Causes and Actions
• Positive (and not negative) emotions
• Satisfaction with life
• Flourishing (Eudaimonia)
• Genes
• Personality, mental illness
• Actions
Causes
• Intentional attitudes
• Circumstances
Genes
Actions
Circumstances
• Money makes us happier, but…
• Satisfaction vs positive emotions
• The more you earn, the more you “need”
• Relative vs. absolute income
• Income = 1% of our happiness
• Materialistic people
• Richer but less happy
• Any work is better than none
• Good jobs
• Secure
• Intrinsically motivating (decreased by financial rewards)
• Interesting (engaging, flow)
• Positively contributes to society
• Short/easy commute
• Allows for autonomy
• Then pay, promotions, & flexible hours
• Self-employment
• Higher work satisfaction, but same life satisfaction
• Social support
• Freedom
• Trust
• People
• Institutions
• Corruption
• Equality?
• Mental health
• Mental health problems 10-20 years ago predict
current happiness better than anything else
• There are solutions that work
• Physical health
• Good health causes happiness
• Happiness causes good health
• Marriage
• Happiness  marriage & marriage  happiness
• Good marriages tend to be between equals
• Education, looks, happiness
• Children
• Bad for happiness, good for meaning
• 0-3 and 13-18 are worst
• Divorce & Bereavement
• Religion
• Good in hard times/places
• Values
• Altruism (up to 4x better than selfishness)
• Materialism (need 2x the $$ to be as happy)
• Work-life balance
• Education
• Strengths/savouring/gratitude
Social support (10% extra saying yes to ‘people will always help me if I need it’) 4.5
Freedom (10% extra saying yes to ‘satisfied with freedom to choose in my life’)
2.1
Less corruption (10% extra saying no to ‘is corruption widespread in business or government’?)
1.9
Being female (vs. male)
1.5
30% increase in income
1.0
Single (vs. married)
-2.2
Widowed (vs. married)
-2.9
Separated (vs. married)
-4.0
Being unemployed (vs. employed)
-6.0
Low satisfaction 8 years earlier (1 std. dev. worse)
-10.0
Poor physical health (vs. good physical health, self assessed)
-15.0
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Examine and live by your values
Learn and apply your strengths
Exercise
Foster relationships
Meditate
Exercise savouring and gratitude
Volunteer/donate/random acts of kindness
www.growhq.com, www.actionforhappiness.org