Three ways to be happy: Pleasure, engagement, and meaning - Findings from Australian and US samples

Social Indicators Research

Volumn 90, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 165-179

  Vella Brodrick, Dianne A ^a   Park, Nansook ^b   Peterson, Christopher ^c  

^a MONASH UNIVERSITY   (Australia)

^b UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

Author keywords

Engagement; Life satisfaction; Meaning; Orientations to happiness; Pleasure; Positive and negative affect; Positive psychology; Subjective well being

Indexed keywords

ATTITUDINAL SURVEY; HIERARCHICAL SYSTEM; PSYCHOLOGY; REGRESSION ANALYSIS; SOCIAL INDICATOR;

AUSTRALASIA; AUSTRALIA; NORTH AMERICA; UNITED STATES;

EID: 55649105822     PISSN: 03038300     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s11205-008-9251-6     Document Type: Article

References (36)

1. Adams, T. B., Bezner, J. R., Drabbs, M. E., Zambarano, R. J., & Steinhardt, M. A. (2000). Conceptualization and measurement of the spiritual and psychological dimensions of wellness in a college population. Journal of American College Health, 48, 165-173.
2. Biswas-Diener, R., Vitterso, J., & Diener, E. (2005). Most people are pretty happy, but there is cultural variation: The Inughuit, the Amish, and the Maasai. Journal of Happiness Studies, 6, 205-226.
3. Bryant, F. B., Smart, C. M., & King, S. P. (2005). Using the past to enhance the present: Boosting happiness through positive reminiscence. Journal of Happiness Studies, 6, 227-260.
4. Bryant, F. B., & Veroff, J. (2007). Savoring: A new model of positive experience. Mahwah, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
5. Chamberlain, K. (1988).On the structure of subjective well-being. Social Indicators Research, 20, 581-604.
6. Crawford, J. R., & Henry, J. D. (2004). The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS): Construct validity, measurement properties and normative data in a large non-clinical sample. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 43, 245-265.
7. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper-Collins.
8. Csikszentmihalyi, M., Abuhamdeh, S., & Nakamura, J. (Eds.). (2005). Flow. New York, NY: Guilford Publications.
9. Davidson, R. J., Kabat-Zinn, J., Schumacher, J., Rosenkranz, M., Muller, D., Santorelli, S. F., et al. (2003). Alterations in brain and immune function produced by mindfulness meditation. Psychosomatic Medicine, 65, 564-570.
10. Debats, D. L., Van der Lubbe, P. M., & Wezeman, F. R. (1993). On the psychometric properties of the Life Regard Index (LRI): A measure of meaningful life: An evaluation in three independent samples based on the Dutch version. Personality and Individual Differences, 14, 337-345.
11. Diener, E., & Emmons, R. A. (1984). The independence of positive and negative affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 1105-1117.
12. Diener, E., & Lucas, E. (1999). Personality and subjective well-being. In D. Kahneman, E. Diener, & N. Schwarz (Eds.). Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 213-229). New York: Russell Sage.
13. Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71-75.
14. Diener, E., Oishi, S., & Lucas, R. E. (2003). Personality, culture, and subjective well-being: Emotional and cognitive evaluations of life. Annual Review of Psychology 54, 403-425.
15. Frankl, V. E. (1963). Man's search for meaning, an introduction to logotherapy. Oxford, England: Washington Square Press.
16. Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218-226.
17. Fredrickson, B. L., & Losada, M. F. (2005). Positive affect and the complex dynamics of human flourishing. American Psychologist, 60, 678-686.
18. Fry, P. (2000). Religious involvement, spirituality and personal meaning for life: Existential predictors of psychological wellbeing in community-residing and institutional care elders. Aging and Mental Health, 4, 375-387.
19. Gannon, N., & Ranzijn, R. (2005). Does emotional intelligence predict unique variance in life satisfaction beyond IQ and personality? Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 1353-1364.
20. Goldberg, L. R. (1999). A broad-bandwidth, public domain, personality inventory measuring the lower-level facets of several five-factor models. In I. Mervielde, I. Deary, F. De Fruyt, & F. Ostendorf (Eds.), Personality psychology in Europe (Vol. 7, pp. 7-28). Tilburg, The Netherlands: Tilburg University Press.
21. Keyes, C. L., Shmotkin, D., & Ryff, C. D. (2002). Optimizing well-being: The empirical encounter of two traditions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 1007-1022.
22. Lent, R. W., Singley, D., Sheu, H.-B., Gainor, K. A., Brenner, B. R., Treistman, D., et al. (2005). Social cognitive predictors of domain and life satisfaction: Exploring the theoretical precursors of subjective well-being. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 52, 429-442.
23. Lucas, R. E., Diener, E., & Suh, E. (1996). Discriminant validity of well-being measures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 616-628.
24. Lyubomirsky, S., King, L. A., & Diener, E. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 803-855.
25. Mackay, H. (2004). Right and wrong: How to decide for yourself. Sydney, NSW: Hodder.
26. Peterson, C., Park, N., & Seligman, M. E. (2005). Orientations to happiness and life satisfaction: The full life versus the empty life. Journal of Happiness Studies, 6, 25-41.
27. Peterson, C., Ruch, W., Beermann, U., Park, N., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2007). Strengths of character, orientations to happiness, and life satisfaction. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2, 149-156.
28. Pressman, S. D., & Cohen, S. (2005). Does positive affect influence health? Psychological Bulletin, 131, 925-971.
29. Russell, J. A. (1980). A circumplex model of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1152-1168.
30. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2001). On happiness and human potentials: A review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 141-166.
31. Ryff, C. D., & Singer, B. (1998a). The contours of positive human health. Psychological Inquiry, 9, 1-28.
32. Ryff, C. D., & Singer, B. (1998b). Human health: New directions for the next millennium. Psychological Inquiry, 9, 69-85.
33. Seligman, M. E., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions. American Psychologist, 60, 410-421.
34. Sheldon, K. M., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2006). How to increase and sustain emotion: The effects of expressing gratitude and visualizing best possible selves. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1, 73-82.
35. Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegan, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063-1070.
36. Zika, S., & Chamberlain, K. (1992). On the relation between meaning in life and psychological well-being. British Journal of Psychology, 83, 133-145.