Happiness facts for kids

The smiley face is a well-known symbol of happiness.

A happy worker.

Happiness is a feeling of pleasure and positivity. When someone feels good, proud, excited, relieved or satisfied about something, that person is said to be "happy". Feeling happy may help people to relax and to smile.

Happiness is usually thought of as the opposite of sadness. However, it is possible to feel both at once, often about different things, or sometimes even about the same thing.

Throughout life, one's views of happiness and what brings happiness can evolve. In early and emerging adulthood many people focus on seeking happiness through friends, objects, and money. Middle aged-adults generally transition from searching for object-based happiness to looking for happiness in money and relationships. In older adulthood, people tend to focus more on personal peace and lasting relationships (ex. children, spouse, grandchildren).

Many philosophers have said that people in the world go back and forth between times of happiness and sadness, but there is nobody who is always happy or always sad. Happiness was thought of as the key to love in ancient civilizations such as the Incas and the Mayans.

Measurement
Effects
Aristotle
Nietzsche
Interesting facts about happiness
Images for kids
See also

Measurement

Worldwide levels of happiness as measured by the World Happiness Report (2023)

People have been trying to measure happiness for centuries. In 1780, the English utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham proposed that as happiness was the primary goal of humans, it should be measured as a way of determining how well the government was performing.

Today, happiness is typically measured using self-report surveys. Self-reporting is prone to cognitive biases and other sources of errors, such as peak–end rule. Studies show that memories of felt emotions can be inaccurate. Affective forecasting research shows that people are poor predictors of their future emotions, including how happy they will be.

Happiness economists are not overly concerned with philosophical and methodological issues and continue to use questionaries to measure average happiness of populations.

Several scales have been developed to measure happiness:

The Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) is a four-item scale, measuring global subjective happiness from 1999. The scale requires participants to use absolute ratings to characterize themselves as happy or unhappy individuals, as well as it asks to what extent they identify themselves with descriptions of happy and unhappy individuals.
The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) from 1988 is a 20-item questionnaire, using a five-point Likert scale (1 = very slightly or not at all, 5 = extremely) to assess the relation between personality traits and positive or negative affects at "this moment, today, the past few days, the past week, the past few weeks, the past year, and in general". A longer version with additional affect scales was published 1994.
The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) is a global cognitive assessment of life satisfaction developed by Ed Diener. A seven-point Likert scale is used to agree or disagree with five statements about one's life.
The Cantril ladder method has been used in the World Happiness Report. Respondents are asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10, and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale.
Positive Experience; the survey by Gallup asks if, the day before, people experienced enjoyment, laughing or smiling a lot, feeling well-rested, being treated with respect, learning or doing something interesting. 9 of the top 10 countries in 2018 were South American, led by Paraguay and Panama. Country scores range from 85 to 43.
The Oxford Happiness Inventory is a comprehensive assessment tool consisting of 29 items, in which the person has to chose one of four options. It is user-friendly and easy to administer. This questionnaire shows the amount of well-being of a person. Providing quality insights of the happiness of one person.

Since 2012, a World Happiness Report has been published. Happiness is evaluated, as in "How happy are you with your life as a whole?", and in emotional reports, as in "How happy are you now?," and people seem able to use happiness as appropriate in these verbal contexts. Using these measures, the report identifies the countries with the highest levels of happiness. In subjective well-being measures, the primary distinction is between cognitive life evaluations and emotional reports.

The UK began to measure national well-being in 2012, following Bhutan, which had already been measuring gross national happiness.

Academic economists and international economic organizations are arguing for and developing multi-dimensional dashboards which combine subjective and objective indicators to provide a more direct and explicit assessment of human wellbeing. There are many different contributors to adult wellbeing, such as the point that happiness judgements partly reflect the presence of salient constraints, and that fairness, autonomy, community and engagement are key aspects of happiness and wellbeing throughout the life course. Although these factors play a role in happiness, they do not all need to improve simultaneously to help one achieve an increase in happiness.

Happiness has been found to be quite stable over time.

Effects

There is a wealth of cross-sectional studies on happiness and physical health that shows consistent positive relationships. Follow-up studies appear to show that happiness does not predict longevity in sick populations, but that it does predict longevity among healthy populations.

Other positive effects of happiness and being in a good mood, that have been studied and confirmed, are that happier people tend to be more helpful, attentive, and generous to others, as well as to themselves. Happy people also have been shown to act more cooperatively and less aggressively, and be more likely to help others in need. They were also found to be more sociable and communicative.

More positive effects that happiness seems to evoke are creative problem solving, persisting through challenges, more intrinsic motivation for work related or responsible tasks, and being more effective at using efficient decision-making strategies.

Aristotle

In the Nicomachean Ethics, written in 350 BCE, Aristotle stated that happiness (also being well and doing well) is the only thing that humans desire for their own sake, unlike riches, honour, health or friendship.

For Aristotle the term eudaimonia, which is translated as 'happiness' or 'flourishing' is an activity rather than an emotion or a state.

Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche critiqued the English Utilitarians' focus on attaining the greatest happiness, stating that "Man does not strive for happiness, only the Englishman does". Nietzsche meant that making happiness one's ultimate goal and the aim of one's existence, in his words "makes one contemptible."

Interesting facts about happiness

A positive relationship has been suggested between the volume of the brain's gray matter in the right precuneus area and one's subjective happiness score.
Sonja Lyubomirsky has estimated that 50 percent of a given human's happiness level could be genetically determined, 10 percent is affected by life circumstances and situation, and a remaining 40 percent of happiness is subject to self-control.
Research shows that good mental health and good relationships contribute more to happiness than income does.
Individuals who report high happiness smile more often, exhibit more social behavior, are more helpful.
While some believe that success breeds happiness, Lyubomirsky, King and Diener found that happiness precedes success in income, relationships, marriages, work performance, and health.
Richer nations tend to have higher measures of happiness than poorer nations. The relationship between wealth and happiness is not linear and the same GDP increase in poor countries will have more effect on happiness than in wealthy countries.
Many studies have observed the effects of volunteerism (as a form of altruism) on happiness and health and have consistently found that those who exhibit volunteerism also have better current and future health and well-being.
Happiness forms a central theme of Buddhist teachings. For ultimate freedom from suffering, the Noble Eightfold Path leads its practitioner to Nirvana, a state of everlasting peace. Ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms. More mundane forms of happiness, such as acquiring wealth and maintaining good friendships, are also recognized as worthy goals for lay people.
Happiness or simcha (Hebrew: שמחה) in Judaism is considered an important element in the service of God.
In Advaita Vedanta, the ultimate goal of life is happiness.