How Do People Pursue Happiness?: Relating Personality, Happiness-Increasing Strategies, and Well-Being

Abstract

affiliation, Big Five, factor analysis, goals, happiness, leisure, mediation, mental control, personality, subjective well-being,

Differences in Happiness-Increasing Strategies Between and Within Affective Profiles

“…The aim of the present study was to replicate the findings from Schütz and colleagues [1] using a larger sample, a person-oriented method to construe the four affective profiles (i.e., cluster analysis), and a recently validated measure of the happiness-increasing strategies scale originally created by Tkach and Lyubomirsky [30]. In essence, the findings by Schütz and colleagues were replicated.…”

“…Happiness-increasing strategies scales [30]: The 33 items (1 = never, 7 = all the time) are organized in eight clusters of strategies: social affiliation (e.g., ''Support and encourage friends''; Cronbach's α = .77), partying and clubbing (e.g., ''Drink alcohol''; Cronbach's α = .75), mental control (e.g., ''Try not to think about being unhappy''; Cronbach's α = .52), instrumental goal pursuit (e.g. '' Attempt to reach full potential''; Cronbach's α = .75), passive leisure (e.g.…”

“…One final limitation worth mentioning is that although we used a validated measure for the assessment of happinessincreasing strategies, the alphas of some of the clusters of strategies were rather low (see also [37]). A way to improve the instrument is to re-organize the items around a stronger theoretical biopsychosocial basis rather than the factor analyses organization proposed by Tkacth and Lyubomirsky [30]. In this context, Cloninger [14] has suggested that human thought can be organized across five planes based on the heriercharly development of the brain through evolution.…”

“…Moreover, a self-fulfilling profile, which is at the fundamental level an optimistic disposition or a happy personality [27], has been linked to biological (e.g., better physical health), psychological (e.g., more effective coping strategies), and social (e.g., positive relationships with others) constructs [20,21,28]. In the pursuit of happiness, for instance, people seem to use eight specific strategies to maintain or increase happiness [29,30]: social affiliation, partying and clubbing, instrumental goal pursuit, mental control, active leisure, passive leisure, direct attempts, and religion (see Table 1 for a definition of each strategy). In this context, depending on their affective profile, individuals should differ in which strategies they use to increase their happiness, since individuals with different profiles vary in aspects of cognition, emotion, and conation [1,20,24,31].…”

Self-Reported Satisfaction and the Economic Crisis of 2007–2010: Or How People in the UK and Germany Perceive a Severe Cyclical Downturn

“…Moreover, Sacks et al (2010Sacks et al ( , 2013 suggest that subjective well-being grows alongside living standards, though they find the marginal impact of a unit of extra income diminishing and Powdthavee (2010) also finds larger income effects than previous studies using instrumental variables techniques. In a recent paper Easterlin (2013) 5 Also see the literature on social capital and life satisfaction, which shows a clear and positive link between these variables (see Becchetti et al 2008and 2009, Bartolini 2007, Helliwell and Putnam 2004, Tkach and Lyubomirsky (2006, Winkelmann 2009 for Germany and Powdthavee 2008 for the UK). As life satisfaction increases with the level of social involvement, increasing regional unemployment may create possibilities for social interaction and thereby influence life satisfaction positively.…”