After reading Mr Wang's post on Goals and Happiness, I rediscovered, rather fortuitously, the following article: 'The Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect: Does Happiness Lead to Success?' (PDF), Psychological Bulletin (2005), Vol. 131, No. 6, 803-855 by Sonja Lyubomirsky, Laura King and Ed Diener. There's a blurb on Science Daily which quotes the main takeaway of the article:
Our review provides strong support that happiness, in many cases, leads to successful outcomes, rather than merely following from them [emphasis added] and happy individuals are more likely than their less happy peers to have fulfilling marriages and relationships, high incomes, superior work performance, community involvement, robust health and even a long life.
Partly due to my quasi-Nietzschean views on happiness, I rather dislike the word itself. But its fuzziness does make for a good setting to talk about all sorts of things - recalling, for example, discussions by Loy, Dansong, Heavenly Sword (and Loy's restatement) in the wake of the Jul 2006 publication of the Happy Planet Index.
If Lyubomirsky et al are correct, then what are implications for policy making, if any?
[Addendum: Of course, a lot depends on how one defines happiness. See Loy's Random thoughts on happiness]
