Happiness Fall 2017 Argyle Update Project

Argyle update project

The goal of this optional research exercise is to find recent happiness research on some of the areas reported by Argyle in order to update and confirm or revise his 2003 report.

Report up to three findings by copying and pasting the following template in the appropriate subsection below:

Topic of research:

Summary of findings:

Link to article or resource:

Your name:

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Arglyle, "Causes and Correlates of Happiness"

• Age
• Education
• Social Status
• Income
• Marriage
• Ethnicity
• Employment
• Leisure
• Religion
• Life Events

Topic of research:

Summary of findings:

Link to article or resource:

Your name:

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Topic of research: Income's effect on life happiness and state happiness.

Summary of findings: Higher income is associated with higher life satisfaction, but is not associated with increase emotional state happiness, where as low income is associated with both lower life satisfaction and decreased emotional wellbeing.

Link to article or resource: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2944762/

Your name: Bridger Scholten

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Topic of research: Children's effect on happiness.

Summary of findings: Having children has a small negative effect on happiness, when one takes into account the better circumstances of those who choose to have children. "Parents experience more daily joy and more daily stress than non-parents."

Link to article or resource:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3910586/

Your name: Bridger Scholten

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Topic of research: Age of Marriage & Happiness

Summary of findings: Beginning with a discussion of the implications of the “Great Crossover” – the average age of having your first child now precedes the average age of marriage – which has altogether poor happiness effects for children (as children born to unmarried parents are more likely to suffer “emotionally, academically, and financially”). Further finding that although marriages formed later in life have smaller divorce rates (and women who marry later often earn up to $15,000 more a year), women who marry at age 24-26 are more likely to describe their marriage as “very happy.” To boot, these studies found that Twentysomethings who are unmarried are “more likely to drink to excess, to be depressed, and to report lower levels of happiness with their lives” compared to married Twentysomethings.

Link to article or resource: https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/late-marriage-and-its-consequences/?mcubz=0 http://nationalmarriageproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/KnotYet-FinalForWeb.pdf

Your name: Nicole Rogers

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Topic of research: Marriage & Life Happiness

Summary of findings: A yearly study of 10,000 adults from 1981 through 2008 finds that marriage doesn’t make people happier, but seems to “safeguard” against declines in happiness. Becoming a parent seems to reap similar results as people have higher state happiness in the time surrounding the child’s birth then seem to return to their baseline.

Link to article or resource: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/are_married_people_happier

Your name: Nicole Rogers

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Topic of research: Age & Happiness

Summary of findings:An analysis of happiness and age finds that the graphical representation of age and level of happiness would look like a “U-bend.” As both the young and old report higher levels of happiness and the middle age people and Twentysomethings report lower levels.

Link to article or resource: http://www.economist.com/node/17722567

Your name: Nicole Rogers

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Topic of research: Happiness exists because of positive affect through marriage, friendship, income, work performance, and health

Summary of findings: Happiness is positively correlated with indicators of superior mental and physical health. Happiness, as well as the experience of frequent positive affect, likely plays a role in health through its effects on social relationships, healthy behavior, stress, accident and suicide rates. Happy people appear to be more successful than their less happy peers in the three primary life domains: work, relationships, and health.

Link to article or resource: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/bul-1316803.pdf

Your name:Caitlin Miller

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Topic of research: Relationship between happiness and health

Summary of findings: Happiness and positive attitudes towards life prevent the autonomic nervous system from activating physiological reactions that could have cumulative detrimental effects on income, work status, and education. Additionally, the quality of relationships with friends has been found to be strongly associated with happiness. The authors find that best friendship quality – as measured by the subjective rating of respondents’ relationships with their best friends – is the only significant predictor of happiness. Happiness is found to be the best predictor of health in all of the stages of the analysis explained in the article.

Link to article or resource: https://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/herc/wp/11_07.pdf

Your name: Caitlin Miller

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Topic of research: Socio-demographic and economic factors of happiness

Summary of findings: Young and old people report being happier than middle-aged people. The least happy people are aged between 30 and 35. Women report being slightly happier than men. Couples with and without children are happier than singles, single parents and people living in collective households. People with higher education indicate significantly higher well-being. Bad health significantly lowers self-reported happiness. Unhappy people do not perform well in the workplace, thus leading to being laid off. Happy people are more likely to be high performers in their jobs so they are able to maintain a steady employment. People with higher incomes have more opportunities to achieve whatever they desire, such as material goods and service, which makes them happier.

Link to article or resource: https://www.bsfrey.ch/articles/_365_2002.pdf

Your name: Caitlin Miller

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