PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE General Article WHO IS HAPPY? By David G. Myers' and Ed Diener 'Hope College and University of Illinois A flood of new studies explores people's subjective well-being (SWB). Frequent positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and a global sense of satisfaction with life define high SWB. These studies reveal that happiness and life satisfaction are similarly available to the young and the old, women and men. blacks and whites, the rich and the working-class. Better clues to well-being come from knowing about a person's traits, close relationships, work experiences, culture, and religiosity. We present the elements of an appraisal-based theory of happiness that recognizes the importance of adaptation, cultural world- view, and personal goals. Books, books, and more books have analyzed human misery. During its first century, psychology focused far more on negative emotions, such as depression and anx- iety, than on positive emotions, such as happiness and satisfaction. Even today, our texts say more about suf- fering than about joy. That is now changing. During the 1980s, the number of Psychological Abstract citations of "well-being," "happiness," and "life satisfaction" quin- tupled, to 780 articles annually. Social scientists, policy- makers, and laypeople express increasing interest in the conditions, traits, and attitudes that define quality of life. Studies (see Diener & Diener, 1994) reveal that hap- piness is more abundant than believed by writers from Samuel Johnson ("That man is never happy for the present is so true"; Boswell, 1776/1973, Vol. 2, p. 37) to John Powell ("Professionals estimate that only 10 to 15 percent of Americans think of themselves as truly happy"; Powell, 1989. p. 4). Thomas Szasz (quoted by Winokur, 1987) summed up the assumption of many peo- ple: "Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly at- tributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults" (p. 133). Recognizing that most people are reasonably happy, but that some people are happier than others, researchers are offering a fresh perspective on an old puzzle: Who are the happy people? Does happiness favor those of a par- ticular age, sex, or race? Does wealth enhance well- being? Does happiness come with having certain traits? a particular job? close friends? an active faith? The scientific study of emotional well-being is new, Address correspondence to David G. Myers, Hope College, Hol- land, MI 49422-9000, e-mail: myers@hope.edu, or Ed Diener, Univer- sity of Illinois, Department of Psychology, 603 East Daniel St., Cham- paign, IL 61820, e-mail: ediener@s.psych.uiuc.edu. but theories about happiness are ages old. The philoso- phers of ancient Greece believed that happiness accom- panies a life of intelligent reflection. "There is no fool who is happy, and no wise man who is not." echoed the Roman philosopher Cicero (in De Finibus). The Epicu- rean and Stoic philosophers offered variations on this song of happy wisdom. Aristotle regarded happiness as the summum bonum, the supreme good. Virtue, he be- lieved, is synonymous with happiness. In the centuries since, sages have offered contrasting ideas about the roots of happiness. They have told us that happiness comes from knowing the truth, and from preserving healthy illusions; that it comes from restraint, and from purging ourselves of pent-up emotions; that it comes from being with other people, and from living in contem- plative solitude. The list goes on, but the implication is clear: Discerning the actual roots of subjective well-being requires rigorous scientific inquiry. MEASURING SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING Psychological investigations of well-being complement long-standing measures of physical and material well- being with assessments of subjective well-being (SWB). Researchers have, for example, asked people across the industrialized world to reflect on their happiness and life satisfaction. Measures range from multi-item scales to single questions, such as "How satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days? Are you very satisfied? satisfied? not very satisfied? not at all satisfied?" Self-reports of global well-being have temporal stabil- ity in the 0.5 to 0.7 range over periods from 6 months to 6 years (Diener, 1994; Magnus & Diener, 1991). But can we believe people's answers? Or are "happy" people often in denial" of their actual misery? It is reassuring, first, that response artifacts, such as the effects of social desirability and current mood, do not invalidate the SWB measures (Diener, Sandvik, Pavot, & Gallagher, 1991; Diener, Suh, Smith, & Shao, in press). For example, social desirability scores do correlate modestly with self- reported SWB scores, but they predict non-self-report SWB measures (such as peer reports) equally well, sug- gesting that social desirability is a substantive character- istic that enhances well-being. Second, people's self-reported well-being converges with other measures (e.g., Pavot, Diener, Colvin, & 10 Copyright 1995 American Psychological Society PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 1995 Sandvik, 1991; Sandvik, Diener, & Seidlitz, 1993). Those who describe themselves as happy and satisfied with life seem happy to their friends and to their family members. Their daily mood ratings reveal mostly positive emotions. They recall more positive events and fewer negative events (Seidlitz & Diener. 