Happiness through leisure

Happiness is important to individuals. If one were to make a judgment based on the vast amount of self-help books available in any bookstore, the conclusion would have to be that happiness is a very important aspect of people’s lives. Whether such books actually provide any solutions to increase happiness is doubtful (Bergsma, 2008). Nevertheless, many are clearly interested in happiness

Measures of happiness: Which to choose?

Happiness is defined as the subjective enjoyment of one’s life as a whole, also called ‘life-satisfaction.’ Two components of happiness are distinguished; an affective component (how well one feels most of the time) and a cognitive component (the degree to which one perceived to get what one wants from life). In this chapter, I present an overview of valid measures of these concepts, drawing on the ‘Collection of Happiness Measures’ of the ‘World Database of Happiness’. To date (2016), this collection includes more than twothousand measures of happiness, mostly single direct questions. Links in this text lead to detail about these measures and the studies in this chapter, I describe the differences and discuss their strengths and weaknesse

Giving Leads to Happiness in Young Children

Evolutionary models of cooperation require proximate mechanisms that sustain prosociality despite inherent costs to individuals. The “warm glow” that often follows prosocial acts could provide one such mechanism; if so, these emotional benefits may be observable very early in development. Consistent with this hypothesis, the present study finds that before the age of two, toddlers exhibit greater happiness when giving treats to others than receiving treats themselves. Further, children are happier after engaging in costly giving – forfeiting their own resources – than when giving the same treat at no cost. By documenting the emotionally rewarding properties of costly prosocial behavior among toddlers, this research provides initial support for the claim that experiencing positive emotions when giving to others is a proximate mechanism for human cooperation

Life is Getting Better: Societal Evolution and Fit with Human Nature

Human society has changed much over the last centuries and this process of ‘modernization’ has profoundly affected the lives of individuals; currently we live quite different lives from those forefathers lived only five generations ago. There is difference of opinion as to whether we live better now than before and consequently there is also disagreement as to whether we should continue modernizing or rather try to slow the process down. Quality-of-life in a society can be measured by how long and happy its inhabitants live. Using these indicators I assess whether societal modernization has made life better or worse. Firstly I examine findings of present day survey research. I start with a cross-sectional analysis of 143 nations in the years 2000–2008 and find that people live longer and happier in today’s most modern societies. Secondly I examine trends in modern nations over the last decade and find that happiness and longevity have increased in most cases. Thirdly I consider the long-term and review findings from historical anthropology, which show that we lived better in the early hunter-gatherer society than in the later agrarian society. Together these data suggest that societal evolution has worked out differently for the quality of human life, first negatively, in the change from a hunter-gatherer existence to agriculture, and next positively, in the more recent transformation from an agrarian to an industrial society. We live now longer and happier than ever before

Ageing, Health and Life Satisfaction of the Oldest Old: An Analysis for Germany

This analysis uses data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) and the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to assess the effect of ageing and health on the life satisfaction of the oldest old (defined as 75 and older). We observe a U-shaped relationship between age and levels of life satisfaction for individuals aged between 16 and approximately 65. Thereafter, life satisfaction declines rapidly and the lowest absolute levels of life satisfaction are recorded for the oldest old. This decline is primarily attributable to low levels of perceived health. Once cohort effects are also controlled for, life satisfaction remains relatively constant across the lifespan