Louise Cooper, Lynne Doran,
Derek Laffan & Sarah McSweeney.

• Understand definitions of Happiness, Subjective
Well-Being (SWB) & Positive Affect
• Understand theories of Happiness
• Be aware of the measures available for Happiness,
SWB & Positive Affect
• Identify factors that influence happiness
• Be aware of global happiness
• Be aware of “happiness boosting” interventions and be able to apply it into your everyday life

Subjective Well-Being
How people evaluate their own lives in terms of cognitive
(life-satisfaction) and
affective explanations
(Boniwell, 2008)
Positive Affect
Various positive emotions, feelings and moods that we frequently experience and easily recognise
(Boniwell, 2008)

• Sonja Lyubomirsky – What is Happiness?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HFL9Mn
Gdrw

Seligman (2002)
• The Pleasant Life
– Having many pleasures in life and the skills to amplify them
• The Good Life
– Knowing your signature strengths, and recreating your life (work, love, friendship, leisure, parenting) to use those strengths to have more ‘flow’ in life
• The Meaningful Life
– Using your signature strengths to serve something that you believe is larger than you are

40%
0%
10%
Set- point (genetics)
50% Voluntary Control
Circumstances

• Strong reaction to recent events
– High levels of happiness after winning the lotto
– Returns to set-point (3 months)
• Linked to ‘zero-sum’ theory
– Happy and unhappy periods are cyclical
• Brickman et al. (1978). Longitudinal study on
“happiness among lotto winners”
• Hedonic Adaption Prevention Model

• Increase in wealth in the last 50 years but happiness levels have stayed the same, why?
• SWB is a function of comparison processes
– Social, past-self, internalised standards
• Status anxiety & Materialism
– Linked with lower SWB and depression
• Too much Choice
– Satisficers V Maximisers

1. Subjective Happiness Scale
(Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999)
2. Satisfaction with Life Scale
(Diener et al., 1985)
3. PANAS Questionnaire
(Watson et al., 1985)
4. Meaning of Life Questionnaire
(Steger et al., 2006)
5. Flow Experience Scale
(Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988)

Strengths
• Psychometrically sound
• Valid
• Reliable
• Efficient
• Cost effective
Weaknesses
• Requires accurate reflection and unbiased assessment of one’s happiness
• Influence of immediate circumstances
• Sensitive to information accessed before measurement
• Social comparisons
 Kurtz, J. L., & Lyubomirsky, S. (in press).

• More suitable (than global measures) for assessing the affective component
– frequent positive affect and infrequent negative affect
• Aggregate of momentary affective experiences encountered throughout daily life
• Comes from Csikszentmihalyi’s work on ‘flow’
• Costly & requires a great deal of participants’ time and co-operation

• Proposed by Kahneman et al., (2004)
• Short-term daily diary of distinct episodes
• Appropriate for large scale data collections of
SWB indicators
• More cost-effective than ESM, but also requires a lot of participants’ time
• Provides unique and novel information about what people do and how they feel in their everyday lives

• It appears that most of us are indeed happy (Myers,
2000).
• Five ways to wellbeing – two recent studies, The
Foresight Report and
Gallup’s most recent world poll, have shown similar finding. The findings suggest that there are five necessary elements for wellbeing

• Connect (relationships)
• Be active
• Take notice
– “stop to smell the roses”
• Keep learning
• Give (random acts of kindness)

• Career wellbeing
• Social wellbeing
• Financial wellbeing
• Physical wellbeing
• Community wellbeing

• Marriage
• Children
• Age
• Income
• Gender
• Education
• Religion
• True
• False
• False
• True
• False
• True
• True

• Does money make us happy? YES…well a little bit.
• Individuals who live in countries with high GDP, such as the USA, on average score higher on wellbeing measures than those living in countries with low GDP, such as Togo (Deaton, 2008)

• In order to maintain balanced levels of wellbeing, individuals must take home approximately $5000 per month, anything more will do little to enhance happiness.
• An extra $10,000 per annum will only bump up your happiness levels by approximately 2 per cent (Christakis & Fowler, 2009).

• Being around others enhances individual wellbeing.
• Spending time in social settings enhances levels of wellbeing among both introverted or extroverted,
(Froh et al., 2007).
• Happier people are more likely to get married, while reporting a happy marriage as they stay together.