1993). And ratings derived from clinical interviews converge well with their SWB scores. Third. SWB measures exhibit construct validity. They are responsive to recent good and bad events and to ther- apy (e.g.. Headey & Wearing, 1992; Sandvik et al., 1993). They correlate inversely with feeling ill (Sandvik et al., 1993). And they predict other indicators of psychological well-being. Compared with depressed people, happy peo- ple are less self-focused, less hostile and abusive. and less vulnerable to disease. They also are more loving. forgiving, trusting, energetic, decisive, creative, helpful. and sociable (Myers. 1993a: Veenhoven, 1988). Finally, the research concerns subjective well-being. for which the final judge is whoever lives inside a per- son's skin. For all these reasons. researchers take seri- ously people's reports of their subjective unhappiness (or happiness), especially when supported by converging re- ports from informants and by observations of accompa- nying dysfunction (or social competence). THE COMPONENTS OF WELL-BEING High SWB reflects a preponderance of positive thoughts and feelings about one's life. At the cognitive level. SWB includes a global sense of satisfaction with life, fed by specific satisfactions with one's work, mar- riage, and other domains. At the affective level. people with high SWB feel primarily pleasant emotions, thanks largely to their positive appraisal of ongoing events. Peo- ple with low SWB appraise their life circumstances and events as undesirable, and therefore feel unpleasant emo- tions such as anxiety, depression, and anger. Surprisingly, positive and negative emotions correlate with different predictor variables (e.g.. Costa & McCrae, 1980: Magnus & Diener, 1991). Moreover, positive and negative emotions are only weakly correlated with each other (Bradburn, 1969; Diener & Emmons, 1985). Know- ing the global amount of good feeling a person experi- ences over time does not indicate the global amount of bad feeling the person experiences. How could this be? If good feelings exclude bad feelings at the same moment in i time, then the more time one spends up the less time one can spend down. Thus, the frequencies of good and bad moods are inversely related. People who experience their good moods intensely, however. tend similarly to expe- rience intense bad moods. For some people, high highs alternate with low lows. Others are characteristically happy, or melancholy, or unemotional. VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 1995 David G. Myers and Ed Diener Thus, positive and negative affect seem not to be bi- polar opposites. Positive well-being is not just the ab- sence of negative emotions. Rather, SWB is defined by three correlated but distinct factors: the relative presence of positive affect, absence of negative affect, and satis- faction with life. MYTHS OF HAPPINESS So, who are the happy people? By identifying predic- tors of happiness and life satisfaction, psychologists and sociologists have exploded some myths. Is Happiness Being Young? Middle-Aged? Newly Retired? Many people believe there are notably unhappy times of life-typically the stress-filled teen years, the "midlife crisis" years, or the declining years of old age. But in- terviews with representative samples of people of all ages reveal that no time of life is notably happier or unhappier than others (Latten, 1989; Stock, Okun. Haring, & Wit- ter, 1983). This conclusion is reinforced by a 1980s sur- vey of 169.776 people representatively sampled in 16 na- tions (Inglehart. 1990; see Fig. 1). The predictors of happiness do change with age (e.g., satisfaction with so- cial relations and health become more important in later life: Herzog. Rogers, & Woodworth. 1982). And the emo- tional terrain varies with age (teens, unlike adults, usually come up from gloom or down from elation within an hour's time: Csikszentmihalyi & Larson. 1984). Yet knowing someone's age gives no clue to the person's average sense of well-being. J Nor does one find in rates of depression, suicide. ca- Percent "satisfied with life" hil 40 20 15-24 25.34 35.44 45.54 35-64 65+ Age Group Fig. 1. Age and well-being in 16 nations. Data from 169,776 people. representatively sampled from 1980 to 1986, and re- ported by Inglehart (1990). 