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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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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The paper calculates the impact of different life events upon human well-being using happiness regression equations, and believes that the new statistical method in principle can be used to value any kind of event in life.
Abstract: Background Life events—like illness, marriage, or unemployment—have important effects on people. But there is no accepted way to measure the different sizes of these events upon human happiness and psychological health. By using happiness regression equations, economists have recently developed a method. Methods We estimate happiness regressions using large random samples of individuals. The relative coefficients of income and life events on happiness allow us to calculate a monetary ‘compensating amount’ for each kind of life event. Results The paper calculates the impact of different life events upon human well-being. Getting married, for instance, is calculated to bring each year the same amount of happiness, on average, as having an extra £70 000 of income per annum. The psychological costs of losing a job greatly exceed those from the pure drop in income. Health is hugely important to happiness. Widowhood brings a degree of unhappiness that would take, on average, an extra £170 000 per annum to offset. Well-being regressions also allow us to assess one of the oldest conjectures in social science—that well-being depends not just on absolute things but inherently on comparisons with other people. We find evidence for comparison effects. Conclusion We believe that the new statistical method has many applications. In principle, it can be used to value any kind of event in life.

343 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: These studies are the first to successfully extend earlier results of R. H. Smith, E. Diener, and D. Wedell from the laboratory into naturalistic situations and imply that nations can avoid creating a "hedonic treadmill."
Abstract: Two studies provide evidence for social comparison effects of income on subjective well-being (SWB). The 1st study of 7,023 persons from nationally representative samples in the United States shows that the range and skew of the income distribution in a community affects a person's happiness, as predicted by range-frequency theory. The 2nd study of 8 nations over a period of 25 years shows that decreasing the skew (inequality) of the income distribution in a country increases average national SWB. Both studies strongly support social comparison effects of income within a community, and both results are predicted by range-frequency theory. These studies are the first to successfully extend earlier results of R. H. Smith, E. Diener, and D. H. Wedell (1989) from the laboratory into naturalistic situations. The magnitude of the social comparison effects is smaller than the main effect of income, which implies that nations can avoid creating a "hedonic treadmill."

342 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a method for valuing a time-varying local public good, namely air quality, is described and implemented, and the average marginal rate of substitution between income and current air quality is derived for short-term changes in air pollution.

342 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the validity of a motivational model of couple happiness based on self-determination theory and tested the generalizability of the 6 forms of motivation proposed by this theory.
Abstract: The present study had two major objectives. The first was to investigate the validity of a motivational model of couple happiness based on self-determination theory. The second objective was to test the postulated simplex structure and the generalizability of the 6 forms of motivation proposed by this theory. Both members of 63 couples individually completed the Couple Motivation Questionnaire as well as measures of perceived couples' adaptive behaviors and of dyadic happiness. Results revealed that the proposed model of couple happiness was supported through significant path analyses explaining 61% and 55% of the variance of men's and women's relationship happiness, respectively. Empirical support was also provided for the postulated simplex structure. Results highlight the importance ofautonomy-driven processes as opposed to controlling and amotivated processes in the development and maintenance of the quality of couples' relationships.

337 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