Latest news with #EmorieBeck
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
The Secret to Happiness Seems to Depend Upon You, Study Finds
Humans have achieved some incredible feats in our brief existence. Behind our collective triumphs, however, many of us still struggle to feel happy. The pursuit of happiness is ancient, with countless generations mulling the sources of their own and others' contentment. In modern times, psychologists have tried to measure and boost happiness en masse as a matter of public health, with projects like the World Happiness Report. Yet while modern science has shed new light on happiness, the mechanics involved remain poorly understood. According to a new study, it might help to adopt a more personalized approach, focusing on individual differences that could be lost in aggregated, population-level research. "We have to understand the sources of happiness to build effective interventions," says first author Emorie Beck, a psychology researcher at the University of California, Davis. As previous research has shown, socioeconomic factors wield significant influence on happiness, including things like health, wealth, social connections, and job satisfaction. This informs the 'bottom-up' model of happiness, which focuses on how external factors can determine our standing in certain life domains, possibly swaying our satisfaction. This view tends to favor broader policies to promote public happiness more than personal interventions. "But we all know people in our lives who experience traumatic events yet seem to be happy," Beck says. Many people report happiness that apparently defies their circumstances; some muster satisfaction or joy in difficult conditions, while others struggle despite apparent advantages. The 'top-down' model of happiness focuses more on this angle, with less emphasis on external factors themselves than on how people think and feel about them. It favors interventions like therapy or meditation, targeting personal traits and attitudes rather than outside factors. With compelling evidence for both models, many researchers now prefer a third, bidirectional view of happiness, accounting for complex interaction between bottom-up and top-down effects. Plenty of questions remain, however, including key details about how such diverse factors interact to shape a person's happiness – and whether it works the same way for everyone. In the new study, Beck and her colleagues explore the possibility that it doesn't. Instead of dwelling on debates over different models of happiness, they suggest paying more attention to individual people. "Here we propose a reframing of this question, asking not whether top-down, bottom-up or bidirectional theories are correct, but rather for whom they are correct," they write. The researchers measured associations between life and domain satisfaction at the population and individual level, using data from more than 40,000 subjects. These were nationally representative panels of people from Australia, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, all of whom had periodically responded to life-satisfaction surveys for up to 33 years. The surveys measured global life satisfaction over time, plus specific satisfaction in five life domains: health, housing, income, relationships, and work. "What comes out is that we see roughly equal groups that demonstrate each pattern," Beck says. "Some are bottom up; some are top down, the domains don't affect their happiness; some are bidirectional and some are unclear." Roughly half of subjects showed primarily one-way associations between domain satisfactions and life satisfaction, the study found, and about a quarter showed mainly bidirectional associations. Some subjects showed no clear link between domain satisfactions and overall life satisfaction, suggesting these exert little or no influence on one another, although it's unclear why. These findings highlight possible limitations of population-level happiness research, which may not capture important individual differences. The researchers suggest happiness may be easier to promote with a more personalized approach, and less emphasis on broad models, although more research is still needed to determine how this might work. "These things are treated separately, but they aren't really. They feed into each other at a personal level," Beck says. The study was published in Nature Human Behavior. Drinking Alcohol Before Hitting The Sauna Could Be a Deadly Combo The Roots of Dementia Trace Back All The Way to Childhood, Experts Say Scientists Discovered Structural, Brain-Wide Changes During Menstruation
The Star
09-05-2025
- Science
- The Star
What's the secret to happiness? There's no one-size-fits-all answer
What's the secret to happiness? A recently published study challenges a number of preconceived ideas.— Photo: monkeybusinessimages/ Getty Images, via ETX Daily Up What's the secret to happiness? Does it come from within, or does it rely on external influences such as jobs, health and relationships? A North American study, recently published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, challenges a number of preconceived ideas. In recent years, happiness has become a serious subject of study. Psychologists, economists and sociologists have joined forces to unravel the inner workings of human fulfillment. With this in mind, researchers from several North American universities have analyzed the lives of over 40,000 people in five countries. Over a period of almost 30 years, they examined their level of general satisfaction, as well as their relationship to five essential dimensions of existence: health, income, housing, work and relationships. It turns out that there is not just one, but a multitude of ways to be happy, specific to each individual and each context. For some, happiness is based on tangible criteria such as income, employment or housing. For others, it depends on personal traits such as resilience or the search for meaning. Some combine these two dimensions, while a minority seem to deviate from any pre-established model. These findings call into question the two main theoretical models that have dominated until now. The first, termed "bottom-up,' assumes that happiness derives from satisfaction in the various areas of life. The second, called "top-down,' argues that certain personal dispositions, such as optimism or emotional stability, influence our perception of happiness independently of external circumstances. This study proposes a third, more flexible path, closer to reality, with a "bidirectional model," in which internal and external factors are intertwined. "These things are treated separately, but they aren't really. They feed into each other at a personal level," explains Emorie Beck, assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis and first author on the paper, quoted in a news release. To promote well-being, public policies should be designed to take account of this diversity, rather than relying on universal approaches. "We have to understand the sources of happiness to build effective interventions," says Emorie Beck. In other words, raising a society's level of happiness means taking each individual's needs into account. The same policy can transform the lives of some, while making no difference to others. This study serves as a reminder that there's no magic formula for happiness. It is complex, specific to each individual, and sometimes even elusive. But one thing seems certain: to better understand it, we need to stop thinking of it as a universal standard, and start thinking of it in terms of the individual. – AFP Relaxnews