11 PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Who Is Happy? reer change, or divorce any evidence of increased per- sonal upheaval during the supposed early 40s "midlife crisis" years. People do face crisis times, but not at any predictable age (Hunter & Sundel, 1989; McCrae & Costa, 1990). The "empty nest syndrome"-a sense of despondency and lost meaning when children leave home also turns out to be rare (Adelmann, Antonucci, Crohan, & Coleman, 1989; Glenn, 1975). For most cou- ples, the empty nest is a happy place-often a place where marital happiness rebounds after the stresses of child rearing. Does Happiness Have a Favorite Sex? There are striking gender gaps in misery: Women are twice as vulnerable as men to disabling depression and anxiety, and men are five times as vulnerable as women to alcoholism and antisocial personality disorder (Robins & Regier, 1991). Women's more intense sadness, given bad circumstances, must be considered in light of their greater capacity for joy under good circumstances (Dien- er, Sandvik, & Larsen, 1985; Fujita, Diener, & Sandvik, 1991). Although women report slightly greater happiness than men when only positive emotions are assessed (Wood, Rhodes, & Whelan, 1989), the net result is roughly equal hedonic balance for women and men. In a meta-analysis of 146 studies, gender therefore accounted for less than 1% of people's global well-being (Haring, Stock, & Okun, 1984). The finding generalizes world- wide. In the 1980s collaborative survey of 16 nations, 80% of men and 80% of women said that they were at least fairly satisfied" with life (Inglehart, 1990; see Fig. 2). A similar result appeared in a study of 18,032 univer- sity students surveyed in 39 countries (Michalos, 1991). 100 Percent "Satisfied" 80 60 F 40 20 0 Percent "Very Happy" Males Females Males Females Fig. 2. Gender and well-being in 16 nations. Data from 169,776 people, representatively sampled from 1980 to 1986, and re- ported by Inglehart (1990). 12 Does Happiness Vary by Race? Knowing someone's race or ethnic group also gives little clue to the person's psychological well-being. Afri- can-Americans, for example, report nearly as much hap- piness as European-Americans and are actually slightly less vulnerable to depression (Diener, Sandvik, Seidlitz, & Diener, 1993; Robins & Regier, 1991; Stock, Okun, Haring, & Witter, 1985). Blacks and whites, like women and men, and people with and without disabilities, also score similarly on tests of self-esteem (Crocker & Major, 1989). Despite discrimination, noted Crocker and Major, people in disadvantaged groups maintain self-esteem by valuing the things at which they excel, by making com- parisons within their own groups, and by attributing problems to external sources such as prejudice. Does Happiness Vary by Culture? Interestingly, nations differ strikingly in happiness, ranging from Portugal, where about 10% of people say they are very happy, to the Netherlands, where about 40% of people say the same (Inglehart, 1990). Nations differ markedly in happiness even when income differ- ences are controlled for (Diener, Diener, & Diener, 1994). Although national levels of SWB covary with whether basic physical needs are met, countries such as Japan have much lower SWB than one would expect based only on material considerations. In general, collec- tivist cultures report lower SWB than do individualistic cultures, where norms more strongly support experienc- ing and expressing positive emotions (Diener, Suh, Smith, & Shao, in press). National differences appear not to reflect mere differ- ences in the connotations of the translated questions. For example, regardless of whether they are German-, French-, or Italian-speaking, the Swiss rank high on self- reported life satisfaction-significantly higher than their German, French, and Italian neighbors (Inglehart, 1990). Does Money Buy Happiness? The American dream seems to have become life, lib- erty, and the purchase of happiness. In 1993, 75% of America's entering collegians declared that an "essen- tial" or "very important" life goal was "being very well off financially"-nearly double the 39% who said the same in 1970 (Astin, Green, & Korn, 1987; Astin, Korn, & Riggs, 1993). This goal topped a list of 19 possible life objectives, exceeding the rated importance even of "rais- ing a family" and "helping others in difficulty." Most adults share this materialism, believing that increased in- come would make them happier (Strumpel, 1976). Few VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 1995 PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE David G. Myers and Ed Diener agree that money can buy happiness, but many agree that life a little more money would make them a little happier. Are wealth and well-being indeed connected? We can make the question more specific: First, are people in rich countries more satisfied than those in not-so-rich coun- tries? As Figure 3 illustrates, the correlation between na- tional wealth and well-being is positive (+.67, despite curious reversals, such as the Irish reporting greater satisfaction than the wealthier West Germans). But na- tional wealth is confounded with other variables, such as number of continuous years of democracy, which corre- lates +.85 with average life satisfaction (Inglehart, 1990). Second, within any country, are rich individuals hap- piest? Having food, shelter, and safety is basic to well- being. Thus, in poor countries, such as Bangladesh and India, satisfaction with finances is a moderate predictor of SWB (Diener & Diener, in press). But once people are able to afford life's necessities, increasing levels of afflu- ence matter surprisingly little. Although the correlation between income and happiness is not negative, it is mod- est. In the United States, one study (Diener et al., 1993) found a mere +.12 correlation between income and hap- piness; increases or decreases in income had