Recent developments

Recent research conducted by Daniel Gilbert and others have made discoveries about the causes of happiness in humans. Work is also underway at Cambridge centre for well being by Nick Baylis, Felicia Huppert and colleagues. The research by Professor Gilbert at Harvard has already lead to several discoveries. One is that happiness is more or less constant over someone's life regardless of the tragic or joyful events that may occur. People who have been victims of violent crimes such as rape report that they have returned to their original baseline level of happiness over the long-term. Likewise, people who have enjoyed joyful events like getting married have also settled back into their baseline level of happiness over the long term. Another point of the research is that events that are expected to make someone very happy or unhappy never make them as happy or unhappy as they expect.

Related concepts

Other concepts related to happiness are bliss, cheerfulness, cheeriness, enjoyment, mirth, euphoria, exhilaration, ecstasy, subjective life satisfaction and light-heartedness.

A certain mix of enjoyable properties is also called Gemütlichkeit, gezelligheid.