happy

Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being characterized by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.[1] A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources. Various research groups, including positive psychology, endeavor to apply the scientific method to answer questions about what "happiness" is, and how it might be attained. It is of such fundamental importance to the human condition that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" were deemed to be unalienable rights by the United States Declaration of Independence.
Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. Happiness in this sense was used to translate the Greek Eudaimonia, and is still used in virtue ethics. Happiness economics suggests that measures of public happiness should be used to supplement more traditional economic measures when evaluating the success of public policy.
Research has produced many different views on causes of happiness, and on factors that correlate with happiness,[4] but no validated method has been found to substantially improve long-term happiness in a meaningful way for most people.
Sonja Lyubomirsky concludes in her book The How of Happiness that 50 percent of a given human 's happiness level is genetically determined (based on twin studies), 10 percent is affected by life circumstances and situation, and a remaining 40 percent of happiness is subject to self-control.
The results of the 75 year Grant study of Harvard undergraduates show a high correlation of loving relationship, especially with parents, with later life wellbeing.[5]
In the 2nd Edition of the Handbook of Emotions (2000), evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby say that happiness comes from "encountering unexpected positive events". In the 3rd Edition of the Handbook of

References: ^ http://www.earth.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/Sachs%20Writing/2012/World%20Happiness%20Report.pdf ^ Wallis, Claudia (2005-01-09) ^ The Journal of Positive Psychology, March 2009 ^ Boston.com, August 23, 2009 ^ Dunn, E. W., Aknin, L. B., & Norton, M. I. (2008). Spending money on others promotes happiness. Science, 319, 1687-1688.. ^ Claire Bates (2012-10-31). "Is this the world 's happiest man? Brain scans reveal French monk found to have 'abnormally large capacity ' for joy, and it could be down to meditation | Mail Online". Dailymail.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-04-26. ^ Seligman, M.E.P. (2004). Can Happiness be Taught?. Daedalus journal, Spring 2004. ^ Bhikkhu, Thanissaro (1999). "A Guided Meditation". ^ [New Advent|http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07131b.htm] ^ Chan, Wing-tsit (1963) ^ Levine, Marvin (2000). The Positive Psychology of Buddhism and Yoga : Paths to a Mature Happiness. Lawrence Erlbaum. ISBN 0-8058-3833-3. ^ Frey, Bruno S.; Alois Stutzer (December 2001). Happiness and Economics. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-06998-0. ^ "In Pursuit of Happiness Research. Is It Reliable? What Does It Imply for Policy?". The Cato institute. 2007-04-11. ^ Leonhardt, David (2008-04-16). "Maybe Money Does Buy Happiness After All". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-04-10. ^ In Pursuit of Happiness Research. Is It Reliable? What Does It Imply for Policy? The Cato institute. April 11, 2007 ^ The Scientist 's Pursuit of Happiness, Policy, Spring 2005. ^ Weiner, Eric J. (2007-11-13). "Four months of boom, bust, and fleeing foreign credit". Los Angeles Times. ^ Coercive regulation and the balance of freedom, Edward Glaeser, Cato Unbound 11.5.2007 ^ Boehm, J K.; S Lyubomirsky (February 2008) ^ Diener, E., Emmons, R., Larsen, J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction With Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71-75. ^ "Measuring National Well-being: Life in the UK, 2012". Ons.gov.uk. 2012-11-20. Retrieved 2013-04-26. C. Robert Cloninger, Feeling Good: The Science of Well-Being, Oxford, 2004. McMahon, Darrin M., Happiness: A History, Atlantic Monthly Press, November 28, 2005. ISBN 0-87113-886-7 McMahon, Darrin M., The History of Happiness: 400 B.C Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness, Knopf, 2006. Carol Graham (2010), Happiness around the World: The Paradox of Happy Peasants and Miserable Millionaires, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hills P., Argyle M. (2002). "The Oxford Happiness Questionnaire: a compact scale for the measurement of psychological well-being. Personality and Individual Differences". Psychological Wellbeing 33: 1073–1082. Barbara Ann Kipfer, 14,000 Things to Be Happy About, Workman, 1990/2007, ISBN 978-0-7611-4721-3. Stefan Klein, The Science of Happiness, Marlowe, 2006, ISBN 1-56924-328-X. Richard Layard, Happiness: Lessons From A New Science, Penguin, 2005, ISBN 978-0-14-101690-0. David G. Myers, Ph. D., The Pursuit of Happiness: Who is Happy—and Why, William Morrow and Co., 1992, ISBN 0-688-10550-5. Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph. D., Authentic Happiness, Free Press, 2002, ISBN 0-7432-2298-9. Carol Graham "Happiness Around the World: The Paradox of Happy Peasants and Miserable Millionaires", OUP Oxford, 2009. ISBN 978-0-19-954905-4 (favorable review in Science 6 August 2010) W Jimmy DeMesa, M.D. "BeHappy!: Your Guide to the Happiest Possible Life", 2006 Eric G Sonja Lyubomirsky "The how of happiness", 2007 Niek Persoon "Happiness doesn 't just happen", 2006 Richard Layard "Happiness", 2005 Desmond Morris "The nature of happiness", 2004 Gregg Easterbrook "The progress paradox – how life gets better while people feel worse", 2003 Ben Renshaw "The secrets of happiness", 2003 Martin E.P. Seligman "Authentic happiness", 2002 Alexandra Stoddard "Choosing happiness – keys to a joyful life", 2002 Robert Holden "Happiness now!", 1998 Joop Hartog & Hessel Oosterbeek "Health, wealth and happiness", 1997 Ruut Veenhoven "Bibliography of happiness – world database of happiness : 2472 studies on subjective appreciation of life", 1993 Neil Kaufman "Happiness is a choice", 1991 Michael W. Eysenck "Happiness – facts and myths", 1990 Lynne McFall "Happiness", 1989 Michael Argyle "The psychology of happiness", 1987 Ruut Veenhoven "Conditions of happiness", 1984 Elizabeth Telfer "Happiness : an examination of a hedonistic and a eudaemonistic concept of happiness and of the relations between them...", 1980 Norman M Bertrand Russell "The conquest of happiness", orig. 1930 (many reprints) James Mackaye "Economy of happiness", 1906 Sara Ahmed, "The Promise of Happiness", 2010 Luskin, Frederic, Kenneth R