• The relationship between children and marital satisfaction shows high levels of life satisfaction at marriage, and then drops at the birth of the first child
• The levels of life satisfaction also continue to drop throughout childhood and adolescence, then returns to high levels when the children leave the home
• Therefore, having children actually decreases levels of
SWB (Heffernon & Boniwell, 2011)

• An individual’s job perception can influence wellbeing
• One third of employee’s perceive work as a
‘calling orientation’
– Job orientation
– Career orientation
– Calling orientation

• Diener and Biswas-Diener
(2008) have categorised the effects of SWB on physical health into 3 groups;
– The likelihood a person will contract a specific illness
– How long the person will live after contracting a life threatening illness
– How long a persons lifespan is

• Religious people have reported having slightly higher levels of SWB than those who do not
– E.g. Belief in something higher, spirituality, afterlife

• Age
• Gender
• Education
– High levels of SWB were found in those with higher educational status

• Evidence indicates that SWB levels of given countries are stable (Inglehart & Klingemann, 2000)
• Social comparison theory
– gains and losses of different individuals in a nation result in no noticeable shifts in happiness levels for the society as a whole
• The SWB and happiness of Americans has been examined since 1946 (Inglehart, Foa, Peterson &
Welzel, 2008)

• Inglehart et al. (2008) found that a sense of control over your life is conducive to happiness
• Democratic countries generally report higher happiness levels
• Happy people are more likely to successfully sustain a democracy

Costa Rica
Activity 1
Denmark
Mexico
Russia
India
China
1
2
Activity 2
A) Costa Rica
B) Denmark
115
125
8 C) Russia
73 D) China

Country
1.
Costa Rica
2.
Denmark
3.
Puerto Rico
4.
Iceland
5.
Switzerland
6.
Canada
7.
Finland
8.
Mexico
9.
Norway
10. Sweden
(World Database of Happiness, 2010)
Score
8.5
8.34
8.32
8.15
7.99
7.97
7.9
7.87
7.82
7.8

• For past 30 years research has consistently shown that Danes tend to be happier
(Inglehart & Klingleman, 2000)
• Welfare state
• High tax rates
– people could pay between
50 and 70% tax
• Social equality

• Gross National Happiness (GNH) is an alternative to the Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) as a means of measuring progress within a country
• Increased wealth isn’t always an indicator of happiness or progress
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zqdqa4Y
NvI

Brickman et al. (1978) Lykken and Tellegen (1996)

• Fujita and Diener (2005) found that there is a modest stability in life satisfaction but that around quarter of the population’s life satisfaction does change significantly
• A major flaw of the studies investigating the set point theory was that they were all carried out within a single country

• People’s circumstances account for only 10% of their happiness levels
• Situational factors refer to one time changes that usually occur independently of effort and engagement (Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006)
– a person’s education level, the country they live in and marriage

• Intentional activity (IA) involves continual effort and engagement in some intentional process
(Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2006)
– essentially this is what we do everyday
• Accounts for 40% of our happiness
• IA allows for increases in happiness above the levels set out by our circumstances and set point
– i.e., it is the only aspect of our happiness within our control

• Lyubomirsky, Sheldon and Schkade (2005) suggest that when choosing activities we should:
1. Find activities that fit our needs and personalities
2. They should vary, i.e., changing your exercise routine
3. Timing of activities should vary

Increasing Your Happiness

• In Your Groups
• You will be assigned an Intervention and administered the Subjective Happiness Scale
(Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999)
• Score it and bring results to the top

• Up until now, the focus has been on what exactly happiness is and the kinds of things that make us happy.
• Now, the focus is on how to INCREASE happiness or in other words; “Happiness
Boosting”.

• Happiness “Boosting” usually happens in the form of interventions
• Happiness Boosting interventions are important for two reasons:
– to make people generally happier and,
– to allow happy people to develop other positive characteristics
• (Snyder & Lopez, 2005)

• Fordyce (1977)
• Found that people tend to become happier when they mimic the positive characteristics of people they perceive are happier than them

• Seligman, Reivich,
Jaycox & Gillham (1995)
• Found that children who were at risk of developing depressive and mood disorders were significantly less depressed after training in optimistic thinking and problem solving

• Lyubomirsky (2007)
• The How of Happiness: A
Practical Guide to Getting the Life You Want

• Expressing Gratitude
• Cultivating Optimism
• Avoiding Overthinking and Social Comparison
• Practicing Acts of Kindness
• Nurturing Social Relationships
• Developing Strategies for Coping
• Learning to Forgive
• Increasing “Flow” Experiences
• Savoring Life’s Joys
• Committing to your Goals
• Practicing Religion and Spirituality
• Taking Care of your Body (Meditation/ Acting like a Happy Person)

