The past decade has witnessed an explosion of interest in the scientific study of happiness. Economists, in particular, find that happiness increases in income but decreases in income aspirations, and this work prompts examination of how aspirations form and adapt over time. This paper presents results from the first experimental study of how multiple factors—past payments, social comparisons, ...

Daydreaming appears to have a complex relationship with life satisfaction and happiness. Here we demonstrate that the facets of daydreaming that predict life satisfaction differ between men and women (Study 1; N=421), that the content of daydreams tends to be social others (Study 2; N=17,556), and that who we daydream about influences the relation between daydreaming and happiness variables lik...

Using data from the U.S. General Social Survey, we study the role of income and status in self-reported happiness. Unexpected income gains increase happiness and relative income is more important than absolute income, in particular, income relative to individuals’ own cohort working in the same occupation in the same region. Perceptions about relative income are more important than actual relat...

Is happiness good for your health? This common notion is tested in a synthetic analysis of 30 follow-up studies on happiness and longevity. It appears that happiness does not predict longevity in sick populations, but that it does predict longevity among healthy populations So, happiness does not cure illness but it does protect against becoming ill. The effect of happiness on longevity in heal...

OBJECTIVES The objective of the present study was to identify the factors that influence the happiness index of community residents, by considering personal and regional aspects, and to use as evidence of efforts for improvement of the happiness index. METHODS The study was conducted based on information from 16,270 participants who met the data requirement among those who participated in the...

As Americans live longer, researchers have begun to investigate how people can move into old age not just healthier, but also happier. Increasingly, researchers are exploring relationships between physical and mental health and social connections among the elderly. The Behavioral and Social Research Program at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) supports research on the relationships between ...

The notion of social appraisal emphasizes the importance of a social dimension in appraisal theories of emotion by proposing that the way an individual appraises an event is influenced by the way other individuals appraise and feel about the same event. This study directly tested this proposal by asking participants to recognize dynamic facial expressions of emotion (fear, happiness, or anger i...

Media naturalness theory and social information processing theory make competing predictions regarding the effectiveness of different modes of communication at creating and maintaining emotionally intense social relationships. We explored how the duration of interaction and the form of laughter influenced happiness in communication modes with different levels of media naturalness. Forty-one par...

This study aimed to examine multiple factors associated with happiness from the perspective of gender difference among a middle-aged Japanese population. A total of 865 participants (male = 344, female = 521) aged 40-64 years were divided into two groups (high and low) by their self-reported level of happiness. Logistic regression analysis by gender was carried out. In men, high levels of happi...

In this study, the authors analyzed data from a nationally representative survey of youth to study happiness amongst Canadian adolescents aged 12-17. Testing for differences in the level of happiness between female and male adolescents was conducted. Following this, multivariate analysis was employed to determine which factors were associated with adolescent happiness. The authors determined th...