The Exploration of Happiness

This specially selected collection of landmark work from the Journal of Happiness Studies maps the current contours, and the likely future direction, of research in a field with a fast-rising profile. This volume, which inaugurates a series aiming to explore discrete topics in happiness and wellbeing studies, features selected articles published in the Journal of Happiness Studies during its first decade, which culminated in an 'impact factor' in 2011. As the introductory work in the series, it provides readers with a vital overview of the prominent issues, problems and challenges that well-being and happiness research has had to overcome since its appearance on the scientific stage. The journal's very success evinces both the high scientific quality of the research covered, and the steadily growing interest in a subject that draws responses from a vast range of epistemological aiming points, taking in economics, sociology, psychology, philosophy, education and medicine.

The series of volumes following this debut publication will represent a unique contribution to the literature in their multidisciplinary focus on particularized topics. It is reckoned that this will help strengthen cross-disciplinary synergies among authors investigating the same topic, as well as whet the appetite for happiness research among professionals and experts inhabiting a variety of academic domains. This volume addresses the theory of well-being and happiness, the different research approaches now probing their features and components, and the socio-economic and cultural issues that impact on their promotion.

Autorentext

Antonella Delle Fave, MD specialized in Clinical Psychology, is professor of Psychology at the University of Milano, Italy. Her studies concern optimal experience and individual psychological selection, that is the lifelong process of differential replication and cultivation of activities and competencies. Her cross-cultural studies have produced the largest international data bank on these topics. On the basis of research findings, she has developed and supervised intervention projects in the domains of health and education, disability and social maladjustment. She is author of 120 articles and chapters in peer-reviewed books, author/editor of 10 books and 2 special journal issues, member of several Editorial Boards and Boards of Reviewers. She is presently President of the European Network of Positive Psychology (ENPP) and member of the Board of Directors of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA).

Klappentext

This specially selected collection of landmark work from the Journal of Happiness Studies maps the current contours, and the likely future direction, of research in a field with a fast-rising profile. This volume, which inaugurates a series aiming to explore discrete topics in happiness and wellbeing studies, features selected articles published in the Journal of Happiness Studies during its first decade, which culminated in an 'impact factor' in 2011. As the introductory work in the series, it provides readers with a vital overview of the prominent issues, problems and challenges that well-being and happiness research has had to overcome since its appearance on the scientific stage. The journal's very success evinces both the high scientific quality of the research covered, and the steadily growing interest in a subject that draws responses from a vast range of epistemological aiming points, taking in economics, sociology, psychology, philosophy, education and medicine.

The series of volumes following this debut publication will represent a unique contribution to the literature in their multidisciplinary focus on particularized topics. It is reckoned that this will help strengthen cross-disciplinary synergies among authors investigating the same topic, as well as whet the appetite for happiness research among professionals and experts inhabiting a variety of academic domains. This volume addresses the theory of well-being and happiness, the different research approaches now probing their features and components, and the socio-economic and cultural issues that impact on their promotion.

Inhalt
PART I. INDIVIDUAL WELL-BEING: THEORY AND RESEARCH.- Chapter 1. Introduction; Antonella Delle Fave.-Chapter 2. Objective Eplanations of Individual Well-Being; Jukka Varelius.- Chapter 3. Paradoxes of Happiness; Mike W. Martin.- Chapter 4. Integrating the Diverse Definitions of Happiness: A Time-Sequential Framework; Chu Kim-Prieto; Ed Diener Maya Tamir, Christie Scollon and Marissa Diener.- Chapter 5. Subjective Well-Being, Homeostatically Protected Mood and Depression: A Synthesis; Robert A. Cummins.- Chapter 6. Know Thyself and Become What You Are: A Eudaimonic Approach to Psychological Well-Being; Carol D. Ryff and Burton H. Singer.- Chapter 7. Living Well: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective on Eudaimonia; Richard M. Ryan, Veronika Huta and Edward L. Deci.- Chapter 8. The Multiple Determination of Well-Being: Independent Effects of Positive Traits, Needs, Goals, Selves Social Support and Cultural Context; Kennon M. Sheldon and Tan H. Hoon.- Chapter 9. Orientations to Happiness and Life Satisfaction: The Full Life versus the Empty Life; Christopher Peterson, Nansook Park and Martin E.P. Seligman.- Chapter 10. The Pleasant Life, the Engaged Life, and the Meaningful Life: What about the Balanced Life; M. Joseph Sirgy and Jiyun Wu.- PART II. CULTURAL AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC ISSUES.- Chapter 11. The Four Qualities of Life; Ruut Veenhoven.- Chapter 12. The Mixed Blessings of Material Progress; Richard Eckersley.- Chapter 13. Searching for Happiness: The Importance of Social Capital; Ambrose Leung, Cheryl Kier, Tak Fung, Linda Fung and Robert Sproule.- Chapter 14. Cultural Constructions of Happiness; Theory and Empirical Evidence; Yukiko Uchida, Vinai Norasakkunkit and Shinobu Kitayama.- Chapter 15. Development as Happiness: The Subjective-Perception of Happiness and UNDP's Analysis of Poverty, Wealth and Development; Jörg Schimmel.- Chapter 16. Should Happiness-Maximization be the Goal of Government?: Grant Duncan.- Chapter 17. Greater Happiness for aGreater Number: Some Non-Controversial Options for Governments; Jan Ott.