What the word happiness means

What Is the meaning of Happiness

If you ask people, what is happiness and what does it means to them, you will probably receive many different answers to your question.

Some would say that happiness means being wealthy. Others would say that for them, it means to be healthy.

You will also find people saying that for them happiness means having love in their life, having many friends, a good job, or achieving a certain goal.

There are people, who believe that the fulfillment of a certain wish would create joy and contentment in their life, but this is not always true. Often, when we get our wish fulfilled, we just move to the next wish, without even enjoying and celebrating our achievement.

As you see, different people interpret this word in different ways.

The pursuit of happiness is common to all people. Everyone is seeking happiness in one way or another.

To most people this word signifies a good feeling, satisfaction, pleasure or fun.

You may enjoy a good meal, a movie, a show or a vacation, and you may have fun at a party, but this is pleasure and fun, not necessarily happiness.

Pleasure and fun depends on external factors, and often relate to the five senses. However, the feeling and mental frame we are talking about here is something different.

What Is Happiness? – Definitions

People pursue happiness in every situation, even if they are not aware that this is one of their goals, even if it is short term happiness.

What is the definition of happiness? Can happiness be defined? What does the word happiness mean?

Is it just a good feeling, joy, satisfaction or more?

People throughout the ages have asked these questions. They have wondered what is this feeling of happiness, what makes it arise, and how to hold it longer.

Is happiness a physical reaction, the effect of certain hormones in the body? Is it dependent on certain external circumstances, or is it some kind of inner, mental, emotional or state? All these could be triggers that lead to experiencing it.

Happiness often comes and goes. It comes, stays for a little while, and then some negative feeling replaces it and it is gone. Does this mean that we have no control of happiness and we cannot lengthen its duration?

We can define this word as satisfaction. When there is job satisfaction, love, relationship and life satisfaction, there is a greater level of happiness.

It is a good feeling, joy and a sense of wholeness.

Research suggests that happiness is related to kindness, gratitude, and the capacity for love.

What Is happiness According to Various Sources

Happiness definition according Wikipedia, Merriam Webster and other sources.

Wikipedia defines happiness as, “A mental or emotional state of well-being which can be defined by, among others, positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.”

Wikipedia also says, “Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion.”

In an article on forbes.com, George Bradt writes that a survey of Harvard’s class of 1980, concluded that, “Happiness comes from choosing to be happy with whatever you do, strengthening your closest relationships and taking care of yourself physically, financially and emotionally.”

The same article says that 2015 Survey by Grant and Glueck studies shows:

  1. 67% of those extremely happy said the happiest period of their lives is now.
  2. 77% of those extremely happy said the state of their relationship was either the “greatest” of “very good”.
  3. 93% of those extremely happy said they are in excellent or very good health.

Merriam Webster defines happiness as, “A state of well-being and contentment.”

What is happiness according to vocabulary.com? “Happiness is that feeling that comes over you when you know life is good and you can’t help but smile. It’s the opposite of sadness.”

I would like to suggest another definition for happiness, which I found from experience. This is a different definition, which I have written about in several articles and in my books.

“Happiness is a state of inner joy, which comes about when the mind becomes quiet, free from restless thinking and worries.”

People, who have been practicing meditation regularly, and who have learned to calm down their mind, would know exactly what I mean.

This might seem strange to you, but if you pay attention to your state of mind when you are happy, you would find out that this is true.

  • How do you feel after a completion of a difficult task or of a goal?
  • How do you feel when you solve a problem that has been bothering you for a long time?
  • What do you feel when you are in love?
  • How would you feel, if you get the job you wanted, a big sum of money, or a promotion at work?

In all these situations, you experience a feeling of relief, freedom and joy.

For a while, your mind is free from planning, thinking, anticipating and worrying. When this happens, for a while, you feel happy. For a while, there are no thoughts in your mind that attract your attention and you enjoy happiness.

What does all this mean? It means that happiness and inner peace are interconnected. When the mind is quiet, there is happiness, and when there is happiness, the mind becomes quiet.

When a problem disappears, or when you achieve a goal, the mind becomes quiet for a while, and relieved of its worrying and constant thinking. At this moment, happiness rises within you, since there is nothing to stop it.

However, after a while, the mind returns to its habitual thinking and worrying, get out of this state inner calmness.

If you experience happiness when there is inner peace, it means that if you train your mind to be peaceful you would have more happiness in your life. I do not want to go deeply into this topic, since I have written about it in my other articles, which can find on this website.

What Is Happiness and How It Improves Your Life

Here are a few additional definitions of happiness and its affect on one’s health and life.

  • It is the experience of joy, contentment, and a good feeling about yourself and your life.
  • It is a positive emotion that makes you feel good and satisfied.
  • It is joy, satisfaction, well-being, and a sense of bliss.
  • Happiness comes from within you, rising into your awareness, when the mind is calm and quiet.
  • Happiness leads to good relationships, love and harmony.
  • It leads to peace, joy, and a feeling of freedom.
  • Happiness strengthens the immune system and reduces stress.
  • Its presence makes you more positive and you expect good things to happen.
  • When you enjoy this feeling, you become more tolerant and patient with people.
  • You are in a better position to solve problems.
  • Happiness neutralizes negative emotions.
  • Happy people are positive, optimistic, tolerant and more patient people. They are helpful and it is easier to get along with them.

Tips and Suggestions to Follow

  1. To be happy, stop focusing on lack and on the things that you don’t have. It is better to thank the Universe for what you have, and focus optimistically on what you want to achieve. This is positive psychology.
  2. To become happy, you also need to calm your mind and your thinking. When you are calm you free yourself from stress and worry and are more relaxed. This brings a sense of contentment and inner joy.
  3. To be happy, start living in the present moment, not in the past and not in the future. With this state of mind, you focus on the now, instead of dwelling on painful memories and worrying about the future.
  4. Strive to be positive and stay away from negativity. This means you need to avoid negative thoughts about failure, problems and obstacles, and focus on solutions and improvement.
  5. Strive to take everything more easily, and avoid taking things too personally. This might not be easy, but with persistence you can develop this habit. Learning a little emotional detachment and learning to let go can definitely help.
  6. I would be a good idea to learn to calm down the restlessness of the mind, and the tendency to think about problems and difficulties. This of course, requires some training, but the rewards are great. How do you do it? Through meditation and developing a certain measure of inner peace.
  7. You can maintain a state of joy and satisfaction if you express gratitude for the good things of life.
  8. Some, seek greater happiness. They seek to find and maintain happiness through meditation and mindfulness.

Image source – DepositPhotos

About the Author

Remez SassonMy name is Remez Sasson. I am the author and creator of SuccessConsciousness.com, which I have been running since 2001. Join me on a fabulous journey to self improvement, happiness, success, positive lifestyle, conscious living and meditation, through my website, articles and books.

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A smiling 95-year-old man from Pichilemu, Chile

Happiness, in the context of mental or emotional states, is positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.[1] Other forms include life satisfaction, well-being, subjective well-being, flourishing and eudaimonia.[2]

Since the 1960s, happiness research has been conducted in a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including gerontology, social psychology and positive psychology, clinical and medical research and happiness economics.

Definitions

«Happiness» is subject to debate on usage and meaning,[3][4][5][6][7] and on possible differences in understanding by culture.[8][9]

The word is mostly used in relation to two factors:[10]

  • the current experience of the feeling of an emotion (affect) such as pleasure or joy,[1] or of a more general sense of ’emotional condition as a whole’.[11] For instance Daniel Kahneman has defined happiness as «what I experience here and now«.[12] This usage is prevalent in dictionary definitions of happiness.[13][14][15]
  • appraisal of life satisfaction, such as of quality of life.[16] For instance Ruut Veenhoven has defined happiness as «overall appreciation of one’s life as-a-whole.»[9]: 2 [17] Kahneman has said that this is more important to people than current experience.[18][19][20]

Some usages can include both of these factors. Subjective well-being (swb)[21] includes measures of current experience (emotions, moods, and feelings) and of life satisfaction.[nb 1] For instance Sonja Lyubomirsky has described happiness as «the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.«[22] Eudaimonia,[23] is a Greek term variously translated as happiness, welfare, flourishing, and blessedness. Xavier Landes[24] has proposed that happiness include measures of subjective wellbeing, mood and eudaimonia.[25]

These differing uses can give different results.[26][27] Whereas Nordic countries often score highest on swb surveys, South American countries score higher on affect-based surveys of current positive life experiencing.[28]

The implied meaning of the word may vary depending on context,[29] qualifying happiness as a polyseme and a fuzzy concept.

