Happines Studies Overview and Individual Differences

Faculty of Economics

Inequality Seminar Paper

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Happiness Studies: Overview and Individual Differences

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Submitted at: Europa-Universität Viadrina, Lehrstuhl für VWL, insb. Wirtschaftstheorie (Mikroökonomie)

Submitted to: Prof. Dr. Friedel Bolle

Submitted by: Victor Savranskiy

E-Mail: victor.savranskiy@gmail.com

Submitted on: 14.06.2010

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

Overview of happiness 3

Determinants of Happiness 5

Affect of Personality and Socio-Demographic Determinants on Happiness 7

Economic Effects on Happiness 9

Political Institutions Affects on Happiness 11

Alternative Methods to Measure Human Welfare 11

Conclusion 12

References 13

Introduction

Happiness and the factors that influence it have been extensively studied by both psychologists and philosophers alike. However, this pursuit after happiness did not result in an absolute (complete) understanding of what happiness actually is.

Happiness means different things to different people, therefore reaching a consensus concerning the meaning of this term has been proven to be extremely difficult.

Instead of trying to define what happiness is on the outside, one can ask individuals how happy they feel themselves to be. This actually makes perfect sense, since individuals can judge best their own level of happiness or unhappiness. In economics, it is common to rely on this individual judgement to analyse certain economical issues.

Throughout this paper we will focus on the subjective state of happiness and the various psychological, physiological, socio-demographic and economic factors that are positively or negatively highly correlated with the level of subjective well-being in individuals.

We will also observe how individual preferences have a direct influence on the...