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.

Appraisal Patterns of Emotions in Human-Product Interaction

Abstract: Emotional design, i.e., designing with an intention to evoke or to prevent a particular emotion, can be facilitated by understanding the processes underlying emotions. A promising approach to understanding these processes in the current psychological literature is appraisal theory. Appraisal theory can support this understanding because it explains how different emotions are elicited by different underlying appraisals. This paper reports a study that aimed to identify and specify appraisals that elicit emotions of product users for four emotion groups: happiness/joy, satisfaction/contentment, anger/irritation, and disappointment/dissatisfaction. The study started with a sensitizing task to make participants familiar with reporting their emotional experiences. With a combination of experience sampling and in-depth interviews, the emotions experienced when interacting with products and the causes of these emotions were captured. The results indicated that the appraisal patterns as proposed in general appraisal theory can also be traced in human-product interaction for all four emotion groups. On the basis of the results, an initia specification of those appraisals and design directions are proposed

Persistent pursuit of need-satisfying goals leads to increased happiness: A 6-month experimental longitudinal study

Abstract: University-based community members (N = 181) participated in a four-wave, 6-month longitudinal experiment designed to increase treatment participants’ happiness levels. Participants were randomly assigned to set goals either to improve their life circumstances (comparison condition) or to increase their feelings of autonomy, competence, or relatedness in life (treatment conditions). We hypothesized that sustained gains in happiness would be observed only in the three treatment conditions, and that even these gains would last only when there was continuing goal engagement. Results supported these predictions and the sustainable happiness model on which they were based (Lyubomirsky et al. in Rev Gen Psychol 9:111–131, 2005). Furthermore, participants with initial positive attitudes regarding happiness change obtained larger benefits. We conclude that maintained happiness gains are possible, but that they require both “a will and a proper way” (Lyubomirsky et al. in Becoming happier takes both a will and a proper way: two experimental longitudinal interventions to boost well-being, 2009).

Prosocial behavior leads to happiness in a small-scale rural society.

Abstract: Humans are extraordinarily prosocial, and research conducted primarily in North America indicates that giving to others is emotionally rewarding. To examine whether the hedonic benefits of giving represent a universal feature of human behavior, we extended upon previous cross-cultural examinations by investigating whether inhabitants of a small-scale, rural, and isolated village in Vanuatu, where villagers have little influence from urban, Western culture, survive on subsistence farming without electricity, and have minimal formal education, report or display emotional rewards from engaging in prosocial (vs. personally beneficial) behavior. In Study 1, adults were randomly assigned to purchase candy for either themselves or others and then reported their positive affect. Consistent with previous research, adults purchasing goods for others reported greater positive emotion than adults receiving resources for themselves. In Study 2, 2- to 5-year-old children received candy and were subsequently asked to engage in costly giving (sharing their own candy with a puppet) and non-costly giving (sharing the experimenter's candy with a puppet). Emotional expressions were video-recorded during the experiment and later coded for happiness. Consistent with previous research conducted in Canada, children displayed more happiness when giving treats away than when receiving treats themselves. Moreover, the emotional rewards of giving were largest when children engaged in costly (vs. non-costly) giving. Taken together, these findings indicate that the emotional rewards of giving are detectable in people living in diverse societies and support the possibility that the hedonic benefits of generosity are universal.

A Note on Family Situation and Global Happiness

Abstract: Recent evidence from one U.S. national survey (the Quality of Life Survey) indicates that being married very likely contributes, in the aggregate, to the psychological well-being of both men and women but that the presence of children may tend to lower the satisfaction of both sexes (Campbell; Campbell et al.).' The evidence on marital status and psychological wellbeing is corroborated by data from several other studies (e.g., Bradburn; Bradburn and Caplovitz; Glenn, a; Gurin, Veroff, and Feld; Knupfer et al.) and thus a zero-order association of being married with feelings of wellbeing in the United States in the recent past is hardly in doubt. There is no conclusive evidence that the relationship is not spurious, but Glenn (a) argues on the basis of data for different age levels that it is quite improbable that the relationship results entirely from selection of superior, more adaptable persons for marriage. The evidence from the Quality of Life Survey for negative effects of presence of children is much more tenuous than the evidence for the effects of marriage. Weak estimated effects in the data from one survey may well result from sampling error; and Campbell et al. base most of their discussion on zero-order relationships and report little analysis conducted to test for spuriousness. Furthermore, other evidence on the topic is inconsistent. Although the findings of several studies suggest a negative effect of children on marital happiness or satisfaction (e.g., Feldman; LeMasters; Renne), there could be typical gratifications from parenthood which offset any negative effects on global happiness through quality of marriage. Studies of the effects of the last child's leaving home on the psychological well-being of parents consistently fail to provide evidence of large typical negative effects (see Axelson; Clausen; Deutscher; Glenn, b), but most of the studies also fail to indicate substantial positive effects. The ambitious