A further issue is when measurement is made; appraisal of a level of happiness at the time of the experience may be different from appraisal via memory at a later date.[30][31]

Some users accept these issues, but continue to use the word because of its convening power.[32]

Changes of meaning over time

Happiness may have had a different meaning at the time of drafting of the US Declaration of Independence compared to now.[33][34]

Measurement

People have been trying to measure happiness for centuries. In 1780, the English utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed that as happiness was the primary goal of humans it should be measured as a way of determining how well the government was performing.[35]

Today, happiness is typically measured using self-report surveys. Self-reporting is prone to cognitive biases and other sources of errors, such as peak–end rule. Studies show that memories of felt emotions can be inaccurate.[36] Affective forecasting research shows that people are poor predictors of their future emotions, including how happy they will be.[37]

Happiness economists are not overly concerned with philosophical and methodological issues and continue to use questionaries to measure average happiness of populations.

Several scales have been developed to measure happiness:

  • The Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) is a four-item scale, measuring global subjective happiness from 1999. The scale requires participants to use absolute ratings to characterize themselves as happy or unhappy individuals, as well as it asks to what extent they identify themselves with descriptions of happy and unhappy individuals.[38][39]
  • The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) from 1988 is a 20-item questionnaire, using a five-point Likert scale (1 = very slightly or not at all, 5 = extremely) to assess the relation between personality traits and positive or negative affects at «this moment, today, the past few days, the past week, the past few weeks, the past year, and in general».[40] A longer version with additional affect scales was published 1994.[41]
  • The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) is a global cognitive assessment of life satisfaction developed by Ed Diener. A seven-point Likert scale is used to agree or disagree with five statements about one’s life.[42][43]
  • The Cantril ladder method[44] has been used in the World Happiness Report. Respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale.[45][44]
  • Positive Experience; the survey by Gallup asks if, the day before, people experienced enjoyment, laughing or smiling a lot, feeling well-rested, being treated with respect, learning or doing something interesting. 9 of the top 10 countries in 2018 were South American, led by Paraguay and Panama. Country scores range from 85 to 43.[46]

Since 2012, a World Happiness Report has been published. Happiness is evaluated, as in «How happy are you with your life as a whole?», and in emotional reports, as in «How happy are you now?,» and people seem able to use happiness as appropriate in these verbal contexts. Using these measures, the report identifies the countries with the highest levels of happiness. In subjective well-being measures, the primary distinction is between cognitive life evaluations and emotional reports.[47]

The UK began to measure national well-being in 2012,[48] following Bhutan, which had already been measuring gross national happiness.[49][50]

Academic economists and international economic organizations are arguing for and developing multi-dimensional dashboards which combine subjective and objective indicators to provide a more direct and explicit assessment of human wellbeing. There are many different contributors to adult wellbeing, that happiness judgements partly reflect the presence of salient constraints, and fairness, autonomy, community and engagement are key aspects of happiness and wellbeing throughout the life course.[51] Although these factors play a role in happiness, they do not all need to improve simultaneously to help one achieve an increase in happiness.

Happiness has been found to be quite stable over time.[52][53]

Philosophy

A smiling butcher slicing meat

Relation to morality

Philosophy of happiness is often discussed in conjunction with ethics.[54] Traditional European societies, inherited from the Greeks and from Christianity, often linked happiness with morality, which was concerned with the performance in a certain kind of role in a certain kind of social life.[55]

Happiness remains a difficult term for moral philosophy. Throughout the history of moral philosophy, there has been an oscillation between attempts to define morality in terms of consequences leading to happiness and attempts to define morality in terms that have nothing to do with happiness at all.[56]

Connections between happiness and morality have been studied in a variety of ways in psychology. Empirical research suggests that laypeople’s judgments of a person’s happiness in part depend on perceptions of that person’s morality, suggesting that judgments of others’ happiness involve moral evaluation.[57] A large body of research also suggests that engaging in prosocial behavior can increase happiness.[58][59][60]

Ethics

Ethicists have made arguments for how humans should behave, either individually or collectively, based on the resulting happiness of such behavior. Utilitarians, such as John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, advocated the greatest happiness principle as a guide for ethical behavior.[61] Critics of this view include Thomas Carlyle, Ferdinand Tönnies and others within the German philosophical tradition.[62]

Aristotle

Aristotle described eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία) as the goal of human thought and action. Eudaimonia is often translated to mean happiness, but some scholars contend that «human flourishing» may be a more accurate translation.[63] Aristotle’s use of the term in Nicomachiean Ethics extends beyond the general sense of happiness.[64]

In the Nicomachean Ethics, written in 350 BCE, Aristotle stated that happiness (also being well and doing well) is the only thing that humans desire for their own sake, unlike riches, honour, health or friendship. He observed that men sought riches, or honour, or health not only for their own sake but also in order to be happy.[65] For Aristotle the term eudaimonia, which is translated as ‘happiness’ or ‘flourishing’ is an activity rather than an emotion or a state.[66] Eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία) is a classical Greek word consists of the word «eu» («good» or «well-being») and «daimōn» («spirit» or «minor deity», used by extension to mean one’s lot or fortune). Thus understood, the happy life is the good life, that is, a life in which a person fulfills human nature in an excellent way.[67]

Specifically, Aristotle argued that the good life is the life of excellent rational activity. He arrived at this claim with the «Function Argument». Basically, if it is right, every living thing has a function, that which it uniquely does. For Aristotle human function is to reason, since it is that alone which humans uniquely do. And performing one’s function well, or excellently, is good. According to Aristotle, the life of excellent rational activity is the happy life. Aristotle argued a second-best life for those incapable of excellent rational activity was the life of moral virtue.[68]

The key question Aristotle seeks to answer is «What is the ultimate purpose of human existence?» A lot of people are seeking pleasure, health, and a good reputation. It is true that those have a value, but none of them can occupy the place of the greatest good for which humanity aims. It may seem like all goods are a means to obtain happiness, but Aristotle said that happiness is always an end in itself.[69]

Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche critiqued the English Utilitarians’ focus on attaining the greatest happiness, stating that «Man does not strive for happiness, only the Englishman does».[70] Nietzsche meant that making happiness one’s ultimate goal and the aim of one’s existence, in his words «makes one contemptible.» Nietzsche instead yearned for a culture that would set higher, more difficult goals than «mere happiness.» He introduced the quasi-dystopic figure of the «last man» as a kind of thought experiment against the utilitarians and happiness-seekers.[71][72]

These small, «last men» who seek after only their own pleasure and health, avoiding all danger, exertion, difficulty, challenge, struggle are meant to seem contemptible to Nietzsche’s reader. Nietzsche instead wants us to consider the value of what is difficult, what can only be earned through struggle, difficulty, pain and thus to come to see the affirmative value suffering and unhappiness truly play in creating everything of great worth in life, including all the highest achievements of human culture, not least of all philosophy.[73][74]

Causes and achievement methods

Theories on how to achieve happiness include «encountering unexpected positive events»,[75] «seeing a significant other»,[76] and «basking in the acceptance and praise of others».[77]
Some others believe that happiness is not solely derived from external, momentary pleasures.[78]

