Happiness is the whole aim and end of human existence, but why, then, are some people happier than others? To understand this question, you must first understand the cognitive and motivational processes that serve to maintain, and even enhance, continuing happiness. The author of this article explores the relevant psychological processes, such as social comparison, dissonance reduction, self-reflection, self-evaluation, and person perception, in chronically happy and unhappy individuals. In this essay, I will summarize the purpose and content of the article.

First, the author evaluates the impact of social comparison in relation to happiness. Social comparison is an active, dynamic, and flexible process, which may be used in the service of boosting or diminishing one’s mood and self-regard. She states that in several studies, it has been shown that self-related happy individuals appear to be less sensitive to social comparison information- especially unfavorable information- than unhappy individuals. In two different studies, they found that happy individuals were relatively less influenced by the superior performance of a peer. The first study had students solve anagrams in the pre

Finally, she looks at future research directions and challenges for future interventions. Further research drawing on prior theoretical work may prove fruitful in the advancement of understanding the causes of happiness, which is valuable to a comprehensive scientific study of optimal human functioning (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). She states that future research promises to concentrate on questions raised by the construal approach to happiness. Construal is simply an interpretation of the meaning of something. One objective of future investigators would be to identify and measure the most important hedonically relevant motivations underlying happiness and unhappiness and to indicate the associations between these motivations and specific cognitive processes. Hedonically means to be marked by pleasure or of relating to pleasure. Other questions of further research include: to what extent can a construal approach to happiness be applied and generalized to other cultures or invoked to account for cultural variations in well-being, and do the cognitive and motivational processes directly increase happiness, or does happiness promote their use? The pursuit of happiness has long been the American obsession. Another important question to take into account is whether the cog

Some topics in this essay:
Happier Happiness, Seligman Csikszentmihalyi, Lyubomirsky Lepper, Lyubomirsky Tucker, Sheldon Houser-Marko, social comparison, cognitive motivational, cognitive motivational processes, happy individuals, unhappy individuals, individuals appear, motivational processes, future research, negative feedback, positive negative feedback, tucker 2000, lyubomirsky tucker 2000, lyubomirsky tucker, happy individuals appear, individuals appear sensitive,