Momentary Happiness Research Articles

Finding the Key to Happy Aging: A Day Reconstruction Study of Happiness

The main aim of this study was to examine the roles of physical passivity and extraversion in the relationship between daily engagement in activities and daily happiness among older adults. A day reconstruction method was used to accurately examine day-to-day activities and happiness. In total, 438 participants completed a monthly electronic diary survey over a 2-year period, generating 79,181 reported activities and momentary happiness scores. The results show that happiness increases when older adults combine effortful social, physical, cognitive, and household activities with restful activities. Furthermore, participation in social activities mediated the direct relationship between extraversion and happiness. Also, individuals who score high on extraversion derive greater happiness from social activities compared with their low-extravert counterparts. The study extends activity theory by demonstrating that combining effortful activities with restful activities leads to greater happiness among older adults. Also, personality traits such as extraversion play a decisive role in the kind of activities that contribute most to daily happiness.

Engaging and disengaging work conditions, momentary experiences and cortisol response

There is a growing literature suggesting important associations between the perceived work situation, individual health, and organizational outcomes. Less research has investigated employee experiences in the moment, which might help explain why the broader outcomes emerge. We examined momentary affect and cortisol from a within-day and between-day perspective, comparing working time to nonworking time for employees in engaging and disengaging workplaces. Findings indicate significantly lower momentary happiness and interest and higher stress and sadness are associated with work, and, in particular, with disengaging work environments. The connections between momentary affect and cortisol confirmed prior research, but cortisol was higher during non-work weekday moments. Employees with engaging work conditions had lower cortisol during weekday (working) mornings in comparison to employees with disengaging work conditions. There was no difference on Saturdays. These results provide evidence that work, and especially the work situation, is associated with affective and physiological momentary states.

Being grateful is beyond good manners: Gratitude and motivation to contribute to society among early adolescents

Gratitude, a positive response to receiving a benefit, may contribute more to youth than just momentary happiness. It may ignite in youth a motivation for “upstream generativity” whereby its experience contributes to a desire to give back to their neighborhood, community, and world. We tested this notion by longitudinally examining early adolescents’ gratitude and their social integration, or motivation to use their strengths to help others and feel connected to others at a macro level. Middle school students (N = 700) completed measures of gratitude, prosocial behavior, life satisfaction, and social integration at baseline (T1), 3-months (T2), and 6-months (T3) later. Using bootstrapping to examine multiple mediators, controlling for demographics and social integration at T1, we found that gratitude at T1 predicted social integration at T3 and that prosocial behavior and life satisfaction at T2 mediated the relation. Further mediational analyses showed that gratitude and social integration serially enhanced each other. This prospective evidence aligns well with the interpretation that gratitude may help to initiate upward spirals toward greater emotional and social well-being. Implications are discussed in terms of gratitude’s role in positive youth development.

Momentary Happiness: The Role of Psychological Need Satisfaction

Psychological well-being correlates positively with psychological need satisfaction—primarily the needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The current study explores momentary happiness (defined as experienced enjoyment minus experienced stress over the course of an hour) as a function of momentary psychological need satisfaction. Results demonstrate that hour-by-hour ratings of psychological need satisfaction were correlated with momentary happiness, with individual differences in life satisfaction moderating this relationship. Ratings of autonomy and relatedness correlated positively with momentary happiness, while competence was negatively correlated with momentary happiness. Thus, engagement in competence-promoting behaviors may come at an affective cost, at least in the moment. When autonomy and relatedness needs were met, individuals with high levels of life satisfaction experienced greater increases in happiness than individuals with low levels of life satisfaction. This finding supports a sensitization model of well-being. Results are discussed with respect to their implications for self-determination theory (SDT).

Die Rückkehr des Glücks

Abstract The issue of happiness makes a significant re-entrance into contemporary philosophical thought. From the perspective of individual ethics, two aspects take center-stage: the continuation of the program of Eudaimonia as reasonable self-determination towards good and the experience of momentary episodic happiness which surpasses the individual quest. This essay tries to combine these elements into a theological notion ofhappiness by arguing for re-evaluation ofthe quest-driven approach ofEudaimonia that in turn has obtained its impulse through a momentary experience of transcendence.