Week 14 Happiness

Subjective well-being (SWB)

Scientific term for happiness; the perception that life is going well.

Life satisfaction

Cognitive judgment that your life overall meets your standards.

Frequent positive feelings

Positive emotions such as enjoyment, love, and contentment.

Infrequent negative feelings

Low levels of negative emotions like anger, worry, and sadness.

Internal causes of happiness

Factors such as temperament, personality, and cognitive outlook.

Resilience

The ability to bounce back from failure and disappointment.

External causes of happiness

Factors such as relationships, basic needs, health, and work.

Diminishing returns

The principle that after a certain point, additional income has less effect on happiness.

Adaptation

The process of returning to a baseline level of subjective well-being after significant life events.

Self-report scales

Main tools for measuring happiness, including life satisfaction and positive/negative affect scales.

Moderate happiness

Optimal for achievement domains such as income and education.

Very high happiness

Optimal for relationship and prosocial domains such as volunteering and stability.

Positive illusions

An idealization that helps sustain commitment in relationships.

Prosocial behavior

Engaging in actions that benefit others and society.

Life satisfaction scales

Tools used to assess an individual's overall life satisfaction.

Happiness

A state of well-being characterized by frequent positive feelings and contentment, scientifically referred to as Subjective Well-being (SWB).

Temperament

An individual's innate, genetically based behavioral and emotional predispositions.

Personality

The characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that make a person unique.

Cognitive outlook

An individual's unique way of thinking, perceiving problems, and interpreting events.

Baseline level of subjective well-being

An individual's typical or average level of happiness to which they tend to return after experiencing positive or negative life events.