1832 Pages
    by Routledge

    Questions about the meaning, purpose, and pursuit of happiness and well-being have been addressed by thinkers since ancient times but over the past decade or so there has been a tremendous upsurge of scholarly interest in the subject. This renewed interest has come from a variety of academic disciplines, including psychology, neuroscience, and economics. The field has, in particular, been galvanized by the advent of the positive psychology movement at the turn of the century. Especially in the United States, but also in the UK and on continental Europe, Australia, and parts of Asia, research and courses in positive psychology are thriving. Harvard University’s positive psychology course, for example, is currently the most popular offering in the college’s history.

    Governments and international organizations are also increasingly engaged by notions of well-being and happiness. The World Health Organization has recently redefined ‘health’ to include ‘psychological well-being’ and many national policy-makers have begun to recognize that measuring a nation’s success by traditional economic values alone no longer suffices and that we need also urgently to understand how people experience the quality of their lives.

    Beyond the academy and government, there is also immense interest in the promotion and examination of happiness and well-being in many professional disciplines such as coaching, education, clinical psychology, and community-building.

    As work on happiness and well-being flourishes as never before, this new title in Psychology Press’s Major Works series, Critical Concepts in Psychology, meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of the subject’s vast literature and the continuing explosion in research output. Co-edited by two leading scholars, Happiness and Well-being is a four-volume collection of classic and contemporary contributions. Together, the four volumes provide a one-stop resource for all interested researchers, students, and policy-makers to gain a thorough understanding of the field, the variety of approaches, and where thinking on happiness and well-being is today. With comprehensive introductions to each volume, newly written by the editors, which place the collected material in its historical, intellectual, and practical context, Happiness and Well-being is an essential work of reference and a vital research tool.

    DRAFT CONTENTS

    VOLUME I

    Part 1—Concepts: What is Meant by Happiness and Well-being?

    Hedonic Approaches: The Pursuit of Pleasure

    1. R. Schoch, ‘Maximise your Pleasure’, The Secrets of Happiness (Profile Books, 2006), pp. 27–47.

    2. E. Diener, ‘Subjective Well-being’, Psychological Bulletin, 1984, 95, 3, 542–75.

    3. E. Diener et al., ‘Subjective Well-being: Three Decades of Progress’, Psychological Bulletin, 1999, 125, 2, 276–302.

    4. D. Kahneman, ‘Objective Happiness’, in D. Kahneman, E. Diener, and N. Schwarz (eds.), Well-being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology (Russell Sage Foundation, 1999), pp. 3–25.

    Eudaimonic Approaches: Pursuing the Good Life

    5. C. R. Rogers, ‘The Concept of the Fully Functioning Person’, Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice, 1963, 1, 17–26.

    6. C. D. Ryff, ‘Happiness is Everything, or is it? Explorations on the Meaning of Psychological Well-being’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1989, 57, 1069–81.

    Hedonic–Eudaimonic Comparisons

    7. A. S. Waterman, ‘Two Conceptions of Happiness: Contrasts of Personal Expressiveness (Eudaimonia) and Hedonic Enjoyment’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1993, 64, 678–91.

    8. I. McGregor and B. R. Little, ‘Personal Projects, Happiness, and Meaning: On Doing Well and Being Yourself’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1998, 74, 494–512.

    9. M. E. P. Seligman and M. Csikszentmihalyi, ‘Positive Psychology: An Introduction’, American Psychologist, 2000, 55, 5–14.

    10. R. M. Ryan and E. D. Deci, ‘On Happiness and Human Potentials: A Review of Research on Hedonic and Eudaimonic Well-being’, Annual Review of Psychology, 2001, 52, 141–66.

    11. T. B. Kashdan, R. Biswas-Diener, and L. A. King, ‘Reconsidering Happiness: The Costs of Distinguishing Between Hedonics and Eudaimonia’, Journal of Positive Psychology, 2008, 3, 219–33.

    Other Approaches

    12. E. W. Fellows, ‘Happiness: A Survey of Research’, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 1956, 6, 17–30.

    13. R. Veenhoven, ‘The Four Qualities of Life: Ordering Concepts and Measures of the Good Life’, Journal of Happiness Studies, 2000, 1, 1–39.

    14. R. Schoch, ‘What does Religion Tell Us About Happiness?’, Dialogue: A Journal of Religion and Philosophy, Nov. 2007, 29.

    Part 2—Measurement: Approaches, Challenges, Issues

    Approaches to the Assessment of Happiness and Well-being

    15. M. Csikszentmihalyi and J. Hunter, ‘Happiness in Everyday Life: The Uses of Experience Sampling’, Journal of Happiness Studies, 2003, 4, 185–99.

    16. D. Kahneman et al., ‘A Survey Method for Characterizing Daily Life Experience: The Day Reconstruction Method’, Science, 2004, 306, 1776–80.