Research on positive psychology, well-being, eudaimonia and happiness, and the theories of Diener, Ryff, Keyes, and Seligmann covers a broad range of levels and topics, including «the biological, personal, relational, institutional, cultural, and global dimensions of life.»[79] The psychiatrist George Vaillant and the director of longitudinal Study of Adult Development at Harvard University Robert J. Waldinger found that those who were happiest and healthier reported strong interpersonal relationships.[80] Research showed that adequate sleep contributes to well-being.[81] Good mental health and good relationships contribute more than income to happiness.[82] In 2018, Laurie R. Santos course titled «Psychology and the Good Life» became the most popular course in the history of Yale University and was made available for free online to non-Yale students.[83]

Some commentators focus on the difference between the hedonistic tradition of seeking pleasant and avoiding unpleasant experiences, and the eudaimonic tradition of living life in a full and deeply satisfying way.[84] Kahneman has said that «“When you look at what people want for themselves, how they pursue their goals, they seem more driven by the search for satisfaction than the search for happiness.”[85]

Self-fulfilment theories

Woman kissing a baby on the cheek

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a pyramid depicting the levels of human needs, psychological, and physical. When a human being ascends the steps of the pyramid, self-actualization is reached.[86] Beyond the routine of needs fulfillment, Maslow envisioned moments of extraordinary experience, known as peak experiences, profound moments of love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, during which a person feels more whole, alive, self-sufficient, and yet a part of the world. This is similar to the flow concept of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi.[87] The concept of flow is the idea that after our basic needs are met we can achieve greater happiness by altering our consciousness by becoming so engaged in a task that we lose our sense of time. Our intense focus causes us to forget any other issues, which in return promotes positive emotions.[88]

Erich Fromm said «Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus, simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self. In spending his energy productively he increases his powers, he „burns without being consumed.»»[89]

Smiling woman from Vietnam

Self-determination theory relates intrinsic motivation to three needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

Ronald Inglehart has traced cross-national differences in the level of happiness based on data from the World Values Survey.[90] He finds that the extent to which a society allows free choice has a major impact on happiness. When basic needs are satisfied, the degree of happiness depends on economic and cultural factors that enable free choice in how people live their lives. Happiness also depends on religion in countries where free choice is constrained.[91]

Sigmund Freud said that all humans strive after happiness, but that the possibilities of achieving it are restricted because we «are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only from a contrast and very little from the state of things.»[92]

The idea of motivational hedonism is the theory that pleasure is the aim for human life.[93]

Positive psychology

Since 2000 the field of positive psychology has expanded drastically in terms of scientific publications, and has produced many different views on causes of happiness, and on factors that correlate with happiness.[94] Numerous short-term self-help interventions have been developed and demonstrated to improve happiness.[95][96]

Indirect approaches

Various writers, including Camus and Tolle, have written that the act of searching or seeking for happiness is incompatible with being happy.[97][98][99][100]

John Stuart Mill believed that for the great majority of people happiness is best achieved en passant, rather than striving for it directly. This meant no self-consciousness, scrutiny, self-interrogation, dwelling on, thinking about,
imagining or questioning on one’s happiness. Then, if otherwise fortunately circumstanced, one would «inhale happiness with the air you breathe.»[101]

William Inge said that «on the whole, the happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except the fact that they are so.»[102] Orison Swett Marden said that «some people are born happy.»[103]

Cognitive behavioral therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy is a popular therapeutic method used to change habits by merely changing thoughts. It focuses on emotional regulation and uses a lot of positive psychology practices. It is often used for people with depression or anxiety, and works towards how to lead a happier life.[104]

Effects

Positive

There is a wealth of cross-sectional studies on happiness and physical health that shows consistent positive relationships.[105] Follow-up studies appear to show that happiness does not predict longevity in sick populations, but that it does predict longevity among healthy populations.[106]

Low mood is correlated with many negative life outcomes such as suicide, poor health, substance abuse, and low life expectancy. By extension, happiness protects from those negative outcomes.

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Negative

June Gruber argued that happiness may trigger a person to be more sensitive, more gullible, less successful, and more likely to undertake high risk behaviours.[107] She also conducted studies suggesting that seeking happiness can have negative effects, such as failure to meet over-high expectations.[108][109][110] Iris Mauss has shown that the more people strive for happiness, the more likely they will set up too high of standards and feel disappointed.[111][112] One study shows that women who value happiness more tend to react less positively to happy emotions.[113] A 2012 study found that psychological well-being was higher for people who experienced both positive and negative emotions.[114][115]

Society and culture

Government

Newly commissioned officers celebrate their new positions by throwing their midshipmen covers into the air as part of the U.S. Naval Academy class of 2011 graduation and commissioning ceremony.

Jeremy Bentham believed that public policy should attempt to maximize happiness, and he even attempted to estimate a «hedonic calculus». Thomas Jefferson put the «pursuit of happiness» on the same level as life and liberty in the United States Declaration of Independence. Presently, many countries and organizations regularly measure population happiness through large-scale surveys, e.g., Bhutan.

Richer nations tend to have higher measures of happiness than poorer nations.[116][117] The relationship between wealth and happiness is not linear and the same GDP increase in poor countries will have more effect on happiness than in wealthy countries.[118][119][120][121]

Some political scientists argue that life satisfaction is positively related to the social democratic model of a generous social safety net, pro-worker labor market regulations, and strong labor unions.[122][123][124] Others argue that happiness is strongly correlated with economic freedom,[125] preferably within the context of a western mixed economy, with free press and a democracy.

Cultural values

Personal happiness can be affected by cultural factors.[126][127][128] Hedonism appears to be more strongly related to happiness in more individualistic cultures.[129]

One theory is that higher SWB in richer countries is related to their more individualistic cultures. Individualistic cultures may satisfy intrinsic motivations to a higher degree that collectivistic cultures, and fulfilling intrinsic motivations, as opposed to extrinsic motivations, may relate to greater levels of happiness, leading to more happiness in individualistic cultures.[130]

Cultural views on happiness have changed over time.[131] For instance Western concern about childhood being a time of happiness has occurred only since the 19th century.[132] Not all cultures seek to maximize happiness,[133][nb 2][nb 3] and some cultures are averse to happiness.[134][135] It has been found in Western cultures that individual happiness is the most important. Some other cultures have opposite views and tend to be aversive to the idea of individual happiness. For example, people living in Eastern Asian cultures focus more on the need for happiness within relationships with others and even find personal happiness to be harmful to fulfilling happy social relationships.[134][133][136][nb 2][nb 3]

Religion

People in countries with high cultural religiosity tend to relate their life satisfaction less to their emotional experiences than people in more secular countries.[137]

Buddhism

Happiness forms a central theme of Buddhist teachings.[138] For ultimate freedom from suffering, the Noble Eightfold Path leads its practitioner to Nirvana, a state of everlasting peace. Ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms. More mundane forms of happiness, such as acquiring wealth and maintaining good friendships, are also recognized as worthy goals for lay people (see sukha). Buddhism also encourages the generation of loving kindness and compassion, the desire for the happiness and welfare of all beings.[139][140][unreliable source?][unreliable source?]

Hinduism

In Advaita Vedanta, the ultimate goal of life is happiness, in the sense that duality between Atman and Brahman is transcended and one realizes oneself to be the Self in all.

Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutras, wrote quite exhaustively on the psychological and ontological roots of bliss.[141]

Confucianism

The Chinese Confucian thinker Mencius, who had sought to give advice to ruthless political leaders during China’s Warring States period, was convinced that the mind played a mediating role between the «lesser self» (the physiological self) and the «greater self» (the moral self), and that getting the priorities right between these two would lead to sage-hood.[142] He argued that if one did not feel satisfaction or pleasure in nourishing one’s «vital force» with «righteous deeds», then that force would shrivel up (Mencius, 6A:15 2A:2). More specifically, he mentions the experience of intoxicating joy if one celebrates the practice of the great virtues, especially through music.[143]

Judaism

Happiness or simcha (Hebrew: שמחה) in Judaism is considered an important element in the service of God.[144] The biblical verse «worship The Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs,» (Psalm 100:2) stresses joy in the service of God.[145] A popular teaching by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a 19th-century Chassidic Rabbi, is «Mitzvah Gedolah Le’hiyot Besimcha Tamid,» it is a great mitzvah (commandment) to always be in a state of happiness. When a person is happy they are much more capable of serving God and going about their daily activities than when depressed or upset.[146][self-published source?]

