Two linked studies, by Fowler and Christakis, and Cohen-Cole and Fletcher, relate to the transmission of health related factors through social networks.1 2 The concept underlying this new field of research is that behaviours may spread over time from one person to another through their immediate and more distant social contacts. Social epidemiology has established the relevance of social connec...

Pursuing happiness can paradoxically impair well-being. Here, the authors propose the potential down-sides to pursuing happiness may be specific to individualistic cultures. In collectivistic (vs. individual-istic) cultures, pursuing happiness may be more successful because happiness is viewed—and thus pursued—in relatively socially engaged ways. In 4 geographical regions that vary in level of ...

INTRODUCTION Happiness and social inclusion are important indicators of social sustainability, as recommended in the Sustainable Development Goals; however, little is known about the social sustainable development of ethnic minorities. To fill this knowledge gap, special attention is paid to understanding the issues of social exclusion and happiness in relation to the indigenous peoples in Taiw...

A multielement design was used to compare the effects of three treatments on the happiness of 3 individuals with profound multiple disabilities. The conditions were typical programming using materials selected by staff, presentation of preferred materials plus social interaction, and social interaction alone with no materials present. Both the presentation of the preferred items with social int...

What do social survey data tell us about the determinants of happiness? First, that the psychologists' setpoint model is questionable. Life events in the nonpecuniary domain, such as marriage, divorce, and serious disability, have a lasting effect on happiness, and do not simply deflect the average person temporarily above or below a setpoint given by genetics and personality. Second, mainstrea...

We examine the determinants of happiness from a comparative perspective. We use data from the 2002 International Social Survey Programme with roughly 40,000 individuals nested within 30 countries. We apply a multi-level modeling approach to formulate the specific interactions between the macro and micro. We focus on public social expenditures and taxes as proxy measures of state intervention at...

subjective well-being, generally through survey methods. A number of psychologists and social scientists have drawn upon this work recently to argue that the American model of relatively limited government and a dynamic market economy corrodes happiness, whereas Western European and Scandinavian-style social democracies promote it. This paper argues that happiness research in fact poses no thre...

We analyze data from nearly 2 million text messages (tweets) across over 16,000 users on Twitter to examine differences between Christians and atheists in natural language. Analyses reveal that Christians use more positive emotion words and less negative emotion words than atheists. Moreover, two independent paths predict differences in expressions of happiness: frequency of words related to an...