    Specific Measures for the Assessment of Happiness and Well-being

    17. E. Diener et al., ‘The Satisfaction with Life Scale’, Journal of Personality Assessment, 1985, 49, 71–5.

    18. D. Watson, L. A. Clark, and A. Tellegen, ‘Development and Validation of Brief Measures of Positive and Negative Affect: The PANAS Scales’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1988, 54, 1063–70.

    19. C. D. Ryff and C. L. Keyes, ‘The Structure of Psychological Well-being Revisited’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1995, 69, 719–27.

    21. J. Tennant et al., ‘The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale; Development and UK Validation', Health Quality of Life Outcomes, 2007, 5, 63.

    22. C. P. Proctor, P. A. Linley, and J. Maltby, ‘Youth Life Satisfaction Measures: A Review’, Journal of Positive Psychology, 2009, 4, 1–17.

    Structural Aspects of Happiness and Well-being Measures

    23. E. Diener and C. Diener, ‘Most People are Happy’, Psychological Science, 1996, 7, 181–5.

    24. C. L. M. Keyes, D. Shmotkin, and C. D. Ryff, ‘Optimizing Well-being: The Empirical Encounter of Two Traditions’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2002, 82, 1007–22.

    25. F. A. Huppert and J. E. Whittington, ‘Evidence for the Independence of Positive and Negative Well-being: Implications for the Quality of Life Assessment’, British Journal of Health Psychology, 2003, 8, 107–22.

    26. B. L. Fredrickson and M. F. Losada, ‘Positive Affect and the Complex Dynamics of Human Flourishing’, American Psychologist, 2005, 60, 678–86.

    VOLUME II

    Part 3—Causes and Correlates of Happiness and Well-being: What Makes Us happy?

    Evolutionary Approaches

    27. D. M. Buss, ‘The Evolution of Happiness’, American Psychologist, 2000, 55, 15–23.

    General Approaches

    28. M. Argyle, ‘Causes and Correlates of Happiness’, in D. Kahneman, E. Diener, and N. Schwarz (eds.), Well-being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology (Russell Sage Foundation, 1999), pp. 353–73.

    29. P. Dolan, T. Peasgood, and M. P. White, ‘Do We Really Know What Makes Us Happy? A Review of the Economic Literature on the Factors Associated with Subjective Well-being’, Journal of Economic Psychology, 2008, 29, 94–122.

    Psychological Approaches

    35. P. Brickman, D. Coates, and R. Janoff-Bulman, ‘Lottery Winners and Accident Victims: Is Happiness Relative?’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1978, 36, 917–27.

    36. K. M. Sheldon and L. Houser-Marko, ‘Self-concordance, Goal-attainment, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Can There be an Upward Spiral?’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2001, 80, 152–65.

    37. B. Schwartz et al., ‘Maximizing Versus Satisficing: Happiness is a Matter of Choice’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2002, 83, 1178–97.

    38. C. Peterson et al., ‘Strengths of Character, Orientations to Happiness, and Life Satisfaction’, Journal of Positive Psychology, 2007, 2, 149–56.

    Social and Cultural Approaches

    39. T. Kasser and R. Ryan, ‘A Dark Side of the American Dream: Correlates of Financial Success as a Central Life Aspiration’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1993, 65, 410–22.

    40. E. Diener, M. Diener, and C. Diener, ‘Factors Predicting the Subjective Well-being of Nations’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1995, 69, 851–64.

    41. S. Oishi et al., ‘Cross-situational Consistency of Affective Experiences Across Cultures’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2004, 86, 460–72.

    42. J. H. Fowler and N. A. Christakis, ‘Dynamic Spread of Happiness in a Large Social Network: Longitudinal Analysis Over 20 Years in the Framingham Heart Study’, British Medical Journal, 2008, 337, 2238.

    Economic Approaches

    43. A. Sen, ‘Rationality, Joy and Freedom’, Critical Review, 1996, 10, 4, 481–94.

    44. B. S. Frey and A. Stutzer, ‘Happiness, Economy and Institutions’, Economic Journal, 2000, 110, 466, 918–38.

    45. R. A. Easterlin, ‘Income and Happiness: Towards a Unified Theory’, Economic Journal, 2001, 111, 473, 465–84.

    Biological Approaches

    46. H. L. Urry et al., ‘Making a Life Worth Living: Neural Correlates of Well-being’, Psychological Science, 2004, 15, 367–72.

    47. E. B. Keverne, ‘Understanding Well-being in the Evolutionary Context of Brain Development’, in F. A. Huppert, N. Baylis, and B. Keverne (eds.), The Science of Well-being (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 35–56.

    48. A. Steptoe, J. Wardle, and M. Marmot, ‘Positive Affect and Health-related Neuroendocrine, Cardiovascular, and Inflammatory Responses’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 2005, 102, 6508–12.

    49. C. D. Ryff et al., ‘Psychological Well-being and Ill-being: Do They Have Distinct or Mirrored Biological Correlates?’, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 2006, 75, 85–95.