Christianity

The primary meaning of «happiness» in various European languages involves good fortune, blessing, or a similar happening. The meaning in Greek philosophy refers primarily to ethics.

In Christianity, the ultimate end of human existence consists in felicity, Latin equivalent to the Greek eudaimonia («blessed happiness»), described by the 13th-century philosopher-theologian Thomas Aquinas as a beatific vision of God’s essence in the next life.[147]

According to Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, man’s last end is happiness: «all men agree in desiring the last end, which is happiness.»[148] Aquinas agreed with Aristotle that happiness cannot be reached solely through reasoning about consequences of acts, but also requires a pursuit of good causes for acts, such as habits according to virtue.[149]

According to Aquinas, happiness consists in an «operation of the speculative intellect»: «Consequently happiness consists principally in such an operation, viz. in the contemplation of Divine things.» And, «the last end cannot consist in the active life, which pertains to the practical intellect.» So: «Therefore the last and perfect happiness, which we await in the life to come, consists entirely in contemplation. But imperfect happiness, such as can be had here, consists first and principally in contemplation, but secondarily, in an operation of the practical intellect directing human actions and passions.»[150]

Human complexities, like reason and cognition, can produce well-being or happiness, but such form is limited and transitory. In temporal life, the contemplation of God, the infinitely Beautiful, is the supreme delight of the will. Beatitudo, or perfect happiness, as complete well-being, is to be attained not in this life, but the next.[151]

Islam

Al-Ghazali (1058–1111), the Sufi thinker, wrote that «The Alchemy of Happiness», is a manual of religious instruction that is used throughout the Muslim world and widely practiced today.[152]

Genetics and heritability

As of 2016, no evidence of happiness causing improved physical health has been found; the topic is being researched at the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.[153]
A positive relationship has been suggested between the volume of the brain’s gray matter in the right precuneus area and one’s subjective happiness score.[154]

Sonja Lyubomirsky has estimated that 50 percent of a given human’s happiness level could be genetically determined, 10 percent is affected by life circumstances and situation, and a remaining 40 percent of happiness is subject to self-control.[155][156]

When discussing genetics and their effects on individuals it is important to first understand that genetics do not predict behavior. It is possible for genes to increase the likelihood of individuals being happier compared to others, but they do not 100 percent predict behavior.

At this point in scientific research, it has been hard to find a lot of evidence to support this idea that happiness is affected in some way by genetics. In a 2016 study, Michael Minkov and Michael Harris Bond found that a gene by the name of SLC6A4 was not a good predictor of happiness level in humans.[157]

On the other hand, there have been many studies that have found genetics to be a key part in predicting and understanding happiness in humans.[158] In a review article discussing many studies on genetics and happiness, they discussed the common findings.[159] The author found an important factor that has affected scientist findings this being how happiness is measured. For example, in certain studies when subjective wellbeing is measured as a trait heredity is found to be higher, about 70 to 90 percent. In another study, 11,500 unrelated genotypes were studied, and the conclusion was the heritability was only 12 to 18 percent. Overall, this article found the common percent of heredity was about 20 to 50 percent.[160]

See also

  • Anhedonia
  • Aversion to happiness
  • Brain stimulation reward
  • Depression
  • Euphoria
  • Extraversion, introversion and happiness
  • Hedonic treadmill
  • Pleasure
  • Reward system
  • Sadness

Notes

  1. ^ See Subjective well-being#Components of SWB
  2. ^ a b See the work of Jeanne Tsai
  3. ^ a b See Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness#Meaning of «happiness» ref. the meaning of the US Declaration of Independence phrase

References

  1. ^ a b «happiness». Wolfram Alpha. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011. Retrieved 24 February 2011.
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Further reading

  • Robert Waldinger M.D.; Marc Schulz Ph.D (2023). The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1982166694.

External links

  • The World Database of Happiness – a register of scientific research on the subjective appreciation of life.

Happiness is something that people seek to find, yet what defines happiness can vary from one person to the next. Typically, happiness is an emotional state characterized by feelings of joy, satisfaction, contentment, and fulfillment. While happiness has many different definitions, it is often described as involving positive emotions and life satisfaction. 

When most people talk about the true meaning of happiness, they might be talking about how they feel in the present moment or referring to a more general sense of how they feel about life overall.

Because happiness tends to be such a broadly defined term, psychologists and other social scientists typically use the term ‘subjective well-being’ when they talk about this emotional state. Just as it sounds, subjective well-being tends to focus on an individual’s overall personal feelings about their life in the present.  

Two key components of happiness (or subjective well-being) are:

  • The balance of emotions: Everyone experiences both positive and negative emotions, feelings, and moods. Happiness is generally linked to experiencing more positive feelings than negative ones.
  • Life satisfaction: This relates to how satisfied you feel with different areas of your life including your relationships, work, achievements, and other things that you consider important.

Another definition of happiness comes from the ancient philosopher Aristotle, who suggested that happiness is the one human desire, and all other human desires exist as a way to obtain happiness. He believed that there were four levels of happiness: happiness from immediate gratification, from comparison and achievement, from making positive contributions, and from achieving fulfillment. 

Happiness, Aristotle suggested, could be achieved through the golden mean, which involves finding a balance between deficiency and excess.

Signs of Happiness

While perceptions of happiness may be different from one person to the next, there are some key signs that psychologists look for when measuring and assessing happiness.

Some key signs of happiness include:

  • Feeling like you are living the life you wanted
  • Going with the flow and a willingness to take life as it comes
  • Feeling that the conditions of your life are good
  • Enjoying positive, healthy relationships with other people
  • Feeling that you have accomplished (or will accomplish) what you want in life
  • Feeling satisfied with your life
  • Feeling positive more than negative
  • Being open to new ideas and experiences
  • Practicing self-care and treating yourself with kindness and compassion
  • Experiencing gratitude
  • Feeling that you are living life with a sense of meaning and purpose
  • Wanting to share your happiness and joy with others

One important thing to remember is that happiness isn’t a state of constant euphoria. Instead, happiness is an overall sense of experiencing more positive emotions than negative ones.

Happy people still feel the whole range of human emotions—anger, frustrastion, boredom, loneliness, and even sadness—from time to time. But even when faced with discomfort, they have an underlying sense of optimism that things will get better, that they can deal with what is happening, and that they will be able to feel happy again.

Types of Happiness

There are many different ways of thinking about happiness. For example, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle made a distinction between two different kinds of happiness: hedonia and eudaimonia.

  • Hedonia: Hedonic happiness is derived from pleasure. It is most often associated with doing what feels good, self-care, fulfilling desires, experiencing enjoyment, and feeling a sense of satisfaction.
  • Eudaimonia: This type of happiness is derived from seeking virtue and meaning. Important components of eudaimonic well-being including feeling that your life has meaning, value, and purpose. It is associated more with fulfilling responsibilities, investing in long-term goals, concern for the welfare of other people, and living up to personal ideals.

Hedonia and eudemonia are more commonly known today in psychology as pleasure and meaning, respectively. More recently, psychologists have suggested the addition of the third component that relates to engagement. These are feelings of commitment and participation in different areas of life.

Research suggests that happy people tend to rank pretty high on eudaimonic life satisfaction and better than average on their hedonic life satisfaction. 

All of these can play an important role in the overall experience of happiness, although the relative value of each can be highly subjective. Some activities may be both pleasurable and meaningful, while others might skew more one way or the other.

For example, volunteering for a cause you believe in might be more meaningful than pleasurable. Watching your favorite tv show, on the other hand, might rank lower in meaning and higher on pleasure.

