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Happiness

About: Happiness is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 22093 publications have been published within this topic receiving 728411 citations. The topic is also known as: joy & happy.


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01 Jan 2012
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the relationship between social capital and happiness both in Europe as a whole, as well as in its four main geographical macro-regions (North, South, East and West) separately.
Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between social capital and happiness both in Europe as a whole, as well as in its four main geographical macro-regions – North, South, East and West – separately. We test the hypothesis of whether social capital, in its three-fold definition established by Coleman (1988) – trust, social interaction, and norms and sanctions – influences individual happiness across European countries and regions. The concept of social capital is further enriched by incorporating Putnam- (1993) and Olson- (1982) type variables on associational activity. Using ordinal logistic regression analysis on data for 48,583 individuals from 25 European countries, we reach three main findings. First, social capital matters for happiness across the three dimensions considered. Second, the main drivers of the effects of social capital on happiness appear to be informal social interaction and general social, as well as institutional trust. And third, there are significant differences in how social capital interacts with happiness across different areas of Europe, with the connection being at is weakest in the Nordic countries.

167 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the concept of gross national happiness, as it has evolved in Bhutan, against the background of literature on the pursuit of happiness as a government objective and the problems associated with different approaches to measuring well-being.
Abstract: This article considers the concept of gross national happinesss, as it has evolved in Bhutan, against the background of literature on the pursuit of happiness as a government objective and the problems associated with different approaches to measuring well-being It concludes that since all measures of well-being are imperfect, including the measure of gross national happiness currently being applied in Bhutan, the best approach is to use a range of different measures, including conventional national accounting indicators

167 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In the republic envisioned by American writers, citizens were to be bound together not by patriarchy's duty or liberalism's self-interest, but by affection, and it was, they believed, marriage, more than any other institution, that trained citizens in this virtue.
Abstract: W TrHEN the American colonists commenced rebellion against the British government and assumed the separate and equal station to which they believed the laws of God and nature both entitled them, they found in marriage-"that SOCIAL UNION, which the beneficent Creator instituted for the happiness of Man"-a metaphor for their ideal of social and political relationships. In the republic envisioned by American writers, citizens were to be bound together not by patriarchy's duty or liberalism's self-interest, but by affection, and it was, they believed, marriage, more than any other institution, that trained citizens in this virtue. Thus "L," writing in the Royal American Magazine in 1774, explained why this "social union is so essential to human happiness." The married man, he wrote, "by giving pleasure . . . receives it back again with increase. By this endearing intercourse of friendship and communication of pleasure, the tender feelings and soft passions of the soul are awakened with all the ardour of love and benevolence.... In this happy state, man feels a growing attachment to human nature, and love to his country."' Marriage was the very pattern from which the cloth of republican society was to be cut. Revolutionary-era writers held up the loving partnership of man and wife in opposition to patriarchal dominion as the republican model for social and political relationships. The essays, stories, poems, and novels

166 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 1991
TL;DR: In the psychology of motivation the instrumental response is theoretically related in some way to the general wellbeing of the person whose motivation it is as mentioned in this paper. But the motivational structure of sympathy is different.
Abstract: In the psychology of motivation the instrumental response is theoretically related in some way to the general wellbeing of the person whose motivation it is. But the motivational structure of sympathy is different. The orientation of sympathetic behavior is not the welfare of the person who is sympathetically motivated, but that of the person who is the object of that sympathy. This distinction is not about “satisfaction” or “happiness,” although both may sometimes be involved. It is about the dependent variable for which sympathy is the motivation. Take, for example, the intake of food. Taking food may be equally “satisfying” to the person whose motivation is hunger and to the person whose motivation is sympathy, except that in the first case the food is eaten by the hungry person, and in the second case the food is eaten by the person who is the object of sympathy. The logic of this distinction was set forth many years ago by Bishop Butler (see Broad, 1979), and I will consider it further in Chapter 4.

166 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The study found a strong positive correlation between male youth suicide rates and subjective measures of health, optimism, and several indices of individualism, including personal freedom and control.

166 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20245
20231,873
20224,089
20211,232
20201,463
20191,352