Utilizing sophisticated methodology and three decades of research
by the world's leading expert on happiness, Happiness
challenges the present thinking of the causes and consequences of
happiness and redefines our modern notions of happiness.

* shares the results of three decades of research on our notions
of happiness

* covers the most important advances in our understanding of
happiness

* offers readers unparalleled access to the world's leading
experts on happiness

* provides "real world" examples that will resonate with general
readers as well as scholars

Winner of the 2008 PSP Prose Award for Excellence in
Psychology, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of
the Association of American Publishers

About the Authors

Ed Diener, PhD, is the Joseph R. Smiley Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is recognized as the world's foremost authority on the science of happiness. He is also a senior scientist for the Gallup Organization.

Robert Biswas-Diener, Program Director at the Center for Applied Positive Psychology (UK) and part-time lecturer at Portland State University, lives in Milwaukie, Oregon. He is known as the "Indiana Jones of positive psychology" for his research on subjective well-being in remote cultures around the world.

Klappentext

Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth
Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener

Ed Diener, J. R. Smiley Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois, is the world's foremost authority on the science of happiness. His son, Robert Biswas-Diener, has been called the "Indiana Jones of psychology" because of his data collection adventures around the world. In this fascinating book the father and son team presents scienti??? c evidence revealing that happiness is not overrated, and is good for people's health, social relationships, job success, longevity, and altruism. Happy people even tend to earn higher incomes. But people can be too happy for maximum success, and the pursuit of ultra-happiness can be detrimental. They advocate an optimal level of happiness in which people do not seek euphoria, but pursue life satisfaction, meaning, and frequent positive emotions, with recognition that some negative emotions are an integral part of a happy life. The authors describe why happiness alone is not enough; people need to be happy for the right reasons. They describe the new concept of Psychological Wealth, which extends beyond material riches, and beyond popular concepts like emotional intelligence and social capital.

The authors describe the evidence on what causes happiness. Although there are genetic in??? uences on happiness, these genetics do not produce an unchanging happiness "set point." The book describes the authors' data collection around the globe that shows that people are not necessarily "born" happy, but can and do change their levels of happiness.

This book reveals that high income is correlated with happiness, although excessive materialism is toxic to it. The important factor is not so much what one can buy with one's income, but one's attitudes to it. The authors provide a model for a happy approach to life, based on Attention, Interpretation, and Memory (AIM). Diener and Biswas-Diener suggest that happiness is about a way of traveling, learning to react in positive ways to the world, rather than simply being a destination or set of circumstances.

Zusammenfassung
Utilizing sophisticated methodology and three decades of research by the world's leading expert on happiness, Happiness challenges the present thinking of the causes and consequences of happiness and redefines our modern notions of happiness.

• shares the results of three decades of research on our notions of happiness
• covers the most important advances in our understanding of happiness
• offers readers unparalleled access to the world's leading experts on happiness
• provides "real world" examples that will resonate with general readers as well as scholars

Winner of the 2008 PSP Prose Award for Excellence in Psychology, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers

Part 1: Understanding true wealth.

1. Psychological Wealth: The Balanced Portfolio.

2. Two Principles of Psychological Wealth.

Part 2: Happy people function better.

3. Health and Happiness.

4. Happiness and Social Relationships: You Can't Do Without Them.

5. Happiness at Work: It Pays to be Happy.

Part 3: Causes of happiness and genuine wealth.

6. Can Money Buy Happiness?

7. Religion, Spirituality, and Happiness.

8. The Happiest Places on Earth: Culture and Well-being.

9. Nature and NurtureIs There a Happiness Set-Point, and Can You Change It?

10. Our Crystal Balls: Happiness Forecasting.

11. Taking AIM: Attention, Interpretation, and Memory.

Part 4: Putting it all together.

12. Yes, You Can Be Too Happy.

13. Living Happily Ever After.

14. Measuring Your Psychological Wealth.

Epilogue: About the Science of Happiness.

Further Reading.

References.