Some types of happiness that may fall under these three main categories include:

  • Joy: A often relatively brief feeling that is felt in the present moment
  • Excitement: A happy feeling that involves looking forward to something with positive anticipation
  • Gratitude: A positive emotion that involves being thankful and appreciative
  • Pride: A feeling of satisfaction in something that you have accomplished
  • Optimism: This is a way of looking at life with a positive, upbeat outlook
  • Contentment: This type of happiness involves a sense of satisfaction

How to Cultivate Happiness

While some people just tend to be naturally happier, there are things that you can do to cultivate your sense of happiness. 

Pursue Intrinsic Goals 

Achieving goals that you are intrinsically motivated to pursue, particularly ones that are focused on personal growth and community, can help boost happiness. Research suggests that pursuing these types of intrinsically-motivated goals can increase happiness more than pursuing extrinsic goals like gaining money or status.

Enjoy the Moment

Studies have found that people tend to over earn—they become so focused on accumulating things that they lose track of actually enjoying what they are doing.

So, rather than falling into the trap of mindlessly accumulating to the detriment of your own happiness, focus on practicing gratitude for the things you have and enjoying the process as you go. 

Reframe Negative Thoughts

When you find yourself stuck in a pessimistic outlook or experiencing negativity, look for ways that you can reframe your thoughts in a more positive way. 

People have a natural negativity bias, or a tendency to pay more attention to bad things than to good things. This can have an impact on everything from how you make decisions to how you form impressions of other people. Discounting the positive—a cognitive distortion where people focus on the negative and ignore the positive—can also contribute to negative thoughts.

Reframing these negative perceptions isn’t about ignoring the bad. Instead, it means trying to take a more balanced, realistic look at events. It allows you to notice patterns in your thinking and then challenge negative thoughts.

Impact of Happiness

Why is happiness so important? Happiness has been shown to predict positive outcomes in many different areas of life including mental well-being, physical health, and overall longevity.

  • Positive emotions increase satisfaction with life.
  • Happiness helps people build stronger coping skills and emotional resources.
  • Positive emotions are linked to better health and longevity. One study found that people who experienced more positive emotions than negative ones were more likely to have survived over a 13 year period.
  • Positive feelings increase resilience. Resilience helps people better manage stress and bounce back better when faced with setbacks. For example, one study found that happier people tend to have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and that these benefits tend to persist over time.
  • People who report having a positive state of well-being are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors such as eating fruits and vegetables and engaging in regular physical exercise.
  • Being happy may make help you get sick less often. Happier mental states are linked to increased immunity.

How to Be a Happier Person

Some people seem to have a naturally higher baseline for happiness—one large-scale study of more than 2,000 twins suggested that around 50% of overall life satisfaction was due to genetics, 10% to external events, and 40% to individual activities.

So while you might not be able to control what your “base level” of happiness is, there are things that you can do to make your life happier and more fulfilling. Even the happiest of individuals can feel down from time to time and happiness is something that all people need to consciously pursue.

Cultivate Strong Relationships

Social support is an essential part of well-being. Research has found that good social relationships are the strongest predictor of happiness. Having positive and supportive connections with people you care about can provide a buffer against stress, improve your health, and help you become a happier person.

In the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a longitudinal study that looked at participants over 80 years, researchers found that relationships and how happy people are in those relationships strongly impacted overall health.

So if you are trying to improve your happiness, cultivating solid social connections is a great place to start. Consider deepening your existing relationships and explore ways to make new friends. 

Get Regular Exercise

Exercise is good for both your body and mind. Physical activity is linked to a range of physical and psychological benefits including improved mood. Numerous studies have shown that regular exercise may play a role in warding off symptoms of depression, but evidence also suggests that it may also help make people happier, too.

In one analysis of past research on the connection between physical activity and happiness, researchers found a consistent positive link.

Even a little bit of exercise produces a happiness boost—people who were physically active for as little as 10 minutes a day or who worked out only once a week had higher levels of happiness than people who never exercised.

Show Gratitude

In one study, participants were asked to engage in a writing exercise for 10 to 20 minutes each night before bed. Some were instructed to write about daily hassles, some about neutral events, and some about things they were grateful for. The results found that people who had written about gratitude had increase positive emotions, increased subjective happiness, and improve life satisfaction.

As the authors of the study suggest, keeping a gratitude list is a relatively easy, affordable, simple, and pleasant way to boost your mood. Try setting aside a few minutes each night to write down or think about things in your life that you are grateful for.

Find a Sense of Purpose

Research has found that people who feel like they have a purpose have better well-being and feel more fulfilled. A sense of purpose involves seeing your life as having goals, direction, and meaning. It may help improve happiness by promoting healthier behaviors. 

Some things you can do to help find a sense of purpose include:

  • Explore your interests and passions
  • Engage in prosocial and altruistic causes
  • Work to address injustices
  • Look for new things you might want to learn more about

This sense of purpose is influenced by a variety of factors, but it is also something that you can cultivate. It involves finding a goal that you care deeply about that will lead you to engage in productive, positive actions in order to work toward that goal.

Press Play for Advice On Reaching Your Dreams

Hosted by Editor-in-Chief and therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast, featuring best-selling author Dave Hollis, shares how to create your best life. Click below to listen now.

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Challenges of Finding Happiness

While seeking happiness is important, there are times when the pursuit of life satisfaction falls short. Some challenges to watch for include:

Valuing the Wrong Things

Money may not be able to buy happiness, but there is research that spending money on things like experiences can make you happier than spending it on material possessions. 

One study, for example, found that spending money on things that buy time—such as spending money on time-saving services—can increase happiness and life satisfaction.

Rather than overvaluing things such as money, status, or material possessions, pursuing goals that result in more free time or enjoyable experiences may have a higher happiness reward.

Not Seeking Social Support

Social support means having friends and loved ones that you can turn to for support. Research has found that perceived social support plays an important role in subjective well-being. For example, one study found that perceptions of social support were responsible for 43% of a person’s level of happiness.

It is important to remember that when it comes to social support, quality is more important than quantity. Having just a few very close and trusted friends will have a greater impact on your overall happiness than having many casual acquaintances.

Thinking of Happiness as an Endpoint

Happiness isn’t a goal that you can simply reach and be done with. It is a constant pursuit that requires continual nurturing and sustenance.

One study found that people who tend to value happiness most also tended to feel the least satisfied with their lives. Essentially, happiness becomes such a lofty goal that it becomes virtually unattainable. 

“Valuing happiness could be self-defeating because the more people value happiness, the more likely they will feel disappointed,” suggest the authors of the study.

Perhaps the lesson is to not make something as broadly defined as “happiness” your goal. Instead, focus on building and cultivating the sort of life and relationships that bring fulfillment and satisfaction to your life. 

It is also important to consider how you personally define happiness. Happiness is a broad term that means different things to different people. Rather than looking at happiness as an endpoint, it can be more helpful to think about what happiness really means to you and then work on small things that will help you become happier. This can make achieving these goals more manageable and less overwhelming.

History of Happiness

Happiness has long been recognized as a critical part of health and well-being. The «pursuit of happiness» is even given as an inalienable right in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Our understanding of what will bring happiness, however, has shifted over time.

Psychologists have also proposed a number of different theories to explain how people experience and pursue happiness. These theories include:

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

The hierarchy of needs suggests that people are motivated to pursue increasingly complex needs. Once more basic needs are fulfilled, people are then motivated by more psychological and emotional needs.

At the peak of the hierarchy is the need for self-actualization, or the need to achieve one’s full potential. The theory also stresses the importance of peak experiences or transcendent moments in which a person feels deep understanding, happiness, and joy. 

Positive Psychology

The pursuit of happiness is central to the field of positive psychology. Psychologists who study positive psychology are interested in learning ways to increase positivity and helping people live happier, more satisfying lives. 

Rather than focusing on mental pathologies, the field instead strives to find ways to help people, communities, and societies improve positive emotions and achieve greater happiness.

What is happiness theoryWhat is happiness?

It seems like an odd question, but is it? Do you know how to define happiness? Do you think happiness is the same thing to you as it is to others?