no long- term influence on SWB. And Inglehart (1990) noted that in Europe, income "has a surprisingly weak (indeed, vir- tually negligible) effect on happiness" (p. 242). Although satisfaction with income predicts SWB better than actual income, there is only a slight tendency for people who Mean Satisfaction With Life as a Whole (on Scale from 0 to 10) 8.0 7.75 ireland 7.5- 7.25 Switzerland Denmark Sweden Australia Luxembourg Norway Finland Netherlands Canada Britain Belgium West Austria Germany Hungary 6.75 Argentino France South 6.5 Africa Spain Italy 6.25 7.0 6.0 5.75 Greece Portugal 5.5 2,000 4,000 8,000 Japan U.S.A. 10,000 12,000 $4,000 16,000 6,000 Gross National Product/Capita, 1984 Fig. 3. National wealth and well-being in a 24-nation collabo- rative survey. Euro-Barometer and World Values Survey data reported by Inglehart (1990). VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 1995 Average per-person fter-tax income in 1990 dollars $16,000 100% $15,000 90% $14,000 80% $13,000 70% $12,000 Personal income- $11,000 60% $10,000 50% $9000 Percentage very happy 40% $8000 $7000 30% $6000 20% $5000 10% $4000 $3000 0% 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 Year Percentage describing themselves very happy Fig. 4. Inflation-adjusted income and happiness in the United States. National Opinion Research Center happiness data from Niemi, Mueller, and Smith (1989) and T. Smith (personal com- munication, November 1993). Income data from Bureau of the Census (1975) and Economic Indicators. make a great deal of money to be more satisfied with what they make (Campbell, 1981). Wealth, it seems, is like health: Its absence can breed misery, yet having it is no guarantee of happiness. In one survey, people on Forbes's list of wealthiest Americans reported only slightly greater happiness than other Amer- icans; 37% were less happy than the average American (Diener, Horwitz, & Emmons, 1985). Even lottery win- ners gain only a temporary jolt of joy (Argyle, 1986; Brickman, Coates, & Janoff-Bulman, 1978). The emo- tional effects of some tragedies are likewise temporary: After a period of adaptation, people with disabilities usu- ally report a near-normal level of well-being (Diener, 1994). Thus, concluded Kammann (1983), "Objective life circumstances have a negligible role to play in a theory of happiness" (p. 18). Satisfaction is less a matter of getting what you want than wanting what you have. Third, over time, as cultures become more affluent, do their people become happier? In 1957, as economist John Galbraith was about to describe America as The Affluent Society, Americans' per person income, expressed in to- day's dollars, was less than $8,000. Today it is more than $16,000, making America "the doubly affluent soci- ety" with double what money buys. Compared with 1957, Americans have twice as many cars per person- plus microwave ovens, color TVs, VCRs, air condition- ers, answering machines, and $12 billion worth of new brand-name athletic shoes a year. So, are Americans happier than they were in 1957? They are not (see Fig. 4). In 1957, 35% told the National Opinion Research Center that they were "very happy." In 1993, with doubled affluence, 32% said the same (Smith, 1979, and personal communication, November 13 PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Who Is Happy? 1993). To judge by soaring rates of depression (Cross- National Collaborative Group, 1992), a quintupled rate of reported violent crime since 1960, a doubled divorce rate, a slight decline in marital happiness among the marital survivors (Glenn, 1990), and a tripled teen suicide rate, Americans are richer and no happier. Easterlin (in press) has reported the same for European countries and Japan. Thus, although policymakers and economists are wedded to the assumption that SWB rises with income (Easterlin, in press), the data indicate that economic growth in af- fluent count..es gives little boost to human morale. HAPPY PEOPLE If happiness is similarly available to people of any age, sex, or race, and to those of most income levels, who is Institute happiest? Through life's ups and downs, some people's capacity for joy persists undiminished. In one National of Aging study of 5,000 adults, the happiest of people in 1973 were still relatively happy a decade later, despite changes in their work, their residence, and their family status (Costa, McCrae, & Zonderman, 1987). Who are these chronically happy people? The Traits of Happy People In study after study, four inner traits mark happy peo- ple: self-esteem, a sense of personal control, optimism, and extraversion. First, happy people like themselves (Campbell, 1981). On tests of self-esteem, they agree with such statements as "I'm a lot of fun to be with" and "I have good ideas." Indeed, happy people often exhibit a self-serving bias by believing themselves more ethical, more intelligent, less prejudiced, better able to get along with others, and healthier than average (Janoff & Bulman, 1989; Myers, 1993b; Taylor & Brown, 1988). (The findings bring to mind Freud's joke about the man who said to his wife, "If one of us should die, I think I would go live in Paris.") Most people do express positive self-esteem. This helps explain