Happiness
Happiness is a positive and pleasant emotion, ranging from contentment to intense joy. Moments of happiness may be triggered by positive life experiences or thoughts, but sometimes it may arise from no obvious cause. The level of happiness for longer periods of time is more strongly correlated with levels of life satisfaction, subjective well-being, flourishing and eudaimonia. In common usage, the word happy can be an appraisal of those measures themselves or as a shorthand for a "source" of happiness (for example, "find happiness in life" as in finding the meaning in life). As with any emotion, the precise definition of happiness has been a perennial debate in philosophy.
Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see Happiness (disambiguation), Happy (disambiguation), Gladness (disambiguation), and Jolly (disambiguation).
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.[33]
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.[34] Affective forecasting research shows that people are poor predictors of their future emotions, including how happy they will be.[35]
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:
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.[46]
The UK began to measure national well-being in 2012,[47] following Bhutan, which had already been measuring gross national happiness.[48][49]
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, such as the point that happiness judgements partly reflect the presence of salient constraints, and that fairness, autonomy, community and engagement are key aspects of happiness and wellbeing throughout the life course.[50] 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.[51][52]
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.[53]
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.[54]
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.[55][56]
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.[57]
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.[58] In a review article discussing many studies on genetics and happiness, they discussed the common findings.[59] 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.[60]