What’s the point of it all? Does it even make a difference in our lives?

In fact, happiness does have a pretty important role in our lives, and it can have a huge impact on the way we live our lives. Although researchers have yet to pin down the definition or an agreed-upon framework for happiness, there’s a lot we have learned in the last few decades.

This article will dive into the science of happiness, what it actually is, and why it matters.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free. These science-based exercises will explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology including strengths, values, and self-compassion, and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students, or employees.

This Article Contains:

  • A Look at the Oxford English Dictionary’s Definition of Happiness
  • What is the Meaning of Happiness in Positive Psychology?
  • The Psychology Behind Human Happiness
  • 8 Examples That Describe What a Happy Life Looks Like
  • Why is Happiness So Important?
  • 6 Videos That Explain Happiness
  • A Take-Home Message
  • References

A Look at the Oxford English Dictionary‘s Definition of Happiness

First, let’s take a look at the definition of happiness so we’re all on the same page. Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of “happiness” is a simple one: “The state of being happy.”

Not exactly what we were looking for, was it? Perhaps we need to dive a little deeper. Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of “happy” is a little more helpful: “Feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.”

That’s better! So, happiness is the state of feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. From this definition, we can glean a few important points about happiness:

  1. Happiness is a state, not a trait; in other words, it isn’t a long-lasting, permanent feature or personality trait, but a more fleeting, changeable state.
  2. Happiness is equated with feeling pleasure or contentment, meaning that happiness is not to be confused with joy, ecstasy, bliss, or other more intense feelings.
  3. Happiness can be either feeling or showing, meaning that happiness is not necessarily an internal or external experience, but can be both.

Now we have a better grasp on what happiness is—or at least, how the Oxford English Dictionary defines what happiness is. However, this definition is not the end-all, be-all definition of happiness. In fact, the definition of happiness is not a “settled” debate.

What is the Meaning of Happiness in Positive Psychology?

Couples and Happiness as a Social Component.The meaning of happiness in Positive Psychology really depends on who you ask.

Happiness is often known by another name in positive psychology research: subjective wellbeing, or SWB.

Some believe happiness is one of the core components of SWB, while others believe happiness is SWB. Regardless, you’ll frequently find SWB used as a shorthand for happiness in the literature.

And speaking of the literature, you will find references to SWB everywhere. A quick Google search for the word “happiness” offers over 2 million results (as of January 6th, 2019). Further, a scan for the same term in two of psychology’s biggest online databases (PsycINFO and PsycARTICLES) returns 19,139 results from academic and other journals, books, dissertations, and more.

Is it difficult to define scientifically?

With so many takes on happiness, it’s no wonder that happiness is a little difficult to define scientifically; there is certainly disagreement about what, exactly, happiness is.

According to researchers Chu Kim-Prieto, Ed Diener, and their colleagues (2005), there are three main ways that happiness has been approached in positive psychology:

  1. Happiness as a global assessment of life and all its facets;
  2. Happiness as a recollection of past emotional experiences;
  3. Happiness as an aggregation of multiple emotional reactions across time (Kim-Prieto, Diener, Tamir, Scollon, & Diener, 2005).

Although they generally all agree on what happiness feels like—being satisfied with life, in a good mood, feeling positive emotions, feeling enjoyment, etc.—researchers have found it difficult to agree on the scope of happiness.

However, for our purposes in this piece, it’s enough to work off of a basic definition that melds the OED‘s definition with that of positive psychologists: happiness is a state characterized by contentment and general satisfaction with one’s current situation.

Pleasure vs. happiness

With the close ties between pleasure and happiness, you might be wondering how to differentiate between them. After all, the OED definition of happiness describes it as a state of feeling pleasure!

The association between the two makes sense, and it’s common to hear the two words used interchangeably outside of the literature; however, when it comes to the science of positive psychology, it is important to make a distinction between the two.

Happiness, as we described above, is a state characterized by feelings of contentment and satisfaction with one’s life or current situation. On the other hand, pleasure is a more visceral, in-the-moment experience. It often refers to the sensory-based feelings we get from experiences like eating good food, getting a massage, receiving a compliment, or having sex.

Happiness, while not a permanent state, is a more stable state than pleasure. Happiness generally sticks around for longer than a few moments at a time, whereas pleasure can come and go in seconds (Paul, 2015).

Pleasure can contribute to happiness, and happiness can enhance or deepen feelings of pleasure, but the two can also be completely mutually exclusive. For example, you can feel a sense of happiness based on meaning and engagement that has nothing to do with pleasure, or you could feel pleasure but also struggle with guilt because of it, keeping you from feeling happy at the same time.

Happiness vs. meaning

Happiness and meaning have an even more distinct line between the two. Rarely are happiness and meaning confused or used interchangeably, and for good reason—they describe two very different experiences.

Humans may resemble many other creatures in their striving for happiness, but the quest for meaning is a key part of what makes us human, and uniquely so.

Roy Baumeister et al. (2013)

Unlike happiness, meaning is not a fleeting state that drifts throughout the day; it’s a more comprehensive sense of purpose and feeling of contributing to something greater than yourself.

As the quote from Baumeister and colleagues (2013) suggests, there are important distinctions between the methods of searching for and the benefits of experiencing happiness and meaning. Scott Barry Kaufman at Scientific American (2016) outlines these distinctions that Baumeister and his fellow researchers found between the two:

  • Finding one’s life easy or difficult was related to happiness, but not meaning;
  • Feeling healthy was related to happiness, but not meaning;
  • Feeling good was related to happiness, not meaning;
  • Scarcity of money reduced happiness more than meaning;
  • People with more meaningful lives agreed that “relationships are more important than achievements;”
  • Helping people in need was linked to meaning but not happiness;
  • Expecting to do a lot of deep thinking was positively related to meaningfulness, but negatively with happiness;
  • Happiness was related more to being a taker rather than a giver, whereas meaning was related more to being a giver than a taker;
  • The more people felt their activities were consistent with the core themes and values of their self, the greater meaning they reported in their activities;
  • Seeing oneself as wise, creative, and even anxious were all linked to meaning but had no relationship (and in some cases, even showed a negative relationship) to happiness (Kaufman, 2016).

Basically, although the two overlaps and each can contribute to the experience of the other, the two can be mutually exclusive (Baumeister et al., 2013).

Relevant reading: 19 Cliché Happiness Quotes & The (Lack Of) Science Behind Them

The origins and etymology of happiness (Incl. root words)

According to Etymology Online (n.d.), the word for “happy” in most languages came from the word for “lucky.” This suggests an interesting trend—perhaps our ancestors believed that happiness was largely a by-product of luck?

It also points to a possible difference of general opinion between earlier generations and our own 20th and 21st-century generations: that happiness was not a vital factor in a good life, but essentially a bonus that some lucky individuals got to experience.

Here’s what author Darrin McMahon writes about the origins and root words of the word “happiness:”

“It is a striking fact that in every Indo-European language, without exception, going all the way back to ancient Greek, the word for happiness is a cognate with the word for luck. Hap is the Old Norse and Old English root of happiness, and it just means luck or chance, as did the Old French heur, giving us bonheur, good fortune or happiness. German gives us the word Gluck, which to this day means both happiness and chance.”

(McMahon, 2006)

What does self-happiness mean?

Although the term is not used very often, “self-happiness” refers to a sense of happiness or satisfaction with one’s self. It is often associated with self-confidence, self-esteem, and other concepts that marry “the self” with feeling content and happy.

In general, it means that you are pleased with yourself and your choices, and with the person that you are.


The three dimensions of happiness

Happiness can be defined as an enduring state of mind consisting not only of feelings of joy, contentment, and other positive emotions, but also of a sense that one’s life is meaningful and valued (Lyubomirsky, 2001).

Happiness energizes us and is a highly sought after state of being. But, what components make up happiness?

