Elements of Happiness

Some psychologists have suggested that happiness consists of three distinct elements: the pleasant life, the good life, and the meaningful life, as shown in Figure 1 (Seligman, 2002; Seligman, Steen, Park, & Peterson, 2005).

The elements of happiness

• The pleasant life is realized through the attainment of day-to-day pleasures that add fun, joy, and excitement to our lives. For example, evening walks along the beach and a fulfilling sex life can enhance our daily pleasure and contribute to the pleasant life.
• The good life is achieved through identifying our unique skills and abilities and engaging these talents to enrich our lives; those who achieve the good life often find themselves absorbed in their work or their recreational pursuits.
• The meaningful life involves a deep sense of fulfillment that comes from using our talents in the service of the greater good: in ways that benefit the lives of others or that make the world a better place.

In general, the happiest people tend to be those who pursue the full life—they orient their pursuits toward all three elements (Seligman et al., 2005).

For practical purposes, a precise definition of happiness might incorporate each of these elements:

The definition implies that happiness is a long-term state—what is often characterized as subjective well-being—rather than merely a transient positive mood we all experience from time to time. It is this enduring happiness that has captured the interests of psychologists and other social scientists.

The study of happiness has grown dramatically in the last three decades (Diener, 2013). One of the most basic questions that happiness investigators routinely examine is this: How happy are people in general? The average person in the world tends to be relatively happy and tends to indicate experiencing more positive feelings than negative feelings (Diener, Ng, Harter, & Arora, 2010). When asked to evaluate their current lives on a scale ranging from 0 to 10 (with 0 representing “worst possible life” and 10 representing “best possible life”), people in more than 150 countries surveyed from 2010–2012 reported an average score of 5.2. People who live in North America, Australia, and New Zealand reported the highest average score at 7.1, whereas those living Sub-Saharan Africa reported the lowest average score at 4.6 (Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs, 2013). Worldwide, the five happiest countries are Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Sweden; the United States is ranked 17th happiest (Figure 2) (Helliwell et al., 2013).

Several years ago, a Gallup survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults found that 52% reported that they were “very happy.” In addition, more than 8 in 10 indicated that they were “very satisfied” with their lives (Carroll, 2007). However, a recent poll found that only 42% of American adults report being “very happy.” The groups that show the greatest declines in happiness are people of color, those who have not completed a college education, and those who politically identify as Democrats or independents (McCarthy, 2020). These results suggest that challenging economic conditions may be related to declines in happiness. Of course, this interpretation implies that happiness is closely tied to one’s finances. But, is it? What factors influence happiness?

Subjective Well-Being

Another way that researchers define happiness is by examining high life satisfaction, frequent positive feelings, and infrequent negative feelings (Diener, 1984). “Subjective well-being” is the label given by scientists to the various forms of happiness taken together. Although there are additional forms of SWB, the three in the table below have been studied extensively. The table also shows that the causes of the different types of happiness can be somewhat different.

You can see in the table that there are different causes of happiness, and that these causes are not identical for the various types of SWB. Therefore, there is no single key, no magic wand—high SWB is achieved by combining several different important elements (Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2008). Thus, people who promise to know the key to happiness are oversimplifying.

Factors Connected to Happiness

What really makes people happy? What factors contribute to sustained joy and contentment? Is it money, attractiveness, material possessions, a rewarding occupation, or a satisfying relationship? Extensive research over the years has examined this question. One finding is that age is related to happiness: Life satisfaction usually increases the older people get, but there do not appear to be gender differences in happiness (Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999). Although it is important to point out that much of this work has been correlational, many of the key findings (some of which may surprise you) are summarized below.

• Family and social relationships are correlated with happiness (Diener et al., 1999; Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005; Myers, 2000).
• Marriage and family satisfaction are strong predictors of happiness (Myers, 2000).
• Happy individuals have more friends, high-quality social relationships, and strong social support networks (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005).
• Happy people have frequent contact with friends (Pinquart & Sörensen, 2000).
• Money can buy happiness up to a certain point (Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2002; Diener, Oishi, & Ryan, 2013).
• Per capita GDP is associated with happiness levels (Helliwell et al., 2013).
• Changes in GDP have little relationship with changes in happiness (Diener, Tay, & Oishi, 2013).
• Wealthy individuals are happier than poor individuals, but the association is weaker within countries (Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2002).
• Higher incomes may impair people’s ability to savor and enjoy small pleasures (Kahneman, 2011; Quoidbach et al., 2010).
• Education and meaningful employment are correlated with happiness (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005).
• Education shows a weak positive correlation with happiness, while intelligence is not appreciably related (Diener et al., 1999).
• Religiosity correlates with happiness, especially in nations with difficult living conditions (Hackney & Sanders, 2003; Diener, Tay, & Myers, 2011).
• Culture influences happiness through the valuation of certain characteristics (Diener, 2012).
• Self-esteem predicts life satisfaction more strongly in individualistic cultures (Diener, Diener, & Diener, 1995).
• Extraverted individuals are happier in extroverted cultures (Fulmer et al., 2010).

So we’ve identified many factors that exhibit some correlation to happiness. What factors don’t show a correlation? Researchers have studied both parenthood and physical attractiveness as potential contributors to happiness, but no link has been identified. Although people tend to believe that parenthood is central to a meaningful and fulfilling life, aggregate findings from a range of countries indicate that people who do not have children are generally happier than those who do (Hansen, 2012). Although one’s perceived level of attractiveness seems to predict happiness, a person’s objective physical attractiveness is only weakly correlated with her happiness (Diener, Wolsic, & Fujita, 1995).