Psychology of happiness

At the outset we must accept that happiness is an imprecise world. It means different things to different people. It has both subjective and objective dimensions and “it may be defined as “a state of oneself or a state of the world.” (Sumner, 2006). To follow Sumner, it requires a hybrid theory that takes into account both “positive affect over time together with an endorsement of the conditions of one’s life.” But are the assessments of conditions of life separable from the objective conditions? In this course happiness is defined in terms of three things: a happy affective state, long term life conditions, and the realities of the real world. Looked at from another angle, happiness is a critical concept. It is an ideal. It’s more than a fact. Everyone wants to be happy and well. Lack of happiness in life may lead to various adverse effects such as anger, deviance, protest, frustrations, withdrawal from active membership of society, and in some extreme cases to suicide. Studies have shown that happiness is associated with a number of things: health, power, adaptability, happy memories, a clear meaning and purpose of life with hope to achieve them, self control, interest in and warmth towards other people, joy, satisfaction with the present state of affairs, and a subjective sense of well being. Happiness is also associated with musical and religious experiences, leisure, and personality factors such as introversion and extraversion. A reading of literature shows that people have happily faced torture, imprisonment, hanging, life threatening diseases like cancer, and many other painful situations and that many people in comfortable situations felt stressed, nervous, unhappy and depressed. Buddha and Ramkrishna Paramhansa are known for appearing calm, and ready to help people through discourse, even on death bed and when suffering from cancer. The fact is that although everyone wants to be happy no one knows how to become happy or how to remain happy. This issue has been the subject of religious and spiritual discourse and has been largely speculative in nature. In recent times, however, many empirical scientists belonging to different disciplines have attempted to theorize and study happiness and it has become a topic on which great deal of research in various fields exists. Psychologists have contributed most to this field since they directly deal with individuals and individual personality. For quite some time positive psychologists have been interested in what constitutes positive psychological functioning.