Happiness
hideHappiness is a state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, satisfaction, pleasure, or joy. A variety of philosophical, religious, psychological and biological approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources.
Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. Happiness in this older sense was used to translate the Greek Eudaimonia, and is still used in virtue ethics. In everyday speech today, however, terms such as well-being or quality of life are usually used to signify the classical meaning, and happiness usually refers[citation needed] to the felt experience or experiences that philosophers historically called pleasure.
While direct measurement of happiness presents challenges, tools such as The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire have been developed by researchers. Positive psychology researchers use theoretical models that include describing happiness as consisting of positive emotions and positive activities, or that describe three kinds of happiness: pleasure, engagement, and meaning.
Research has identified a number of attributes that correlate with happiness:[citation needed] relationships and social interaction, parenthood, marital status, religious involvement, age, income (but mainly up to the point where survival needs are met), and proximity to other happy people.
Happiness economics suggests that measures of public happiness should be used to supplement more traditional economic measures when evaluating the success of public policy.
For more information about Happiness, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with happiness
Happiness is rising around the world: study
Jun 30, 2008 |
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People in most countries around the world are happier these days, according to newly released data from the World Values Survey based at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research.
Happiness is infectious
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Dec 05, 2008 |
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If you're happy and you know it, thank your friends—and their friends. And while you're at it, their friends' friends. But if you're sad, hold the blame. Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University ...
Why you may lose that loving feeling after tying the knot
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Apr 22, 2009 |
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Dating couples whose dreams include marriage would do well to step back and reflect upon the type of support they'll need from their partners when they cross the threshold, a new Northwestern University study suggests.
They are rich who have true friends - mates are key to happiness, new research shows
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Oct 24, 2008 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- When friends meet, hearts warm, according to the old proverb — and new research from The University of Nottingham backs this up.
Spirituality is key to kids' happiness
Jan 08, 2009 |
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To make children happier, we may need to encourage them to develop a strong sense of personal worth, according to Dr. Mark Holder from the University of British Columbia in Canada and his colleagues Dr. Ben Coleman and Judi ...
Want to live well? Harvard experts offer pragmatic pointers on getting healthy and staying there
Dec 17, 2009 |
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You are what you eat. You're also how you feel, how you exercise, how you sleep, how you handle money, how you relate to people, and what you value.
New research suggests key to happiness is gratitude -- and men may be locked out
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Mar 13, 2009 |
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With Mother's Day, Father's Day and high school and college graduations upcoming, there will be plenty of gift-giving and well wishes. When those start pouring in, let yourself be grateful—it's the best way to achieve happiness ...
Positive thinking may protect against breast cancer
Aug 22, 2008 |
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Feelings of happiness and optimism play a positive role against breast cancer. Research published today in the open access journal BMC Cancer suggests that while staying positive has a protective role, adverse life events ...
No pain, no gain: Mastering a skill makes us stressed in the moment, happy long term
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Oct 29, 2009 |
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No pain, no gain applies to happiness, too, according to new research published online this week in the Journal of Happiness Studies. People who work hard at improving a skill or ability, such as mastering a math problem or lea ...
Stranger knows best: Other people know more about what will make us happy than we do
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Mar 19, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Want to know what will make you happy? Then ask a total stranger -- or so says a new study from Harvard University, which shows that another person's experience is often more informative than ...
Scientists examine how social networks influence behavior
Other Sciences / Social Sciences
Mar 22, 2009 |
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Conventional wisdom holds that it's not what you know, it's who you know. But now scientists studying networking are starting to realize that when it comes to much in life, it's also who the people you know know, and perhaps ...
Married with children the key to happiness?
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Oct 27, 2009 |
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Having children improves married peoples' life satisfaction and the more they have, the happier they are. For unmarried individuals, raising children has little or no positive effect on their happiness. These findings by ...
Therapy 32 times more cost effective at increasing happiness than money
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Nov 20, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Research by the University of Warwick and the University of Manchester finds that psychological therapy could be 32 times more cost effective at making you happy than simply obtaining more money. The research ...
'Happiness gap' in the US narrows
Jan 26, 2009 |
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Happiness inequality in the U.S. has decreased since the 1970s, according to research published this month in the Journal of Legal Studies.
About 25 percent of Arabs in Greater Detroit reported abuse post Sept. 11
Other Sciences / Social Sciences
Dec 17, 2009 |
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One quarter of Detroit-area Arab Americans reported personal or familial abuse because of race, ethnicity or religion since 9/11, leading to higher odds of adverse health effects, according to a new University of Michigan ...
