Happiness is a simple word, but everybody has their own definition of happiness. One of happiness concept that people always know is wealth, but it appears that having a higher income can make a substantial difference for people whose basic needs are not being met. However, for middle and upper-income classes, studies have found that acquiring more wealth is not likely to significantly enhance happiness in the long-term.
Based on this research, scientists make a theory saying that material desire of an individual increases as the income also increases. In other word, the more someone has, the more that person wants. Diener, E., & Biswas-Diener, R. (2002). Will money increase subjective well-being? Social Indicators Research, Vol. 57, pp. 119-169.
So what else does someone need to be happy if they have fulfilled their material needs?
Many researchers have found there are three fundamental, psychological aspects that a one needs to maximize their happiness:
- Autonomy: Believing that we are the cause of our own actions empowers us to live our lives in a way that we find meaningful and satisfying. Autonomy is the freedom and power that makes us feel alive knowing that we are the creators of our own destiny and that life is a canvas we can paint as we please.
- Relatedness: Human beings are social by nature which means human needs each other in their life.To feel accepted in their society and needs of intimate contact with other people are important factors to make people feel cared for, in an otherwise lonely world. Sheldon,K.M., Elliot, A.J., & Kim, Y., Kasser, T. (2001). What Is Satisfying About Satisfying Events? Testing 10 Candidate Psychological Needs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 80, No. 2.
blog.clarity.fm
Nathan, I agree a lot with the beginning of this article. The second half of the article also gives very good facts. The only issue I see in this article is the main idea of it. You list 4 separate categories of what does/doesn't make a person happy, but the original one about money doesn't relate as strongly as the others to your main idea. You start off talking about money, so I figured it would continue on money. I like how you underlined certain important pieces to your blog post, it helped me follow. Overall you did a great job giving different aspects of what makes a person happy. Nice job!
ReplyDeleteI liked the set up of this blog post. You made very strong points. It made me think about my life and if I was doing what the main points said. I will keep it in mind when I'm going through everyday life. I love how you mention that usually everyone measures happiness by wealth. I agree with you that it shouldn't be that way. Overall, very useful information and great setup.
ReplyDeleteI really liked how each factors of happiness was well-organized and had pictures that went along with them. Good use of underlining. You covered factors of happiness that isn't always discussed and brought up so it made it interesting to read. Great job.
ReplyDelete