Conditions of Happiness

This book is about the degree to which people take pleasure in life: in short 'happiness'. It tries to identify conditions that favor a positive appreciation of life. Thus it hopes to shed more light on a longstanding and intriguing ques tion and, possibly, to guide attempts to improve the human lot. During the preceding decades a growing number of investigations have dealt with this issue. As a result there is now a sizable body of data. Yet it is quite difficult to make sense of it. There is a muddle of theories, concepts and indicators, and many of the findings seem to be contradictory. This book attempts to bring some order into the field. The study draws on an inventory of empirical investigations which involved valid indicators of happiness; 245 studies are involved, which together yield some 4000 observations: for the main part correlational ones. These results are presented in full detail in the simultaneously published 'Databook of Happiness' (Veenhoven 1984). The present volume distils conclusions from that wealth of data. It tries to assess the reality value of the findings and the degree to which correlations reflect the conditions of happiness rather than the consequences of it. It then attempts to place the scattered findings in context. As such, this work is not a typical study of literature on happiness.

1 Introduction. - 2 The Concept of Happiness. - 2/1 The various meanings of the word happiness. - 2/2 Happiness defined. - 2/3 Components of happiness. - 2/4 Adjacent concepts. - 2/5 Synonyms of happiness. - 2/6 Summary. - 3 Can Happiness be Measured? . - 3/1 Validity problems. - 3/2 Reliability problems. - 3/3 Problems of comparison. - 3/4 Summary. - 4 Indicators of Happiness. - 4/1 Indicators of overall happiness. - 4/2 Indicators of hedonic level of affect. - 4/3 Indicators of contentment. - 4/4 Composites. - 4/5 Do the three kinds of indicators tap different phenomena? . - 4/6 Summary. - 5 Gathering the Available Data. - 5/1 Searching empirical happiness studies. - 5/2 The studies found. - 5/3 Presenting the findings. - 5/4 Limitations of the data. - 5/5 Summary. - 6 Happiness and Living Conditions. - 6/1 Happiness and society. - 6/2 Happiness and one s place in society. - 6/3 Happiness and work. - 6/4 Happiness and intimate ties. - 6/5 Summary. - 7 Happiness and Individual Characteristics. - 7/1 Happiness and personal resources. - 7/2 Happiness and some personality traits. - 7/3 Happiness and lifestyle. - 7/4 Happiness and longings. - 7/5 Happiness and convictions. - 7/6 Happiness and appreciations. - 7/7 Summary. - 8 Antecedents of Happiness. - 8/1 Happiness and earlier living conditions. - 8/2 Happiness and earlier personal characteristics. - 8/3 Summary. - 9 Conclusions. - 9/1 Conditions of happiness. - 9/2 Myths about happiness. - References. - Author index.