Martin Seligman (2002) argued that happiness has three dimensions that can be cultivated: 

  • The regular experience of pleasantness (the pleasant life)
  • The frequent engagement in satisfying activities (the engaged life)
  • The experience of a sense of connectedness to a greater whole (the meaningful life)

Although each dimension is important, the happiest people tend to be those who pursue the full life— they infuse their life with pleasure, engagement, and meaning (Seligman et al., 2005).

Building on Seligman’s three dimensions of happiness, Sirgy and Wu (2009) added the balanced life dimension.

According to these authors, balance in life is another key factor contributing to happiness because the amount of satisfaction derived from a single life domain is limited. One needs to be involved in multiple domains to satisfy the broad spectrum of human needs. As a result, cultivating a sense of balance is crucial for juggling these life domains.

The Psychology Behind Human Happiness

Now that we know what happiness is, let’s dive a little deeper. What does psychology have to tell us about happiness?

There are many different theories of happiness, but they generally fall into one of two categories based on how they conceptualize happiness (or well-being):

  1. Hedonic happiness/well-being is happiness conceptualized as experiencing more pleasure and less pain; it is composed of an affective component (high positive affect and low negative affect) and a cognitive component (satisfaction with one’s life);
  2. Eudaimonic happiness/well-being conceptualizes happiness as the result of the pursuit and attainment of life purpose, meaning, challenge, and personal growth; happiness is based on reaching one’s full potential and operating at full functioning (AIPC, 2011).

Some theories see happiness as a by-product of other, more important pursuits in life, while others see happiness as the end-goal for humans. Some theories state that pursuing happiness is pointless (although pursuing other important experiences and feelings may contribute to greater happiness), and some assume that happiness can be purposefully increased or enhanced.

Although they differ on the specifics, these theories generally agree on a few points:

  • It’s good to be happy, and people like being happy;
  • Happiness is neither a totally fleeting, momentary experience nor a stable, long-term trait;
  • At least some portion of our happiness is set by our genetics, but the amount varies from about 10% up to 50%;
  • The pursuit and attainment of pleasure will rarely lead to happiness;
  • There are many sources that contribute to or compose happiness (AIPC, 2011).

What sources create true personal happiness?

Taking together all the various theories and findings on happiness, we know that there are at least a few factors that are very important for overall happiness:

  • Individual income;
  • Labor market status;
  • Physical health;
  • Family;
  • Social relationships;
  • Moral values;
  • Experience of positive emotions (AIPC, 2011).

All of these factors can contribute to a happy life, but research has found that good relationships are a vital ingredient (Waldinger & Schulz, 2010).

When we are happy in our most important relationships (usually our spouse or significant other, our children and/or our parents, other close family members, and our closest friends), we tend to be happier.

We have some control over how our relationships go, so that leads us to an interesting and important question: can we increase our own happiness?

Can individuals learn how to be happy?

The answer from numerous studies is a resounding YES—you CAN learn how to be happier.

The degree to which you can increase your happiness will vary widely by which theory you subscribe to, but there are no credible theories that allow absolutely no room for individual improvement. To improve your overall happiness, the most effective method is to look at the list of sources above and work on enhancing the quality of your experiences in each one of them.

For example, you can work on getting a higher salary (although a higher salary will only work up to about $75,000 USD a year), improve your health, work on developing and maintaining high-quality relationships, and overall, find ways to incorporate more positive feelings into your daily life. This does assume basic access to safety as well as social equality.

8 Examples That Describe What a Happy Life Looks Like

What happiness looks likeGiven our definitions, what does a happy life look like?

Of course, what it looks like will depend on the individual—a happy life for one person may be another’s nightmare!

However, there are a few examples that can display a wide range of lives that can be conducive to happiness:

  1. A woman who lives alone, has excellent relationships with her nieces and nephews, gives to charity, and finds meaning in her work;
  2. A man who is happily married with three healthy children and a relatively low-paying job;
  3. A widow who enjoys regular visits with her children and grandchildren, along with volunteering for local charities;
  4. A cancer patient who has a wonderful support system and finds meaning in helping others make it through chemotherapy;
  5. A social worker who works 70-hour weeks with no overtime pay, to ensure the children on her caseload are in good hands;
  6. An unmarried man in a monastery who has no earthly possessions and no salary to speak of, but finds meaning in communing with his god;
  7. A teenager in a foster home who has several close friends and enjoys playing football on his school’s team;
  8. A man who lives with several pets, enjoys a high salary, and loves his job.

Each of these was pulled from real-world examples of people who are happy. They may not seem like they have it all, but they all have at least one of the ingredients from the list of sources mentioned earlier. We don’t need to have everything we want in order to be happy—true happiness can be obtained by finding joy in what we already have, however much or little that may seem.

What are some visions you associate with happiness? Are there any similarities with these dreams?

Why is Happiness So Important?

You might be wondering why happiness is considered such an important aspect of life, as there are many components of a meaningful life.

In some ways, science would agree with you. It appears that life satisfaction, meaning, and well-being can be linked with happiness, but happiness is not necessarily the overarching goal for everyone in life. It is still important because it has some undeniably positive benefits and co-occurring factors.

June Silny at Happify outlines 14 answers to the question, “What’s so great about happiness, anyway?

  1. Happy people are more successful in multiple life domains, including marriage, friendship, income, work performance, and health.
  2. Happy people get sick less often and experience fewer symptoms when they do get sick.
  3. Happy people have more friends and a better support system.
  4. Happy people donate more to charity (and giving money to charity makes you happy, too).
  5. Happy people are more helpful and more likely to volunteer—which also makes you happier!
  6. Happy people have an easier time navigating through life since optimism eases pain, sadness, and grief.
  7. Happy people have a positive influence on others and encourage them to seek happiness as well, which can act as reinforcement.
  8. Happy people engage in deeper and more meaningful conversations.
  9. Happy people smile more, which is beneficial to your health.
  10. Happy people exercise more often and eat more healthily.
  11. Happy people are happy with what they have rather than being jealous of others.
  12. Happy people are healthier all around and more likely to be healthy in the future.
  13. Happy people live longer than those who are not as happy.
  14. Happy people are more productive and more creative, and this effect extends to all those experiencing positive emotions.

The relationship between mental health and happiness

As you can probably assume from the list above, there is a strong relationship between mental health and happiness! When happy people are healthier, have better relationships, make friends more easily, and find more success in life, it’s easy to see why happiness and mental health are related.

The sources that contribute to happiness are the same as those that provide people with a buffer or protection against mental illness, which explains the close relationship between the two.

A recent study explored the association between happiness and mental health in college students and found that a relatively strong, positive correlation connects the two factors (Shafiq, Nas, Ansar, Nasrulla, Bushra, & Imam, 2015). This correlation held, even when gender and socio-demographic variables were added to the mix.

The close tie between mental health and happiness is reason enough to make happiness an important priority for parents, educators, researchers, and medical professionals alike, along with the simple fact that we all like to feel happy!

6 Videos That Explain Happiness

If you’re interested in learning more about happiness from a scientific perspective, there are a few videos you might want to check out, including:

Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness by Professor Tal Ben-Shahar from WGBH Forum.

Shawn Achor – The Happiness Advantage: Linking Positive Brains to Performance TEDTalk from TEDx Talks

Positive Psychology – Happier by Professor Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph.D. from FightMediocrity

How to be Happy – The Science of Happiness and Feeling Positive in Life from Memorize Academy

The Surprising Science of Happiness TED Talk by Dan Gilbert from TED

How to Be Happy – The Secret of Authentic Happiness – Martin Seligman from Practical Psychology

A Take-Home Message

I hope this piece was helpful and informative for you, and that you learned something new about the scientific study of happiness. It’s a fascinating area of research, and new findings are coming out all the time. Make sure you stay up to date on the happiness literature, as the findings can be of great use in helping you to live your best life!

What are your thoughts on happiness? Would you define it differently? What do you find is the most important ingredient for your own happiness? Let us know in the comments section below!

Thanks for reading, I hope you are all finding happiness in all your life journeys.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free.

