Abstract not found

Numerous studies show that happy individuals are successful across multiple life domains, including marriage, friendship, income, work performance, and health. The authors suggest a conceptual model to account for these findings, arguing that the happiness–success link exists not only because success makes people happy, but also because positive affect engenders success. Three classes of evidence—crosssectional, longitudinal, and experimental—are documented to test their model. Relevant studies are described and their effect sizes combined meta-analytically. The results reveal that happiness is associated with and precedes numerous successful outcomes, as well as behaviors paralleling success. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that positive affect—the hallmark of well-being—may be the cause of many of the desirable characteristics, resources, and successes correlated with happiness. Limitations, empirical issues, and important future research questions are discussed.

The pursuit of happiness is an important goal for many people. However, surprisingly little scientific research has focused on the question of how happiness can be increased and then sustained, probably because of pessimism engendered by the concepts of genetic determinism and hedonic adaptation. Nevertheless, emerging sources of optimism exist regarding the possibility of permanent increases in happiness. Drawing on the past well-being literature, the authors propose that a person’s chronic happiness level is governed by 3 major factors: a genetically determined set point for happiness, happiness-relevant circumstantial factors, and happiness-relevant activities and practices. The authors then consider adaptation and dynamic processes to show why the activity category offers the best opportunities for sustainably increasing happiness. Finally, existing research is discussed in support of the model, including 2 preliminary happiness-increasing interventions. The pursuit of happiness holds an honored position in American society, beginning with the Declaration of Independence, where it is promised as a cherished right for all citizens. Today, the enduring U.S. obsession with how to be happy can be observed in the row upon row of popular psychology and self-help books in any major bookstore and in the millions of copies of these books that are sold. Indeed, many social contexts in the United States have the production of happiness and positive feelings as their primary purpose, and questions

This section will offer descriptions as well as discussions of data sources that may be of interest to social scientists engaged in empirical research or teaching courses that include empirical investigations performed by students. The purpose is to describe the information in the data source, to give examples of questions tackled with the data and to tell how to access the data for research and teaching. We will start with data from German speaking countries that allow international comparative research. While most of the data will be at the micro level (individuals, households, or firms), more aggregate data and meta data (for regions, industries, or nations) will be included, too. Suggestions for data sources to be described in future columns (or comments on past columns) should be send to:

Policy decisions at the organizational, corporate, and governmental levels should be more heavily influenced by issues related to well-being––people’s evaluations and feelings about their lives. Domestic policy currently focuses heavily on economic outcomes, although economic indicators omit, and even mislead about, much of what society values. We show that economic indicators have many shortcomings, and that measures of well-being point to important conclusions that are not apparent from economic indicators alone. For example, although economic output has risen steeply over the past decades, there has been no rise in life satisfaction during this period, and there has been a substantial increase in depression and distrust. We argue that economic indicators were extremely important in the early stages of economic development, when the fulfillment of basic needs was the main issue. As societies grow wealthy,

We look for evidence of habituation in twenty waves of German panel data: do individuals, after life and labour market events, tend to return to some baseline level of well-being? Although the strongest life satisfaction effect is often at the time of the event, we find significant lag and lead effects. We cannot reject the hypothesis of complete adaptation to marriage, divorce, widowhood, birth of child, and layoff. However, there is little evidence of adaptation to unemployment. Men are somewhat more affected by labour market events (unemployment and layoffs) than are women, but in general the patterns of anticipation and adaptation are remarkably similar by sex.

Abstract not found

We study “habituation ” to income and to status using individual panel data on the happiness of 7,812 people living in Germany from 1984 to 2000. Specifically, we estimate a “happiness equation ” defined over several lags of income and status and compare the long run effects. We can (cannot) reject the hypothesis of no adaptation to income (status) during the four years following an income (status) change. In the short-run (current year) a one standard deviation increase in status and 52 % of one standard deviation in income are associated with similar increases in happiness. In the long-run (five year average) a one standard deviation increase in status has a similar effect to an increase of 285 % of a standard deviation in income. We also present different estimates of habituation across sub-groups. For example, we find that those on the right (left) of the political spectrum adapt to status (income) but not to income (status).

This paper is an empirical study of partial hedonic adaptation. It provides longitudinal evidence that people who become disabled go on to exhibit considerable recovery in mental well-being. In fixed-effects equations we estimate the degree of hedonic adaptation at-- depending on the severity of the disability-- approximately 30 % to 50%. Our calculations should be viewed as illustrative; more research, on other data sets, is needed. Nevertheless, we discuss potential implications of our results for economists and the courts.

Using data from 17 years of a large and nationally representative panel study from Germany, the authors examined whether there is a set point for life satisfaction (LS)—stability across time, even though it can be perturbed for short periods by life events. The authors found that 24 % of respondents changed significantly in LS from the first 5 years to the last 5 years and that stability declined as the period between measurements increased. Average LS in the first 5 years correlated.51 with the 5-year average of LS during the last 5 years. Height, weight, body mass index, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and personality traits were all more stable than LS, whereas income was about as stable as LS. Almost 9% of the sample changed an average of 3 or more points on a 10-point scale from the first 5 to last 5 years of the study. The purpose of this study was to explore the degree to which life satisfaction (LS) varies around an individual set point, a personal baseline that remains constant over time. The set-point concept was borrowed from the idea of a weight set point and implies that there is a stable baseline of LS, with homeostatic forces returning it to its original level after life events or changing circumstances change it. We analyzed in a large probability sample whether annual reports of LS followed a set-point pattern over a 17-year period. The concept of set point is a pivotal one to the field of subjective well-being (SWB) for both theoretical and applied reasons. In terms of theory, the idea of set point makes strong predictions about the relation of temperament and events in influencing SWB. In terms of practical importance, interventions to change society or to help individuals must be considered in a different light if they cannot hope to improve people’s SWB. Thus, the question of whether a personal set point exists is of immense importance to the field of psychology. In recent years, a large literature has been focused on the