Authors
Ruut Veenhoven
Publication date
2023/3/30
Book
Encyclopedia of quality of life and well-being research
Pages
1-4
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Description
“Happiness” is commonly understood as the subjective enjoyment of one’s life as a whole. When estimating how much we like the life we live, we tend to use two more or less distinct sources of information: our affects and our thoughts. One can observe that one feels fine most of the time, and one can also judge that life seems to meet one’s (conscious) demands. These appraisals do not necessarily coincide. We may feel fine generally but nevertheless be aware that we failed to realize our aspirations. Or we may have surpassed our aspirations but nevertheless feel miserable. Using the word “happiness” in both these cases would result in three different kinds of happiness, the overall judgment as commonly denoted with the term and these two more specific appraisals of life. To mark these differences, Veenhoven (1984, 2009) distinguishes between overall happiness and components of happiness and, among the …
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Scholar articles
R Veenhoven - Encyclopedia of quality of life and well-being research, 2023