why, contrary to those who would have us be- lieve that happy people are rare, 9 in 10 North Americans describe themselves as at least "pretty happy." The strong link between self-esteem and SWB so often found in individualistic Western cultures is, however, weaker in collectivist cultures, where the group is given priority over the self (Diener & Diener, in press). Second, happy people typically feel personal control (Campbell, 1981; Larson, 1989). Those who feel empow- ered rather than helpless typically do better in school, cope better with stress, and live more happily. When deprived of control over their own lives-an experience studied in prisoners, nursing home patients, and people living under totalitarian regimes-people suffer lower 14 morale and worse health. Severe poverty demoralizes when it erodes people's sense of control over their life circumstances (Dumont, 1989). Third, happy people are usually optimistic. Opti- mists those who agree, for example, that "when I un- dertake something new, I expect to succeed"-tend to be more successful, healthier, and happier than are pessi- mists (Dember & Brooks, 1989; Seligman, 1991). Fourth, happy people tend to be extraverted (Costa & McCrae, 1980; Diener, Sandvik, Pavot, & Fujita, 1992; Emmons & Diener, 1986a, 1986b; Headey & Wearing, 1992). Compared with introverts, extraverts are happier both when alone and with other people (Pavot, Diener, & Fujita, 1990), whether they live alone or with others, whether they live in rural or metropolitan areas, and whether they work in solitary or social occupations (Diener et al., 1992). Reasons for the trait-happiness correlations are not yet fully understood. The causal arrow may go from traits to SWB, or the reverse. Extraversion, for example, may predispose happiness, perhaps because of the social con- tacts extraversion entails. Or happiness may produce outgoing behavior. Outgoing people, for example, usu- ally appear temperamentally high-spirited and relaxed about reaching out to others, which may explain why they marry sooner, get better jobs, and make more friends (Magnus & Diener, 1991). Twin studies indicate genetic influences on SWB (Tellegen et al., 1988). The Relationships of Happy People One could easily imagine why close relationships might exacerbate illness and misery. Close relationships are fraught with stress. "Hell is other people," mused Jean-Paul Sartre (1944/1973, p. 47). Fortunately, the ben- efits of close relationships with friends and family usually outweigh the strains. People who can name several inti- mate friends with whom they share their intimate con- cerns freely are healthier, less likely to die prematurely, and happier than people who have few or no such friends (Burt, 1986; Cohen, 1988; House, Landis, & Umberson, 1988). People report higher positive affect when they are with others (Pavot et al., 1990). In experiments, people relax as they confide painful experiences. In one study, 33 Holocaust survivors spent 2 hr recalling their experi- ences, often revealing intimate details never before dis- closed. Fourteen months later, those who were most self- disclosing had the most improved health (Pennebaker, 1990). Seligman (1991) contended that today's epidemic lev- els of depression stem partly from impoverished social connections in increasingly individualistic Western soci- eties. Individualistic societies offer personal control, har- mony between the inner and outer person, and opportu- VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 1995 PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE nity to express one's feelings and talents, though with the risks of a less embedded, more detached self. Today, 25% of Americans live alone, up from 8% half a century ago. For more than 9 in 10 people, the most significant alternative to aloneness is marriage. As with other close social bonds, broken marital relationships are a source of much self-reported unhappiness, whereas a supportive, intimate relationship is among life's greatest joys (Glenn, 1990). To paraphrase Henry Ward Beecher, "Well- married a person is winged; ill-matched, shackled." Three out of 4 married people say that their spouse is David G. Myers and Ed Diener women report greater life satisfaction than married women" can be laid to rest. Throughout the Western world, married people of both sexes report more happi- ness than those never married, divorced, or separated. The "Flow" of Happy People Turn-of-the-century Russian writer Maksim Gorky an- ticipated recent studies of work satisfaction: "When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery." Work satisfaction affects life satisfaction (Crohan, Antonucci, Adelmann, & Coleman, 1989; their best friend, and 4 out of 5 say they would marry the Freedman, 1978; Michalos, 1986). Why? And why are same person again (Greeley, 1991). Such feelings help explain why over the 1970s and 1980s, 24% of never- than those productively engaged? out-of-work people less likely to feel satisfied with life For many people, work provides personal identity: It tional Opinion Research Center that they were "very helps people define who they are. Work also adds to a married adults, but 39% of married adults, told the Na- The traffic between