What is happiness?

Published on 30 December 2023 at 16:15

A person thinks I have all those things people cannot imagine even in their dreams, but he is not happy. When he looks at people happy with their beloveds and laughing with them, this question emerges in his mind: Why am I not happy? What is the reality of happiness? Is happiness a relative concept? Why are some poor people happy while some rich people are sad? Humans have been searching for answers to these questions for thousands of years. However, despite many answers from researchers, they are still curious.

When philosophers write about "happiness," they usually mean one of two things, each of which corresponds to a distinct interpretation of the term:

  • A mental condition
  • A life that is prosperous for the one living it

In the first instance, our worry is purely psychological. In the same way that research on pleasure or depression primarily addresses psychological issues, the study of specific mental states is at the heart of research on happiness in this sense, or what is known as the (long-term) "psychological sense." What is this mental state that we refer to as happiness? Responses to this topic typically center on satisfaction, pleasure, or a positive emotional condition.

In the second scenario, we are discussing a particular form of value that philosophers these days choose to refer to as prudential value, which is also generally known as well-being, welfare, utility, or flourishing. In this context, "happiness" refers to things that are advantageous to an individual, serve her interests, improve her situation, or are desirable to her for her own reasons. Being highly well-off means that one is doing well, having luck, or being in a desirable situation. While we may be envious of or happy for the good fortune of others and feel thankful for our own, being ill or performing poorly may elicit sympathy or pity. Being kind to someone else is not the same as just being nice in general. For example, being honest might be good for you at all times, but not always when it requires self-sacrifice. It should come as no surprise that the word "happiness" comes from the phrase for good luck, or "good hap," and that other languages' translations of it also share similar roots. When we use the term "happiness" in this sense—dubbed the "well-being sense"—we mean living a life that is fulfilling and successful for you.

Why are psychologists interested in happiness?

Nowadays, happiness in the second sense overwhelms happiness in the first sense. Generally, psychologists define happiness as subjective well-being. There are two reasons why happiness interests psychologists. First, because the general public is curious about happiness, psychologists investigate it. Happiness is always at the top of the list when individuals from all over the world are asked to identify the things that are most important to them. More important to people than having money, staying healthy, or even going to paradise is finding happiness. Psychologists think that by researching the variables linked to happiness, they may assist individuals in achieving this objective of pleasure.

The second reason is that an individual's subjective reactions to the environment might reveal fundamental aspects of human nature. People and animals are driven to pursue things in the world that provide them pleasure and to avoid those that bring them pain, according to one of the fundamental theories of psychology. This tendency is most likely the outcome of adaptive processes that direct organisms toward resources and away from threats. If this is the case, then a multitude of insightful and illuminating responses to the world ought to be forthcoming. For example, some psychologists have proposed that having supportive and strong social ties is fundamental to human nature. They use research in the area of subjective well-being to back up their assertion that a person's happiness is consistently correlated with the quality of their social ties. Enumerating the correlates of happiness should, therefore, yield valuable insights into the characteristics of human nature.

What is subjective well-being?

Generally, happiness is defined as subjective well-being. However, it is not correct because subjective well-being contains meaning broader than happiness. According to Diener, the components of subjective well-being are life satisfaction (global judgments of one's life), satisfaction with important domains (e.g., work satisfaction), positive affect (experiencing many pleasant emotions and moods), and low levels of negative affect (experiencing a few unpleasant emotions and moods). The OECD suggested three components of well-being.

Life Evaluation

Life evaluations record a thoughtful analysis of an individual's life or a particular facet of it. This could be a more targeted evaluation or an appraisal of "life as a whole." These evaluations are the outcome of the person's judgment rather than an account of their emotional condition.

Affect

The word psychologists use to characterize a person's feelings is affect. Affect measures are similar to measures of specific feelings or emotional states, and they are usually taken in relation to a certain moment in time. These metrics record people's experiences of life rather than their recollections of it.

Eudaimonic

The idea of healthy psychological functioning—also known as "flourishing" or "eudaimonic" well-being—has been the subject of an enormous amount of literature. Eudaimonic well-being focuses on functioning and the realization of an individual's potential rather than only the respondent's reflective assessment and emotional states. For example, Huppert, who developed the psychological well-being questionnaire for the European Social Survey, defined the "functioning" component of well-being as comprising autonomy, competence, interest in learning, goal orientation, sense of purpose, resilience, social engagement, caring, and kindness.

Eudaimonic conceptions of subjective well-being are thus very different from the emotional and evaluative components in that they have a more instrumental focus and are more preoccupied with skills than with end results. Eudaimonia measurement is a useful response to the criticism that the measurement of subjective well-being is "happiology," or built purely on hedonistic philosophy. It also aligns with many people's perceptions of what is important to value in life because it draws on both psychological and humanist literature, which identifies key universal "needs" or "goals."

In conclusion, it is significant to consider various meanings of happiness to understand its meaning when reading any blog or article. In addition, we should be careful when using the word happiness because happiness differs from subjective well-being.

 

 


























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