Happiness Levels Throughout The 1950's: A Comparative Analysis

Happiness is a state of existence that Americans have perused since the founding of this great country. It’s such an important part of American life that “The pursuit of Happiness” is even “laid out in our nation’s Declaration of Independence” (McMahon 783). Happiness is something that may come from many aspects of life: one’s children, employment, financial wellbeing, sports, hobbies, and many other things. Ruth Whippman tells us that "Americans as a whole invest more time and money and emotional energy in the explicit pursuit of happiness than any other nation on earth". Are Americans happier today than they were three centuries ago? Does modern technology, social economic status, religious freedoms, and/or the

Lazy fall days, colorful leaves, cooler weather, birds singing, frogs croaking, crickets chirping, relaxing to the sounds of the outdoors. Waves of water crashing upon each other, fishing, telling stories around a campfire, making s’mores, memories with family and friends; this is what happiness is to me. Happiness is in the eye of the beholder, what brings happiness to one person may not bring happiness to another person. When I think of the word happiness, I think of descriptive words like Contentment, enjoyment, satisfaction, delightfulness, something that makes a person smile. I have always looked at the word happiness as a feeling, an action, never have I thought of happiness as an overall affect. However, it is a proven fact, that happiness can affect the over-all health and longevity of human life. Happy people live longer than those that are lonely, stressed, or depressed.

“The Happiness Hypothesis” by Jonathan Haidt is the first book I've read of its kind, mostly because I've been trying to feel my way through life so far one step at a time, and I will likely never forget it. There are things to be learned within this combination of ancient wisdom, research, and Haidt's connection of it all, valuable lessons for approaching and understanding the human experience. Reading something like this young, and taking it with me throughout my life and comparing it to my own experience will indeed make it a very valuable tool.

He said people are happier if they live in wealthy than poor nations. However, when people have enough money to pay for their basic need of food, shelter, etc., money does relatively little to improve happiness. He said people today are twice as rich as people in the late 1960s, but they were less happy than people in the 1960s. In the article “Spending Become You” the author Juliet Schor argues that Americans are looking for happiness, so that lead them to continuously buy so much and overspend without even realizing that they are spending more than they make. David G Myers, in the article “ The Funds, and Faith of Happy people” he argues that it is impossible what these people are doing, because money can’t buy happiness. This shows that, the American habit of overspending is unnecessary. Myers’ article enables us to understand why Schor said, all that Americans do is spend, spend and spend as if they can’t have fun without spending

Last year I spent so much time trying to figure how much happier I will be if I will make a big effort and start to earn more money. After some research I think that, even though UK Office of National Statistics show an interrelation between income and level of happiness, our emotional state is not correlated with financial sustainability as much as many people think because US National Academy of Science thinks that high income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being, and psychologist Daniel Kahneman and economist Angus Deaton also concluded that happiness doesn’t really increase above

Lisa who lives in Sweden lives a happy lifestyle. She has everything that anyone can ask for. A great job, health care, an education, and a government that invests in her and her people. In a not so great part of the world, Rida who lives in Iraq lives an unhappy lifestyle. Her family of 10 can barely support themselves and cannot afford to send Rida to school. And Health care in her country is one of the worst in the world. Happiness levels in a country differ from one another because of the circumstances they are in. Countries having the same circumstances can differ on happiness levels. If you were to put the U.S. and a country like Netherlands together, they both are sort of the same. Good health care, education, and employment. But in actuality, the Netherlands are a much happier nation than the U.S. In ‘Celebrating Happiness Day With The Happiest (And Saddest) Countries,’ by, Hayley Munguia, shows us where each country ranks based on happiness. The Netherlands are ranked fourth while the U.S. is ranked seventeenth on the chart.

British economist Richard Layard published a book entitled Happiness in which he discussed the results of several tests he ran. He discussed having a group of children that were asked how happy they were on a scale of one to ten. The children's overall happiness level was about a six. Then each child got to select a “gift”, at random, from a bag. Again the children were asked how happy they were on a scale of one to ten. Surprisingly their happiness level had dropped. It was now a four. They were now materially “richer”, but they reported being less happy than before. This shows that wealth does not make us happy. So why do we, like Willy still think it will? (Professor Richard Layard on Happiness) (Carroll, 2012).

“Sociologists like to point out that the percentage of those describing themselves as “happy” or “unhappy” has remained virtually unchanged in Europe and the United States since such surveys were first conducted in the 1950’s” (McMahon).

How would you explain the finding that people in high-income economies seem hap- pier than people in low-income economies, but, over generations, Americans do not say they are happier even though the nation grew richer? Perpective on life and the quaility of life is why Americans feel less happy, even if the nation is getting richer and richer richer.

Everyone has something they use to distract them from the unpleasant parts of their own life. In Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, a few examples of these distractions are soma, alcohol, and, for the main character, John “the Savage,” literature. The society of Brave New World intentionally prioritizes happiness and contentment over truth. Citizens are inconspicuously provided with instantaneous pleasures as placeholders for their freedom and their right to truth. The novel demonstrates that the concepts of happiness and truth are naturally incompatible in certain aspects of life.

The essay “Does Money Buy Happiness?” by Don Peck and Ross Douthat which was originally published as the January/February 2003 issue of the Atlantic discusses how wealthier countries are happier than non wealthy countries, with some exceptions. In paragraph 2, Peck and Douthat wrote the claim as “Money does buy happiness-but only to a point” (332) and justifies by using Robert E. Lane’s argument and charts to support their claim (use of logos). In paragraph 3-4, the authors made assumptions by saying “The fact that richer countries are in general, happier than poorer ones may not seem terribly surprising, it does suggest that continuing economic development will generate rising happiness worldwide. That said, there are clear limits to what

The book I read was The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. This book was published by HarperCollins Publishers in the year of 2010. It is a non-fiction book that contains 320 pages. This book was about a woman who decided she wanted to increase her happiness. She set resolutions for each month that she thought would help her to achieve happiness and better her mental/emotional, social, and physical health.

Richard Easterlin… was the first economist to systematically explore the relationship between average country happiness levels and per capita incomes

Although the United States is a powerful, idolized country, the nation’s happiness ranking isn’t considered top on the report. The world happiness report has shown the components that contribute into the happiness ranking; GDP, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity, and perceptions of corruption all are helpful variables in explaining correlations with each other. For example, economic growth rate is related to GDP which can cause income inequality producing dissatisfaction, government distrust, and ultimately unhappiness. Despite the fact that the U.S. has the strongest economy and highest GDP, there is much inequality with income distribution. America has a large middle class, but it is almost impossible to move up in class rankings. The United States’ social predicament is not

When you hear the word happiness, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Do you think of material possessions like designer clothes and accessories, the newest iPhone with the highest possible storage capacity, or a shiny red supercar? Do you think the amount of money you have or your current financial status has an effect on how happy you are? Plenty of college students, myself included, would associate happiness with possessing items like these or just having a lot of money in general. In today’s society, one common belief about social class is that the richer and more money or things that one has, the happier this will make them. This belief is reinforced by countless advertisements we see and hear everywhere, whether that be on