Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Happiness has become one of the most important life goals worldwide. However, does valuing happiness lead to better well-being? This study investigates the effect of valuing happiness on well-being using a population-based longitudinal survey of Dutch adults (N = 8,331) from 2019 to 2023. Random-intercept cross-lagged panel models indicated that those who valued happiness generally exhibited higher well-being as manifested by life satisfaction, more positive affect, and less negative affect. However, increases in valuing happiness did not result in changes in life satisfaction 1 year later and had mixed emotional consequences (i.e., increasing both positive and negative affect). Additional analyses using fixed-effects models indicated that valuing happiness had contemporaneous positive effects on well-being. These findings indicate that endorsing happiness goals may have immediate psychological benefits but may not necessarily translate into long-term positive outcomes.

Keywords

valuing happiness happiness goals happiness well-being life satisfaction open data open materials preregistered

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bastian

Kuppens

De Roover

Diener

(2014). Is valuing positive emotion associated with life satisfaction? Emotion, 14(4), 639–645. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036466

Catalino

L. I.

Algoe

S. B.

Fredrickson

B. L.

(2014). Prioritizing positivity: An effective approach to pursuing happiness? Emotion, 14(6), 1155–1161. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038029

Catalino

L. I.

Tov

(2022). Daily variation in prioritizing positivity and well-being. Emotion, 22(5), 874–879. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001070

Datu

J. A. D.

Bernardo

A. B.

Valdez

J. P. M.

(2021). The emotional rewards of valuing happiness: A longitudinal study among Filipino adolescents. Child Indicators Research, 14(5), 1769–1779. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-021-09820-5

Datu

J. A. D.

King

R. B.

(2016). Prioritizing positivity optimizes positive emotions and life satisfaction: A three-wave longitudinal study. Personality and Individual Differences, 96, 111–114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.02.069

Diener

(2000). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist, 55(1), 34–43. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.34

Diener

Emmons

R. A.

Larsen

R. J.

Griffin

(1985). The Satisfaction With Life Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49(1), 71–75. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4901_13

Diener

Oishi

Tay

(2018). Advances in subjective well-being research. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(4), 253–260. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0307-6

Fergus

T. A.

Bardeen

J. R.

(2016). Negative mood regulation expectancies moderate the association between happiness emotion goals and depressive symptoms. Personality and Individual Differences, 100, 23–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.08.010

10.

Ford

B. Q.

Dmitrieva

J. O.

Heller

Chentsova-Dutton

Grossmann

Tamir

Uchida

Koopmann-Holm

Floerke

V. A.

Uhrig

Bokhan

Mauss

I. B.

(2015). Culture shapes whether the pursuit of happiness predicts higher or lower well-being. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(6), 1053–1062. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000108

11.

Ford

B. Q.

Shallcross

A. J.

Mauss

I. B.

Floerke

V. A.

Gruber

(2014). Desperately seeking happiness: Valuing happiness is associated with symptoms and diagnosis of depression. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 33(10), 890–905. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2014.33.10.890

12.

Goldberg

L. R.

(1992). The development of markers for the Big-Five factor structure. Psychological Assessment, 4(1), 26–42. https://doi.org/10.1037/1040-3590.4.1.26

13.

Gruber

Mauss

I. B.

Tamir

(2011). A dark side of happiness? How, when, and why happiness is not always good. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(3), 222–233. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691611406927

14.

Hamaker

E. L.

Kuiper

R. M.

Grasman

R. P. P. P

. (2015). A critique of the cross-lagged panel model. Psychological Methods, 20(1), 102–116. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038889

15.

L-t.

Bentler

P. M.

(1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling, 6(1), 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118

16.

Hughes

D. J.

Kratsiotis

I. K.

Niven

Holman

(2020). Personality traits and emotion regulation: A targeted review and recommendations. Emotion, 20(1), 63–67. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000644

17.

Humphrey

Szoka

Bastian

(2022). When the pursuit of happiness backfires: The role of negative emotion valuation. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 17(5), 611–619. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2021.1897869

18.

