Happiness/Hardiness

Overview

Counseling by its very nature attempts to alleviate problems and foster happiness. In order to help clients become happier, however, counselors must first define happiness and well-being. Today, there are two prevailing perspectives on the study of happiness. In the empirically derived hedonic view, well-being consists of pleasure or happiness. Research that stems from this perspective typically construes happiness as subjective well-being, people's emotional and cognitive evaluations of their lives as measured by their self-reported degree of global positive affect, negative affect, and overall life satisfaction. In the theoretically derived eudaemonic perspective, psychological well-being is construed as the maximization or actualization of human potential. Research that stems from this perspective generally focuses on behavior and cognitions rather than feeling. A wide range of constructs such as meaning and purpose in life, values, self-acceptance, and personal goals are studied in this perspective. In order to be complete, the study of happiness should focus on both hedonic and eudaemonic well-being. Similarly, counselors ideally should be adept at helping clients to achieve hedonic goals such as alleviating pain and increasing happiness, as well as eudaemonic goals such as increasing meaning, enhancing life skills, and promoting effective decision making and behavior.

Measurement and Constituents of Happiness

Happiness has been measured across time periods that range from daily or hourly to over the lifetime. Although short-term happiness is related to long-term happiness, there are differences between them. Short-term happiness is more changeable than long-term or trait happiness (which appears to be partly genetically determined); therefore, counselors are more likely to focus on clients' short-term happiness and fulfillment. Long-term happiness is relatively stable and appears to be affected by life events only for a period of about 3 months, after which it returns to its usual level for most people. General or long-term happiness appears to be partly determined by satisfaction in particular life areas such as work, yet it is also likely that a person's overall happiness level will affect his or her satisfaction in particular life areas. Since general happiness is less changeable, and since most people report relatively high overall happiness, counselors tend to promote happiness by focusing on things that are known to increase short-term or immediate happiness.

The factors that affect happiness, and the theories of happiness, may be grouped as either bottom-up or top-down. Bottom-up theories, which focus on external [Page 624]and situational factors, construe subjective well-being as the product of summed pleasurable and unpleasant moments. That is, a person is thought to be happy because he or she experiences more pleasurable moments than unpleasant moments. In contrast, top-down approaches construe subjective well-being as the product of internal traits and psychological processes such as dispositions, goals, coping styles, and adaptive processes. To more fully account for individual happiness, it is important that researchers and counselors focus on internal as well as external sources of happiness, and on the quality as well as quantity of external factors such as relationships and job.

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