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Study #2 I want to introduce in my blog. Continuing on the last post on Peterson, Park, & Seligman (2005) study on happiness, I chose another study on happiness.

Tkach, C., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2006). How do people purse happiness?: Relating personality, happiness-increasing strategies, and well-being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7, 183-225.

As you can tell from the title of this study, the authors explored what people do to be happy (or even happier!). They had several questions in mind:

• What are the happiness strategies individuals use to maintain or increase their happiness levels? Are there any  individual differences in strategy use?
• How much do the happiness strategies predict individuals’ current happiness? Which strategy works the best?
• Does personality have anything to do with the happiness strategies?

Before conducting the main study, the authors first did a pilot to generate a list of happiness strategies. How? They asked 70 students take an open-ended survey and “‘list things they do to maintain or increase happiness level.” The end results? 66 happiness-enhancing strategies found!

Then, they conducted a paper-and-pencil survey among 500 undergraduate students at a state university. They asked the students’ happiness (subjective, chronic), Big Five personality, and frequency of each happiness strategy usage. And (some of) the findings:

• Happiness strategies explained 52% of the variance in self-reported happiness! 52%!! That’s a lot!
• Happiness strategies could be sorted into 8 categories:
  • 1. Social affiliation: e.g., Support and encourage friends
  • 2. Partying and clubbing
  • 3. Mental control: e.g., Think about what is wrong with life, Take illegal drugs
  • 4. Instrumental goal pursuit: e.g., Pursue career goals, Study
  • 5. Passive leisure: e.g., Watch TV
  • 6. Active leisure: e.g., Exercise
  • 7. Religion: e.g., Seek support from faith
  • 8. Direct attempts: e.g., Decide to be happy
• Frequency
  • Most frequently used strategy = Social Affiliation and Instrumental Goal Pursuit
  • Least frequently used strategy = Partying and Mental Control (wow!)
• Gender difference
  • Women used Affiliation, Goal Pursuit, Passive Leisure, and Religion more frequently than did men
  • Men used Mental Control and Active Leisure more
• Personality matters! Here’s how personality is linked with different happiness strategy.
  • Extrovert & Social Affiliation
  • Conscientiousness & Instrumental Goal Pursuit
  • Agreeableness & Social Affiliation
  • Neuroticism & maladaptive Mental Control
• Happiness strategies (at least some of them) might work! They predicted the happiness level in the following strength:
  • Mental Control (inversely) > Direct Attempts > Social Affiliation > Religion > Partying and Clubbing > Active Leisure

I thought this study was really awesome in that it asked people what they do to be happy/happier. I found it sooo interesting that I actually did a follow-up study to see if I can find what they found with different sample. One limitation of their study was that they surveyed undergraduate students whose happiness strategies may not be used by others. For example, I can’t imagine my 60 year old dad partying to be happy.

Another limitation of this study was it could not prove whether these happiness strategies actually helped people maintain or increase happiness level. Also, it was not certain how the participants interpreted ‘happiness’. I tried to address this last limitation in my follow-up study and did find (not too surprisingly) people have different ideas on what happiness (at work) means.

Ok, so that’s it for this study. I don’t know how to conclude other than saying this study awesomely provided invaluable insights into happiness (strategy) and made me do my study. =)

It’s been over 3 weeks since I said I’d start a small project. And here I am, finally starting the project. Please don’t ask me, “what took you so long?” Because I don’t have an answer – I know, it’s not cool. well, I’m not cool ;-p

So… here’s the first study I want to introduce in my blog.

Peterson, C., Park, N., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2005). Orientation to happiness and life satisfaction: The full life versus the empty life. Journal of Happiness Studies, 6, 25-41.

BTW, anyone wondering what the heck this complicated reference style, I’m using the APA style (American Psychological Association style). It’s just what I’m used to, so please bear with me.

I found (and still do) this study interesting because it combined two of my research interests, happiness and flow, in a somewhat unexpected way.

Peterson, Park, and Seligman (2005) believed there were three ways to be happy: through pleasure, engagement, and meaning. Before this study, typically there were two conceptions of happiness:  hedonism (or the life of pleasure) and eudemonia (or the life of meaning). Inspired by Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory, Peterson et al. added a third one, engagement. (Some might not agree with Peterson et al. though; e.g., Waterman, 1993).

Based on this conceptualization of happiness, the researchers conducted a study to answer the following questions:

• Are these three orientations to happiness (meaning, engagement, pleasure) empirically distinguishable individual differences?
• Is an orientation to pleasure incompatible with an orientation to engagement, or is it possible to pursue these different ways of being happy?
• Do these three orientations each contribute to life satisfaction, or are some more important than others?
• Are there interactions between or among these orientations with respect to life satisfaction?

They surveyed 845 adults online asking questions about their happiness orientation, life satisfaction, etc.

They discovered the following:

• The younger, the less educated, or the unmarried were somewhat higher in their endorsement of an orientation to pleasure.
• Each of the orientations to happiness predicted life satisfaction, from small (pleasure) to moderate (engagement, meaning) degrees.
• Respondents simultaneously low on all three orientations reported the least life satisfaction. According to the authors, they may be called to have “empty life”.
• Respondents simultaneously high on all three orientations reported the greatest life satisfaction. They can be seen as having “full life” and were more likely to be older, to be married, and to be more highly educated.

Interesting, isn’t it? Of course, one might say this study doesn’t prove pursuing all three happiness orientations make you happy. In other words, this study didn’t reveal that the pursuit of meaning, engagement, and pleasure indeed resulted in full life.

Still, the results of this study provide more insights on happiness. There are (at least) three ways we can define and pursue happiness. (This probably explains why my sister and I often got into an argument when we talked about happiness, when I was 20!). You can be happy by pursuing the life of pleasure, engagement, or meaning. But your life might get fuller when you pursue the life of pleasure, engagement, and meaning.

Like Seligman once said, when you think of happiness as a cake, meaning and engagement make up the two bottom layers and pleasure makes the icing on the cake. So, you need (or want) them all! ;)

If you’re curious what your happiness orientations are or how full your life is, go check it out. www.authentichappiness.com (”Approaches to Happiness Questionnaire”)