage, fear, drug craving, sexual excitation and the like) and ''cold'' states of rational calm. This empathy gap in thought and behavior -- we cannot seem to predict how we will behave in a hot state when we are in a cold state -- affects happiness in an important but somewhat less consistent way than the impact bias.

We're studying the thing that all human action is directed toward.''

'You can't always get what you want,' '' Gilbert adds. ''I don't think that's the problem. The problem is you can't always know what you want.''

So for the average person, the obstacle between them and happiness is actually getting the futures that they desire. But what our research shows -- not just ours, but Loewenstein's and Kahneman's -- is that the real problem is figuring out which of those futures is going to have the high payoff and is really going to make you happy.

bad events proved less intense

maximizing our utility,

almost all actions -- the decision to buy jewelry, have kids, buy the big house or work exhaustively for a fatter paycheck -- are based on our predictions of the emotional consequences of these events.

how do we predict what will make us happy or unhappy -- and then how do we feel after the actual experience?

There's More to Life Than Being Happy

By putting aside our selfish interests to serve someone or something larger than ourselves -- by devoting our lives to "giving" rather than "taking" -- we are not only expressing our fundamental humanity, but are also acknowledging that that there is more to the good life than the pursuit of simple happiness

He decided to put aside his individual pursuits to serve his family and, later, other inmates in the camps.

Sigmund Freud

Having negative events happen to you, the study found, decreases your happiness but increases the amount of meaning you have in life.

parents are less happy interacting with their children than they are exercising, eating, and watching television.

People whose lives have high levels of meaning often actively seek meaning out even when they know it will come at the expense of happiness. Because they have invested themselves in something bigger than themselves, they also worry more and have higher levels of stress and anxiety in their lives than happy people.

happiness is all about giving the self what it wants.

"Happy people get a lot of joy from receiving benefits from others while people leading meaningful lives get a lot of joy from giving to others,"

happiness is about drive reduction. If you have a need or a desire -- like hunger -- you satisfy it, and that makes you happy. People become happy, in other words, when they get what they want.

"Happiness without meaning characterizes a relatively shallow, self-absorbed or even selfish life, in which things go well, needs and desire are easily satisfied, and difficult or taxing entanglements are avoided," the authors write.

the researchers found that a meaningful life and happy life overlap in certain ways, but are ultimately very different. Leading a happy life, the psychologists found, is associated with being a "taker" while leading a meaningful life corresponds with being a "giver."

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."

Buy Experiences, Not Things

Buy Experiences, Not Things

It could turn out that to get the maximum utility out of an experiential purchase, it's really best to plan far in advance.

Buy this and you can talk about buying it, and people will talk about you because you have it.

our memories and stories of them get sweet with time. Even a bad experience becomes a good story.

Experiential purchases are also more associated with identity, connection, and social behavior.

It's kind of counter to the logic that if you pay for an experience, like a vacation, it will be over and gone; but if you buy a tangible thing, a couch, at least you'll have it for a long time

Gilovich's prior work has shown that experiences tend to make people happier because they are less likely to measure the value of their experiences by comparing them to those of others.

waiting for a possession is more likely fraught with impatience than anticipation.

experiences bring people more happiness than do possessions.

Forty-seven percent of the time, the average mind is wandering.

Hayward came to consider Vaillant as “the embodiment of healthy aging—mentally, emotionally, and everything. He’s the person we’d all hope to end up to be.”But Vaillant’s closest friends and family tell a very different story, of a man plagued by distance and strife in his relationships. “George is someone who holds things in,” says the psychiatrist James Barrett Jr., his oldest friend. “I don’t think he has many confidants. I would call George someone who has a problem with intimacy.”

According to Dr. Vaillant’s model of adaptations, the very way we deal with reality is by distorting it—and we do this unconsciously. When we start pulling at this thread, an awfully big spool of thoughts and questions begins to unravel onto the floor.

temperamental “set points” for happiness—a predisposition to stay at a certain level of happiness—account for a large, but not overwhelming, percentage of our well-being.

marriage and faith lead to happiness (or it could be that happy people are more likely to be married and spiritual)

that money does little to make us happier once our basic needs are met;

How is it that children are often found to be a source of “negative affect” (sadness, anger)—yet people identify children as their greatest source of pleasure?