  • AIPC. (2011). Happiness and positive psychology. Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors Article Library. Retrieved from https://www.aipc.net.au/articles/happiness-and-positive-psychology/
  • Baumeister, R., Vohs, K. D., Aaker, J. L., & Gabinsky, E. N. (2013). Some key differences between a happy life and a meaningful life. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 8, 505-516.
  • Joseph Sirgy, M., & Wu, J. (2009). The pleasant life, the engaged life, and the meaningful life: What about the balanced life? Journal of Happiness Studies, 10, 183-196.
  • Kaufman, S. B. (2016). The differences between happiness and meaning in life. Scientific American. Retrieved from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-differences-between-happiness-and-meaning-in-life/
  • Kim-Prieto, C., Diener, E., Tamir, M., Scollon, C. N., & Diener, M. (2005). Integrating the diverse
    definitions of happiness: A time-sequential framework of subjective well-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 6, 261-300.
  • Lyubomirsky, S. (2001). Why are some people happier than others? The role of cognitive and motivational processes in well-being. American Psychologist, 56(3), 239.
  • McMahon, D. (2006). Happiness: A history. Grove Press.
  • Online Etymology Dictionary (n.d.). Happy. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/
  • Paul, M. (2015). The difference between happiness and pleasure. Huffington Post: Life. Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-difference-between-happiness-and-pleasure_b_7053946
  • Seligman, M. E. (2002). Authentic happiness: Using the new positive psychology to realize your potential for lasting fulfillment. Simon and Schuster.
  • Seligman, M. E., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: empirical validation of interventions. American Psychologist, 60(5), 410.
  • Shafiq, S., Naz, R. A., Ansar, M., Nasrulla, T., Bushra, M., & Imam, S. (2015). Happiness as related to mental health among university students. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 5, 124-132.
  • Silny, J. (n.d.). What’s so great about happiness, anyway? (The answer: plenty!). Happify Daily. Retrieved from https://www.happify.com/hd/whats-so-great-about-happiness/
  • Waldinger, R. J., & Schulz, M. S. (2010). What’s love got to do with it?: Social functioning, perceived health, and daily happiness in married octogenarians. Psychology and Aging, 25, 422-431.

Happiness is something everyone wants to have. You may be successful and have a lot of money, but without happiness it will be meaningless.

That’s why I’m excited with this month’s theme of Happiness. We will discuss this topic all month long and I’m sure we will learn a lot. But, before we move further, it’s a good idea to get deeper understanding of the word happiness itself. Understanding what happiness is will give us good ground upon which to build our discussions.

Let me start with an official definition. According to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary, here is the definition of happiness:

  • a state of well-being and contentment
  • a pleasurable or satisfying experience

This definition is a good starting point and we can dig deeper from it. The best way to do that is to consult some of the greatest minds in history. So I researched what these people say about happiness and found 10 essential definitions. Each of them has deep meaning. Take your time to absorb it.

Here they are:

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
Mahatma Gandhi

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.
Ayn Rand

Happiness is something that you are and it comes from the way you think.
Wayne Dyer

Happiness is essentially a state of going somewhere, wholeheartedly, one-directionally, without regret or reservation.
William H. Sheldon

Happiness is not a reward – it is a consequence.
Robert Ingersoll

Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.
George Sheehan

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
Aristotle

Happiness is not something you experience, it’s something you remember.
Oscar Levant

Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.
Margaret Lee Runbeck

Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.
Denis Waitley

All in all, I would say that happiness is a decision. Your happiness is your decision to make. All the quotes above require actions on our part and actions require decisions.

So what do you think?

What is happiness?

Recommended Course

  • The Science of Happiness

This article is part of July 2008 theme: Happiness

They even laughed at the possibility of their former happiness and called it a dream… but the strange and wonderful thing was that though they had lost faith in their former state of happiness… they longed so much to be happy and innocent once more that, like children, they succumbed to the desire of their hearts, glorified this desire, built temples, and began offering up prayers to their own idea, their own «desire,» and at the same time firmly believed that it could not be realized and brought about, though they still worshipped and adored it with tears. ❋ Rahv, Philip (1972)

Children will profit from drill in and out of school in the science of avoiding offense and of giving happiness, but unless the categories — _acts that give offense_ and _acts that give happiness_ — are wide enough to include the main acts committed in the normal relations of son, companion, employer, husband, father, and citizen, those who set out to avoid alcohol and tobacco find themselves ill equipped to carry the obligations of a temperate, law-abiding citizen. ❋ William H. Allen (N/A)

Patty at PerfumePosse had a great review of this where she wrote that it embodies happiness: a ..happiness that is complex and embraces all of life’s sorrow and joy. ❋ Marina Geigert (2007)

* I get a big kick out of the lifestyle and design blog Oh Happy Day — partly because it’s fun to read, and partly because when I was starting my book «The Happiness Project» and this blog, a good friend insisted that the phrase «happiness project» sounded like too much work, so I should re-name my blog «Oh Happy Day.» ❋ Gretchen Rubin (2011)

In fact, the word happiness has to do with happenings or things that happen. ❋ Chip Ingram (2009)

But I’m trying to find the best path, and telling me that every path someone uses to attain happiness is equally valid is the same as telling me that the trans-Siberian mall route is just as good as the «take a right» method. ❋ Sharnakh (2004)

Hedonists have appropriated the term happiness as an equivalent to the totality of pleasurable or agreeable feeling. ❋ 1840-1916 (1913)

It is not, however, the less true that there is a proper object to aim at; and if this object be meant by the term happiness, the perfection of which consists in the exclusion of all hap [_i. e., _ chance], I assert that there is such a thing as _summum bonum_, or ultimate good. ❋ Various (1909)

«There is no highroad to what you term happiness,» Wingrave answered. ❋ Unknown (1906)

Nor again does the image of Christ lead us to conceive of pleasure, or of what we term happiness, as specially appropriate to the Divine ❋ 1817-1893 (1901)

The title of the web movie series comes from the phrase «happiness is just one step away», a slogan coined by Philips to emphasize the optimism and positivity that its brand embodies.

The word ‘happiness‘ always bothered me, partly because it was scientifically unwieldy and meant a lot of different things to different people, and also because it’s subjective, said Seligman, the director of the Positive Psychology Centre at the University of Pennsylvania. ❋ Unknown (2011)

This is as good as it gets on the third planet from the sun, as close to anything that can be imagined to what we know as happiness, as Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the father of flow, has put it. ❋ Joe Robinson (2010)

Jack LaLlane says the secret to happiness is to eat more fresh food, get more physical activity, and burst out in song in public from time to time. ❋ Unknown (2008)

For most of us the future represents those untroubled days when our dealings will prosper, our friends will be true and our happiness is assured. ❋ Unknown (2007)

It’s obvious to me that his happiness is as high a priority to you as your own. ❋ Unknown (2007)

I am happy and everyone can see it but only [I can] [feel] [the warmth] :) ❋ ~~~ (2005)

[I heard] [Bob died] [looking for] happiness. ❋ Brendan Merriman (2004)

[i cant] [explain] this happiness ❋ Xjessix (2008)

[jenny] [knew] she’d never [find] happiness ❋ Uglytrxsh (2019)

Was it happiness-ie gamboling above water [among] the [mist] [yesterday night]? ❋ Juandemor (2012)

[he he he] i [said] [penis] ❋ Sypher (2003)

I’m happy as I am, I don’t need [grog], dope, [pokies], TV, material goods, God or [continuous] orgasms thank you. ❋ Pugsworth (2004)

Example 1: Bob: U wanna play [the penis game]?
Joe: uh,,, sure, just [be quiet], theres adults around.
Bob: Penis
Joe: PENIS
Bob: [HAPENIS]
Joe:HAPPINESS
LOL ❋ HAPINES (2009)

[what you think] about happiness? ❋ Zedo (2006)

S:»[Happy Birthday] To You!»
H:»Thank you. Let’s share [my birthday] cake?»
S:»Thanks, sharing happiness with you is [my best] happiness
——Present this word to my friend ❋ Little Towel (2010)

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