• Live Happy iPhone application (Signal
Patterns & Lyubomirsky,
2008)
• Designed based on positive psychological research findings in the area of happiness boosting

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGrwPnX dtJM
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSaOnWq uols

• Walls (2010) launched a marketing campaign about sharing to the world the link of ice cream and happiness
• http://www.youtube.co
m/watch?v=V5bs_pIFut o

• 12 healthy, non-obese volunteers had their brains scanned using FMRI
• Each had a gastric feeding tube positioned
• Listened to pieces of sad or neutral classical music while they viewed images of human facial expressions depicting either sad or neutral emotion

• The brain's responses to sadness were significantly reduced when the fatty solution was infused into the stomach
• Respondents also reported less hunger and a better mood when the fatty solution was given

• Think, Pair, Share
Q . What did you find most interesting/important while learning about happiness?
– Write down one or two points
– Discuss with the person beside you
– Share with the class

1. What is happiness, SWB & Positive Affect?
2. Can happiness be measured? Give examples.
3. Is happiness signified by an individual’s global evaluation of his or her life, or is it the aggregate of many moments, as measured by ESM?
4. What factors influence happiness?
5. Can happiness be acquired?
6. What happiness interventions are available?

• Articles
– Cohen et al. (2003). Emotional Style and the Susceptibility to the Common Cold. Psychosomatic Medicine, 65(4):652-7
• Books
– Heffron, K. and Boniwell, I. (2011). Happiness and
Subjective Wellbeing across Nations. In: Positive
Psychology Theory, Research and Applications. p44 - 75.
• Websites
– www.authentichappiness.org
– http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/content/65/4/65
2.full.pdf+html

Boniwell, I. (2008). Positive psychology in a nutshell (2 nd Ed). London: PWBC.
Brickman, P., Coates, D., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 36, 917-927.
Diener, E. and Biswas-Diener, R. (2008) Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth. Boston, MA:Blackwell Publishing.
Fordyce, M.W. (1977). Development of a program to increase personal happiness. Journal of Counselling Psychology, 24, 511-521.
Fujita, F., & Diener, E. (2005). Life satisfaction set point: Stability and change. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 158-164.
Heffron, K, and Boniwell, I. "Happiness and Subjective Wellbeing Across Nations." Positive psychology: Theory, Research and Applications.
Buckingham: Open University Press, 2011. 44 - 75
Inglehart, R. and Klingemann, H-D. (2000) ‘Genes, culture, democracy and happiness’, in Diener and Suh (2000).
Inglehart, R., Foa, R., Peterson, C., & Welzel, C. (2008). Development, freedom and rising happiness. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3,
264-285.
Kristoff, N. D. (2010). The happiest people. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/opinion/07kristof.html
Kurtz, J. L., & Lyubomirsky, S. (in press). Positive psychology. In M. R. Mehl & T. S. (Eds.), Handbook of research methods for studying daily life.
New York: Guilford Press.

Lykken,D. & Tellegen, A. (1996). Happiness is a stochastic phenomena. Journal of Psychological Sciences, 7, 186-189.
Lyubomirsky, S. (2007). The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want. New York: Penguin Press.
Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K. M., & Schkade, D. (2005). Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Review of General
Psychology, 9, 111-131
Seligman, M.E.P., Reivich, K., Jaycox, L., and Gillham, J. (1995). The Optimistic Child. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
Seligman, M. E. (2006). Pleasure, Meaning & Eudaimonia. Retrieved from http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/newsletter.aspx?id=54
Sheldon, K. M., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2006). Achieving sustainable gains in happiness: Change your actions, not your circumstances. Journal of
Happiness Studies, 7, 55–86.
Signal Patterns and Lyubomirsky, S. (2008). Live Happy. Pleasantville, NY.
Snyder, C.R., & Lopez, S. J. (2002). Handbook of Positive Psychology (Eds). New York: Oxford University Press.
Unilever. (2010). Ice cream served with a smile. Retrieved from http://www.unilever.com/mediacentre/news/icecreamsmile.aspx
Van Oudenhove, L., McKie, S., Lassman, D., Uddin, B., Paine, P., Coen, S., Gregory, L., Tack, J. and Aziz, Q. (2011). Fatty acid–induced gut-brain signalling attenuates neural and behavioral effects of sad emotion in humans. Journal of Clinical Investigation, 121(8), 3094
3099.
White, A. (2007). A global projection of subjective well-being: A challenge to positive psychology? Psychtalk :56, 17-.20

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