Ask a Dane, and you will hear “Det kunne være værre (It could be worse).” “Danes have consistently low (and indubitably realistic) expectations for the year to come,” a team of Danish scholars concluded. “Year after year they are pleasantly surprised to find that not everything is getting more rotten in the state of Denmark.”

But what does it mean, really, to be happier?

positive emotions make us more vulnerable than negative ones. One reason is that they’re future-oriented.

Last October, I watched him give a lecture to Seligman’s graduate students on the power of positive emotions—awe, love, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, joy, hope, and trust (or faith). “The happiness books say, ‘Try happiness. You’ll like it a lot more than misery’

For example, while he allows that, in mortality rates, the inner-city men at age 68 to 70 resembled the Terman and Harvard cohorts at 78 to 80, he says that most of the difference can be explained by less education, more obesity, and greater abuse of alcohol and cigarettes.

“It does have to do with hitting bottom. Someone sleeping under the elevated-train tracks can at some point recognize that he’s an alcoholic, but the guy getting stewed every night at a private club may not.”

industriousness in childhood—as indicated by such things as whether the boys had part-time jobs, took on chores, or joined school clubs or sports teams—predicted adult mental health better than any other factor, including family cohesion and warm maternal relationships.

“That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”

Again and again, Vaillant has returned to his major preoccupations. One is alcoholism

He also found that personality traits assigned by the psychiatrists in the initial interviews largely predicted who would become Democrats (descriptions included “sensitive,” “cultural,” and “introspective”) and Republicans (“pragmatic” and “organized”).

What factors don’t matter? Vaillant identified some surprises.

Employing mature adaptations was one. The others were education, stable marriage, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, some exercise, and healthy weight.

how mature adaptations are a real-life alchemy, a way of turning the dross of emotional crises, pain, and deprivation into the gold of human connection, accomplishment, and creativity. “Such mechanisms are analogous to the involuntary grace by which an oyster, coping with an irritating grain of sand, creates a pearl,” he writes. “Humans, too, when confronted with irritants, engage in unconscious but often creative behavior.”

“When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.” He replied: “But the knot was tied so long ago, and I have been hanging on tight for such a long time.”

This means that a glimpse of any one moment in a life can be deeply misleading. A man at 20 who appears the model of altruism may turn out to be a kind of emotional prodigy—or he may be ducking the kind of engagement with reality that his peers are both moving toward and defending against. And, on the other extreme, a man at 20 who appears impossibly wounded may turn out to be gestating toward maturity.

When they were between 50 and 75, Vaillant found, altruism and humor grew more prevalent, while all the immature defenses grew more rare.

“Much of what is labeled mental illness,” Vaillant writes, “simply reflects our ‘unwise’ deployment of defense mechanisms. If we use defenses well, we are deemed mentally healthy, conscientious, funny, creative, and altruistic. If we use them badly, the psychiatrist diagnoses us ill, our neighbors label us unpleasant, and society brands us immoral.”

Vaillant’s work, in contrast, creates a refreshing conversation about health and illness as weather patterns in a common space.

The healthiest, or “mature,” adaptations include altruism, humor, anticipation (looking ahead and planning for future discomfort), suppression (a conscious decision to postpone attention to an impulse or conflict, to be addressed in good time), and sublimation (finding outlets for feelings, like putting aggression into sport, or lust into courtship).

His central question is not how much or how little trouble these men met, but rather precisely how—and to what effect—they responded to that trouble.

“Dad, I just don’t know what I’ll do with this watch. It’s so fragile. It could break.” The other boy runs to him and says, “Daddy! Daddy! Santa left me a pony, if only I can just find it!”

Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House

His wife found him by the pool, a revolver next to him and a fatal wound through the mouth.

But it turned out that the lives were too big, too weird, too full of subtleties and contradictions to fit any easy conception of “successful living.”

medicine, physiology, anthropology, psychiatry, psychology, and social work

His study would draw on undergraduates who could “paddle their own canoe,” Bock said, and it would “attempt to analyze the forces that have produced normal young men.” He defined normal as “that combination of sentiments and physiological factors which in toto is commonly interpreted as successful living.”

Is there a formula—some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation—for a good life?

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