Basics of social cognitive and affective neuroscience
XVIII. On happiness – humans and human groups
Authors:
F. Koukolík
Authors‘ workplace:
Primář: MUDr. František Koukolík, DrSc.
; Národní referenční laboratoř prionových chorob
; Thomayerova nemocnice, Praha
; Oddělení patologie a molekulární medicíny
Published in:
Prakt. Lék. 2013; 93(2): 39-43
Category:
Editorial
Overview
Happiness is state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure or joy. There exist tools for direct measurement of happiness but they present challenges. So-called Easterlin paradox holds that economic growth does not add to the quality-of –life and that average happiness in nations has not risen in the last few decades, but other author had found a clear positive link between average levels of subjective well being and GDP per capita across countries. Human happiness probably involves more than current income (e.g. as argued by UN): happiness in almost 400 000 people living in OECD is positively correlated with absolute income, generosity of the welfare state and weakly with life expectancy. Material prosperity predicts life evaluation, whereas psychosocial prosperity predicts positive feeling: high income improves evaluation of life bud not emotional well-being. There is a evidence that individuals with transcriptionally more efficient version of the serotonin transporter gene are significantly more likely to report higher levels of life satisfaction and that there exists a dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network.
Keywords:
happiness – Easterlin´s paradox – serotonin transporter gene – social network
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General practitioner for children and adolescents General practitioner for adultsArticle was published in
General Practitioner
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