marriage and happiness, however, appears to be two-way: Happy people are more appealing as potential marriage partners and more likely to marry happy" (Lee, Seccombe, & Shehan, 1991; see Fig. 5). sense of community: It offers people a network of sup- portive relationships and a "we feeling." This sense of pride and belonging to a group helps people construct their social identity. And work can add focus and pur- pose a sense that one's life matters. Studs Terkel (1972) Is marriage, as is so often supposed, more strongly described "the Chicago piano tuner, who seeks and finds associated with men's happiness than women's? The the sound that delights; the bookbinder, who saves a happiness gap between married and never-married peo- piece of history; the Brooklyn fireman, who saves a piece (Mastekaasa, 1992; Scott, 1992). ple (Fig. 5) was slightly greater among men (37.7% vs. of life. . . . There is a common attribute here: a meaning 20.1%, for a 17.6% difference) than women (41.6% vs. to their work well over and beyond the reward of the 25.7%, for a 15.9% difference). In European surveys, and paycheck" (p. xi). Percent Very Happy 40 30 Married adults in a meta-analysis of 93 other studies, the happiness gap Work is, however, sometimes unsatisfying, for two between the married and never-married was virtually reasons. We can be overwhelmed: When challenges ex- identical for men and women (Inglehart, 1990; Wood et ceed our available time and skills, we feel anxious, al., 1989). Although a bad marriage may indeed be more stressed. Or we can be underwhelmed: When challenges depressing to a woman than a man, the myth that **single do not engage our time and skills, we feel bored. Between anxiety and boredom lies a middle ground where chal- lenges engage and match skills. In this zone, we enter an optimal state that Csikszentmihalyi (1990) termed "flow" (Fig. 6). To be in flow is to be un-self-consciously absorbed. In such times, one gets so caught up in an activity that the mind does not wander, one becomes oblivious to sur- roundings, and time flies. Csikszentmihalyi formulated the flow concept after studying artists who would spend hour after hour painting or sculpting with enormous con- centration. Immersed in a project, they worked as if noth- ing else mattered. The artists seemed driven less by the external rewards of doing art-money, praise, promo- tion than by the intrinsic rewards of creating the work. Csikszentmihalyi conducted studies in which people reported on their activities and feelings when paged with electronic beepers. He discovered that happiness comes not from mindless passivity but from engagement in mindful challenge. Whether at work or at leisure, people enjoyed themselves more when absorbed in the flow of an activity than when doing nothing meaningful. Thus, 20 10- Never married adults 0 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 Year 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 Fig. 5. Percentage of people who reported they were "very happy" among married and never-married U.S. adults. Derived from National Opinion Research Center data reported by Lee, Seccombe, and Shehan (1991). VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 1995 15 Who Is Happy? PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Low Skills ANXIETY APATHY High Challenge FLOW Low Challenge BOREDOM Fig. 6. The flow model. When a challenge Skills meta-analysis among the elderly revealed that the two best predictors of well-being among older persons were health and religiousness (Okun & Stock, 1987). Other studies have probed the connection betweer faith and coping with a crisis. Compared with religiously inactive widows, recently widowed women who wor- shipped regularly reported more joy in their lives High (Harvey, Barnes, & Greenwood, 1987; McGloshen & O'Bryant, 1988; Siegel & Kuykendall, 1990). Among mothers of disabled children, those with a deep religious faith were less vulnerable to depression than were those who were irreligious (Friedrich, Cohen, & Wilturner, 1988). People with a strong faith also retained greater happiness after suffering divorce, unemployment, seri- ous illness, or bereavement (Ellison, 1991; McIntosh, Sil- ver, & Wortman, 1993). What explains these positive links between faith and well-being? Is it the supportive close relationships often enjoyed by people who are active in local congregations sense of meaning and purpose that many people derive from their faith? Is it a religious worldview that offers answers to life's deepest questions and an optimistic ap- praisal of life events? Is it the hope that faith affords when people suffer or face what social psychologists Sol- omon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski (1991) called "the terror resulting from our awareness of vulnerability and death" (p. 97)? Such proposed explanations await more engages skills, peo- ple often become so absorbed in the flow of an activity that they lose consciousness of self and time. Adapted from Csikszent- mihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi (1988, p. 251). involvement in interesting activities, including engaging (of which there are 258,000 in the United States)? Is it the work, is a major source of well-being. As