Thesis (M.C.S.)--Regent College, 1999. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 154-161).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Texas, May, 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Published also as Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University.

D.Ed. (Sociopedagogics) / Many students attend school throughout the year. These students vary from being happy to unhappy individuals. The reason why some of these students are unhappy gave cause to the undertaking of this study. Therefore, the essence of happiness, as well as the needs for happiness of the school student, had to be determined, all within the limits of responsible educational standards. It was furthermore a problem to determine the reasons for the unhappiness of students at school and what had to be done to keep the happy students happy and make the unhappy students happy. The ultimate problem to be solved, was to determine the extent to which a change in attitude or simply a slight change in educational approach would influence the happiness of students at school. The methods used in this study were firstly an intensive literature study, with a socio pedegogical perspective on the task of the school. This was followed by a literature study to determine the essence of happiness, with the perspective on the Bible, as well as the perspective on the meanings of several theorists. Secondly, an empirical study involving secondary school students, was done. They were asked to state their own meaning on happiness in a single paragraph. They were also asked to evaluate and arrange, ten needs of happiness determined beforehand, in order of importance. Some of the most important results that came forth from the literature study, in addition to the Biblical message, that happiness causes joy and peace of mind to the human being, are that happiness is a longing and highest aspiration of all mankind, that happiness is future directive, is permanent and is experienced with fellow men and that happiness is incomplete. The need for security and the need for self-realization are the two essences of happiness that received highest priority. The results from the empirical study show that the student has a need to be acknowledged as a person for self-realization and to be able to lead a good life. Intellectual development, human relations and communication with fellow men received less priority, while the needs for freedom, discipline and especially the need for food and clothing, received the least priority. The reason for this tendency, can be that the basic needs of these students have already been satisfied -and the fullfilment for less basic needs still excist. In the light of all these results attention must be given to the criteria for an "ideal" school that can attend to the satisfying of the needs for happiness of the school student. The ideal school must strive to meet the needs of the student in its education and training. atmosphere of security and give the student thorouh It must educate the student in an pedogogical love to self-realization, intellectual and moral education and secure order and discipline. The ideal school must guide the student to overcome his failures, teach the student what happiness is all about and brief him on how to be a happy student, now and for years to come.

Analysis of Happiness Management in Organizations in the Czech Republic Bc. Marie Kotálová Abstract: The objective of this thesis is to analyse the forms of happiness management in the Czech republic, focusing on the activities and competencies of happiness managers. Firstly, the premises and psychological origins of happiness management in organisations are discussed. Then, the implementation of happiness management into a business setting is scrutinised, its goals and tools, with due attention given to happiness managers and the position they occupy within their respective organisations. The paper includes a qualitative study in select Czech organisations, which have introduced the position of a happiness manager. A semi-structured interview with these very managers was the method of choice. The aim of the study is the cataloguing and comparison of various happiness management forms; happiness manager activities and responsibilities, as well as their qualifications and competency profiles within the selected organisations. Key words: happiness, happiness at work, positive psychology, happiness management, happiness manager

Several studies indicate that married persons have higher levels of happiness that persons in other marital categories. In recent years, there has been some debate over whether marriage still involves significant advantages. In 1988, a study by Glenn and Weaver using U.S. national survey data, indicated that there had been a steady decline in the positive relationship between marriage and reported happiness from 1972 through 1986: married females were reporting lower levels of happiness and never-married males were reporting higher levels of happiness. More recent data presented in this thesis indicate that the trends in happiness observed by Glenn and Weaver (1988) have not continued. New data from 1987 through 1996 show an increase in the happiness of both married males and females, and a slight decrease in the happiness of never-married males. Data also indicate that neither life satisfaction, or socioeconomic factors, or cohabitation can explain the relative increase in the happiness of the never-married, compared to the married, observed by Glenn and Weaver (1988) from 1972 through 1986. Contrary to Glenn and Weaver (1988), evidence presented in this thesis suggests that marriage continues to be an important institution: married persons continue to have significantly higher levels of happiness than persons in other marital categories. Further, marriage provides persons with benefits that cannot be obtained from other living arrangements such as cohabitation. / Master of Science

Previous research suggests that some individuals have negative views about happiness and may actively avoid positivity due to associating it with previous negative experiences. The Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) is a paradigm that examines approach and avoidance tendencies. However, the AAT has previously never been used to examine motivational tendencies in individuals who fear happiness. In this study, we used the AAT to examine if individuals who fear happiness respond aversively in the face of prospective positivity. Results revealed that the difference between the duration of pulling the joystick for both stimuli is negatively related to fear of happiness (FHS) such that individuals with higher FHS scores pulled the joystick for a shorter amount of time for positive stimuli than neutral. This suggests that individuals with a fear of happiness may exhibit aversive tendencies for positive information in comparison to neutral information, similar to that seen in depressed individuals.

No description available.

by Oi-Man Kwok. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 43-52). / Abstract also in Chinese.

Several researchers in happiness studies have called for an increased sociopolitical interest in indicators of societal happiness. However, recent evidence for the proposed paradoxical effects of valuing happiness suggest that an increase in society’s perceived value of happiness may exert a detrimental, inverse influence on well-being. This notion is based on previous research demonstrating that manipulating participants to value happiness causes them to experience less positive emotions, compared to controls, when viewing positive film clips. Following the humanistic notion that the maximization of societal happiness is an advantageous sociopolitical endeavor, the proposed paradoxical effects of valuing happiness present a psychological barrier that researchers must strive to understand and, ideally, overcome. Previous experimental research on the paradoxical effects of valuing happiness has focused on participants’ emotionality as an operational definition of happiness. However, drawing from the Subjective Well-Being construct, emotionality is only one of several components of happiness. Building from this Subjective-Well Being framework, this study expands upon previous research by investigating whether a valuing happiness manipulation influences participants’ emotionality while they contemplate their own happiness. To examine this, nineteen participants were divided into two groups, one which received a valuing happiness manipulation (n=9) and the others served as a control group (n=10), and instructed to contemplate their personal happiness for 45 seconds. To measure participants’ emotions during this task, facial electromyography data were collected from the corrugator supercilii and the zygomaticus major facial muscles, a measure that previous research suggests is sensitive to the emotional value of thought. Results indicated that participants manipulated to value happiness did not experience significant differences in facial electromyography activation compared to controls. However, although non-significant, the correlation between facial electromyography activation and participants’ rating of happiness differed substantially for participants manipulated to value happiness (average r=.41 for corrugator, average r=-.09 for zygomaticus) and controls (average r=.-.29 for corrugator, average r=.14 for zygomaticus). The counterintuitive correlations for participants led to value happiness, despite not experiencing significant difference in the emotional value of the happiness contemplation task, provide preliminary evidence that these participants utilize the information retrieved from the contemplative stage in a qualitatively different way than controls when judging their own happiness. More specifically, the correlations for participants led to value happiness trend in the opposite direction of controls, demonstrating that increases in positive emotion during happiness contemplation actually are associated with lower scores on a self-report of happiness. This study suggests that the paradoxical effects of valuing happiness does not influence the retrieval of information when contemplating ones’ happiness, but may influence (in an apparently detrimental fashion) how this information is utilized when judging one’s happiness. Although the between-condition differences in correlations failed to reach statistical significance (more specifically, p=.09 for corrugator), this study provides preliminary evidence for the existence of a new dynamic of the proposed paradoxical effects of valuing happiness that is novel to the happiness studies discourse. Limitations, implications, and future directions are discussed.