Krasko

Schweitzer

V. M.

Luhmann

(2020). Happiness goal orientations and their associations with well-being. Journal of Well-Being Assessment, 4, 121–162. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41543-020-00029-x

19.

Luhmann

Necka

E. A.

Schönbrodt

F. D.

Hawkley

L. C.

(2016). Is valuing happiness associated with lower well-being? A factor-level analysis using the Valuing Happiness Scale. Journal of Research in Personality, 60, 46–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2015.11.003

20.

Lyubomirsky

King

Diener

(2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131(6), 803–855. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.131.6.803

21.

Lyubomirsky

Sheldon

K. M.

Schkade

(2005). Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology, 9(2), 111–131. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.9.2.111

22.

Mahmoodi Kahriz

Bower

J. L.

Glover

F. M. G. Q.

Vogt

. (2020). Wanting to be happy but not knowing how: Poor attentional control and emotion-regulation abilities mediate the association between valuing happiness and depression. Journal of Happiness Studies, 21(7), 2583–2601. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-019-00193-9

23.

Mauss

I. B.

Savino

N. S.

Anderson

C. L.

Weisbuch

Tamir

Laudenslager

M. L.

(2012). The pursuit of happiness can be lonely. Emotion, 12(5), 908–912. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025299

24.

Mauss

I. B.

Tamir

Anderson

C. L.

Savino

N. S.

(2011). Can seeking happiness make people unhappy? Paradoxical effects of valuing happiness. Emotion, 11(4), 807–815. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022010

25.

McNeish

Kelley

(2019). Fixed effects models versus mixed effects models for clustered data: Reviewing the approaches, disentangling the differences, and making recommendations. Psychological Methods, 24(1), 20–35. https://doi.org/10.1037/met0000182

26.

Mulder

J. D.

Hamaker

E. L.

(2021). Three extensions of the random intercept cross-lagged panel model. Structural Equation Modeling, 28(4), 638–648. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705511.2020.1784738

27.

Oishi

Choi

Koo

Galinha

Ishii

Komiya

Luhmann

Scollon

Shin

Lee

Suh

E. M.

Vittersø

Heintzelman

S. J.

Kushlev

Westgate

E. C.

Buttrick

Tucker

Ebersole

C. R.

Axt

. . . Besser

L. L.

(2020). Happiness, meaning, and psychological richness. Affective Science, 1(2), 107–115. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-020-00011-z

28.

Raftery

A. E.

(1995). Bayesian model selection in social research. Sociological Methodology, 25, 111–163. https://doi.org/10.2307/271063

29.

R Core Team. (2021). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. https://www.R-project.org/

30.

Rohrer

J. M.

(2023). Disentangling the dark and bright side of constructs with a bright and dark side. https://www.the100.ci/2023/06/13/disentangling-the-dark-and-bright-side-of-constructs-with-a-bright-and-dark-side/

31.

Rohrer

J. M.

Murayama

(2023). These are not the effects you are looking for: Causality and the within-/between-persons distinction in longitudinal data analysis. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 6(1), Article 25152459221140842. https://doi.org/10.1177/25152459221140842

32.

Rohrer

J. M.

Richter

Brümmer

Wagner

G. G.

Schmukle

S. C.

(2018). Successfully striving for happiness: Socially engaged pursuits predict increases in life satisfaction. Psychological Science, 29(8), 1291–1298. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618761660

33.

Rosseel

(2012). lavaan: An R package for structural equation modeling. Journal of Statistical Software, 48(2), 1–36. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v048.i02

34.

Scherpenzeel

A. C.

Das

(2010). “True” longitudinal and probability-based internet panels: Evidence from the Netherlands. In Das

Ester

Kaczmirek

(Eds.), Social and behavioral research and the internet: Advances in applied methods and research strategies (pp. 77–104). Taylor & Francis.

35.

Watson

Clark

L. A.

Tellegen

(1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.1063

36.

Zerwas

F. K.

Ford

B. Q.

(2021). The paradox of pursuing happiness. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 39, 106–112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.03.006

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.25 MB

Does Valuing Happiness Lead to Well-Being?

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References

Supplementary Material