playwright Noel Coward observed, interesting work is more fun than fun." The Faith of Happy People The links between religion and mental health are im- pressive. Religious people (often defined as those who rigorous exploration. Elements of a Theory of Happiness attend church regularly) are much less likely than irreli- gious people to become delinquent, to abuse drugs and alcohol, to divorce or be unhappily married, and to com- mit suicide (Batson, Schoenrade, & Ventis, 1993; Cola- A viable theory of happiness must, first, recognize the santo & Shriver, 1989). Religiously active people even importance of adaptation. Over time, the immediate af- tend to be physically healthier and to live longer, in part fective response to significant life events inevitably because of their healthier smoking, eating, and drinking fades. Thus, variables such as income (Diener et al., habits (Koenig, Smiley, & Gonzales, 1988; Levin & 1993), physical attractiveness (Diener, Wolsic, & Fujita, Schiller, 1987; McIntosh & Spilka, 1990). in press), and health (Okun & George, 1984) have mini- Across North America and Europe, religious people mal long-term influence on SWB despite having powerful also report higher levels of happiness and satisfaction effects on people's lives. Although lottery winners are with life (e.g., Poloma & Pendleton, 1990). Religious peo- initially elated, their euphoria soon wanes. "Continued ple are slightly less vulnerable to depression (Brown, pleasures wear off," noted Frijda (1988, p. 353). "Plea- 1993; Gartner, Larson, Allen, & Gartner, 1991). The sure is always contingent upon change and disappears most striking finding, however, comes from the Gallup with continuous satisfaction." Organization (Gallup, 1984), which compared people low Likewise, the agony of most bad events gradually sub- in "spiritual commitment" with highly spiritual people sides. Even the initial psychological trauma of paralyzing (who consistently agree with statements such as "My car accidents typically gives way to a return of normal religious faith is the most important influence in my life."). The highly spiritual were twice as likely to say happiness (Wortman & Silver, 1987). Reflecting on the successes and mental health of American Jews who sur- they were "very happy." Other surveys, in the United vived horrific Holocaust experiences, Helmreich (1992) States and across 14 Western nations, found that happi- noted that "the story of the survivors is one of courage ness and life satisfaction rise with strength of religious and strength, of people who are living proof of the in- affiliation and frequency of worship attendance (Ingle- | domitable will of human beings to survive and of their hart, 1990; Witter, Stock, Okun, & Haring, 1985). One tremendous capacity for hope. It is not a story of remark- 16 VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 1995 PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE able people. It is a story of just how remarkable people can be" (p. 276). In a recent longitudinal study, only life events within the last 3 months influenced SWB (Suh, Diener, & Fujita, in press). The more recent an event, the greater its emo- tional effect. Studies of daily moods (e.g., Clark & Wat- son, 1988; Stone & Neale, 1984) confirm Benjamin Franklin's surmise that happiness "is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day." Thanks to itively. our human capacity for adaptation, the affect system is most attuned to the information value of new events. In addition to adaptation, a second component of a theory of happiness is cultural worldview. Some cultures construe the world as benevolent and controllable. Other cultures emphasize the normality of negative emotions, such as anxiety, anger, and guilt (Diener, Suh, Smith, & Shao, in press). Cultural templates for interpreting life events predispose varying SWB in the absence of differ- ing objective life circumstances. Likewise, some individ- uals appear habitually to interpret many of life's events negatively, whereas others tend to interpret events pos- A third component of a theory of happiness is values and goals. Emmons (1986) found that having goals, mak- ing progress toward goals, and freedom from conflict among one's goals were all predictors of SWB. Diener and Fujita (in press) discovered that resources such as money, social skills, and intelligence were predictive of SWB only if they were relevant to a person's goals. This finding helps explain why income predicts SWB in very poor nations and why self-esteem predicts SWB in wealthy, individualistic nations. Happiness grows less from the passive experience of desirable circumstances than from involvement in valued activities and progress toward one's goals (Diener & Larsen, 1993). CONCLUSION Who is happy? Knowing a person's age, sex, race, and income (assuming the person has enough to afford life's necessities) hardly gives a clue. Better clues come from knowing a person's traits, whether the person enjoys a supportive network of close relationships, whether the person's culture offers positive interpretations for most daily events, whether the person is engaged by work and leisure, and whether the person has a faith that entails social support, purpose, and hope. This new research on psychological well-being is a welcome complement to long-standing studies of depres- sion and anxiety, and of physical and material well-being. By asking who is happy, and why, we can help people rethink their priorities and better understand how to build a world that enhances human well-being. VOL. 6, NO. 1, JANUARY 1995 tute. David G. Myers and Ed Diener REFERENCES Adelmann, P.K., Antonucci. T.C.. Crohan. S.F., & Coleman, L.M. (1989). Empty nest, cohort, and employment in the well-being of midlife women. Sex Roles, 20, 173189. Argyle, M. (1986). The psychology of happiness. London: Methuen. Astin, A.W., Green, K.C., & Korn. W.S. (1987). The American freshman: Twenty year trends. Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, Graduate School of Education, Higher Education Research Institute. Astin, A.W.. Korn. W.S.. & Riggs, E.R. (1993). The American freshman: Na- tional norms for fall 1993. Los Angeles: University of California at Los Angeles, Graduate School of Education, Higher Education Research Insti- Batson. C.D., Schoenrade. P.A., & Ventis, W.L. (1993). Religion and the indi- vidual: A social-psychological perspective. New York: Oxford. Boswell, J. (1973). The life of Samuel Johnson. London: Dent. (Original work published 1776) Bradburn, N. (1969). The structure of psychological well-being. Chicago: Aldine. Brickman, P., Coates, D., & Janoff-Bulman, R.J. (1978). Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 917-927. Brown. L.B. (Ed.). (1993). Religion, personality and mental health. New York: Springer-Verlag. Bureau of the Census. (1975). Historical statistics of the United States, colonial times to 1970. Washington, DC: Superintendent of Documents. Burt, R.S. (1986). Strangers, friends and happiness (GSS Technical Report No. 72). Chicago: University of Chicago, National Opinion Research Center. Campbell, A. (1981). The sense of well-being in America. New York: McGraw- Hill. Clark, L.A., & Watson, D. (1988). Mood and the mundane: Relations between daily life events and self-reported mood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 296308. Cohen, S. (1988). Psychosocial models of the role of social support in the etiology of physical disease. Health Psychology, 7, 269-297. Colasanto, D., & Shriver, J. (1989, May). Mirror of America: Middle-aged face marital crisis. Gallup Report, pp. 34-38. Costa, P.T., Jr., & McCrae, R.R. (1980). Influence of extraversion and neuroti- cism on subjective well-being: Happy and unhappy people. Journal of Per- sonality and Social Psychology, 38, 668-678. Costa, P.T., Jr., McCrae, R.R., & Zonderman, A.B. (1987). Environmental and dispositional influences on well-being: Longitudinal follow-up of an Amer- ican national sample. British Journal of Psychology, 78, 299-306. Crocker. J., & Major, B. (1989). Social stigma and self-esteem: The self- protective properties of stigma. Psychological Review, 96, 608-630. Crohan, S.E., Antonucci, T.C., Adeimann, P.K., & Coleman, L.M. (1989). Job characteristics and well-being at midlife. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 13, 223235. Cross-National Collaborative Group. (1992). The changing rate of major depres- sion. Journal of the American Medical Association, 268, 30983105. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper & Row. Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Csikszentmihalyi, 1.S. (1988). Optimal experience: Psy- chological studies of flow in consciousness. New York: Cambridge Univer- sity Press. Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Larson. R. (1984). Being adolescent: Conflict and growth in the teenage years. New York: Basic Books. Dember, W.N., & Brooks, J. (1989). A new instrument for measuring optimism and pessimism: Test-retest reliability and relations with happiness and re- ligious commitment. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 27, 365-366. Diener, E. (1994). Assessing subjective well-being: Progress and opportunities. Social Indicators Research, 31, 103157. Diener, E., & Diener, C. (1994). Most people in the United States experience Champaign. positive subjective well-being. Unpublished manuscript, University of Illi- nois, Diener, E., & Diener, M. (in press). Cross-cultural correlates of life satisfaction and self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Diener, E., Diener, M., & Diener, C. (1994). Factors predicting the subjective well-being of nations. Manuscript submitted for publication. Diener, E., & Emmons, R.A. (1985). The independence of positive and negative affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 71-75. Diener, E., & Fujita, F. (in press). Resources, personal strivings, and subjective well-being: A nomothetic and ideographic approach. Journal of Personality and Social Diener, E., Horwitz, J., & Emmons, R.A. (1985). Happiness of the very wealthy. Social Indicators, 16, 263274. Diener, E., & Larsen, R.J. (1993). The experience of emotional well-being. In M. Psychology. Lewis & J.M. Haviland (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 404-415). New York: Guilford Press. Diener, E., Sandvik, E., & Larsen, R.J. (1985). Age and sex effects for emotional intensity. Developmental Psychology, 21, 542-548. 17