    VOLUME III

    Part 4—Consequences of Happiness and Well-being

    General Consequences

    50. L. A. Harker and D. Keltner, ‘Expressions of Positive Emotion in Women’s College Yearbook Pictures and Their Relationship to Personality and Life Outcomes Across Adulthood’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2001, 80, 112–24.

    51. S. Lyubomirsky, L. King, and E. Diener, ‘The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success?’, Psychological Bulletin, 2005, 131, 803–55.

    Biological Consequences

    52. B. L. Fredrickson et al., ‘The Undoing Effect of Positive Emotions’, Motivation and Emotion, 2000, 24, 237–58.

    Psychological Consequences

    53. A. M. Isen, ‘Positive Affect, Cognitive Processes and Social Behaviour’, in L. Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Academic Press, 1987), pp. 203–53.

    54. B. L. Fredrickson and C. Branigan, ‘Positive Emotions Broaden the Scope of Attention and Thought-Action Repertoires’, Cognition and Emotion, 2005, 19, 3, 313–32.

    Social Consequences

    55. A. J. Oswald, ‘Happiness and Economic Performance’, Economic Journal, 1997, 107, 1815–31.

    56. T. A. Judge et al., ‘The Job Satisfaction-Job Performance Relationship: A Qualitative and Quantitative Review’, Psychological Bulletin, 2001, 127, 3, 376–407.

    Health Consequences

    57. D. D. Danner, D. A. Snowdon, and W. V. Friesen, ‘Positive Emotions in Early Life and Longevity: Findings from the Nun Study’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2001, 80, 804–13.

    58. S. Cohen et al., ‘Emotional Style and Susceptibility to the Common Cold’, Psychosomatic Medicine, 2003, 65, 4, 652–7.

    59. E. Røysamb et al., ‘Happiness and Health: Environmental and Genetic Contributions to the Relationship Between Subjective Well-being, Perceived Health, and Somatic Illness’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003, 85, 1136–46.

    60. S. D. Pressman and S. Cohen, ‘Does Positive Affect Influence Health?’, Psychological Bulletin, 2005, 131, 925–71.

    61. Y. Chida and A. Steptoe, ‘Positive Psychological Well-being and Mortality: A Quantitative Review of Prospective Observational Studies’, Psychosomatic Medicine, 2008, 70, 741–56.

    VOLUME IV

    Part 5—Interventions and Enhancements

    62. M. W. Fordyce, ‘Development of a Program to Increase Personal Happiness’, Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1977, 24, 511–21.

    63. S. Lichter, K. Haye, and R. Kammann, ‘Increasing Happiness Through Cognitive Retraining’, New Zealand Psychologist, 1980, 9, 57–64.

    64. R. A. Emmons and M. E. McCullough, ‘Counting Blessings Versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-being in Daily Life’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003, 84, 377–89.

    65. S. Lyubomirsky, K. M. Sheldon, and D. Schkade, ‘Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change’, Review of General Psychology, 2005, 9, 111–31.

    66. M. E. P. Seligman et al., ‘Positive Psychology Progress: Empirical Validation of Interventions’, American Psychologist, 2005, 60, 410–21.

    67. N. L. Sin and S. Lyubomirsky, ‘Enhancing Well-Being and Alleviating Depressive Symptoms with Positive Psychology Interventions: A Practice-Friendly Meta-Analysis’ (forthcoming).

    Part 6—Public Policy

    68. R. Layard, ‘Human Satisfactions and Public Policy’, Economic Journal, 1980, 90, 737–50.

    69. E. Diener and M. E. P. Seligman, ‘Beyond Money: Toward an Economy of Well-being’, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2004, 5, 1–31.

    70. R. Veenhoven, ‘The Greatest Happiness Principle: Happiness as a Public Policy Aim’, in P. A. Linley and S. Joseph (eds.), Positive Psychology in Practice (Wiley, 2004), pp. 658–78.

    71. N. Marks and H. Shah, ‘A Well-being Manifesto for a Flourishing Society’, in F. A. Huppert, N. Baylis, and B. Keverne (eds.), The Science of Well-being (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 503–31.

    72. R. Eckersley, ‘Progress, Sustainability and Human Well-being: Is a New Worldview Emerging?’, International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, 2006, 1, 4, 304–17.

    73. F. A. Huppert, ‘A New Approach to Reducing Disorder and Improving Well-being’, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2009, 4, 1, 108–11.

    Biography

    Felicia A. Huppert is Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. She is Director of the Well-being Institute and the Cambridge Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Ageing (CIRCA). She has a background in neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, and epidemiology. She is an Associate Editor of the T&F Journal of Positive Psychology.

    Dr. Alex Linley is lecturer in psychology at the School of Psychology, University of Leicester. His work is primarily concerned with positive psychology and its applications, especially in relation to psychological strengths.