In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. -Abraham Lincoln

Although psychological theories extend many centuries back, it was in 1879 that psychology as a science was birthed as an independent realm of study. In Leipzig, the German physician Wilhelm Wundt dedicated the first university laboratory for psychological research and brought credibility to the new field. During its first century, psychology mainly focused on studying those that deviated from social norms. Researchers dedicated themselves to learning about depression, anxiety, and fear: analysis of the miseries of life in hopes of finding cures for the ailments of the human race. Those pioneers came to a new understanding of repressed phobias and sources of childhood unhappiness. Like quicksand, the more they moved toward understanding these ailments, the more quickly everyone seemed to be engulfed by a new world of psychological illnesses. But was everyone really interested in or in need of new cures for newfound problems?

It seems the answer was no, when in the 1980s, the proverbial pendulum of psychological research began to swing toward the brighter side of our psyche. University studies began to focus on the driving forces behind happiness and positive outlooks instead of depression and pessimism. New research attempted to discover how satisfied the average person was with their life and what things brought contentment, happiness, and achievement. Surveys concerned with trending personal outlooks and cultural aspirations were gathered in scores; the driving forces of positivity were finally under the microscope.

Soon after this swing of the pendulum, newspapers and magazines were filling themselves with brightly colored maps and charts depicting the levels of contentment around the globe. Authors compared happiness on scales of one to ten, analysts discussed economic and subjective well-being trends, and everyone thirsted for the formula of eternal bliss. No longer were suicide rates and cases of homicidal depression the only stories making headlines. It seemed that people were clearly interested in the things that made them happy, but was that a new phenomenon?

Looking back, the trend of research that focused on positive psychology was not a major surprise; instead, it was just a matter of time before the fledgling science caught up with centuries of happiness-seekers. Even the Roman philosopher Cicero was prompted to theorize, “There is no fool who is happy, and no wise man who is not.” Cicero was influenced by his culture’s thirst for knowledge since both the Greeks and Romans believed that happiness came from seeking truth, discovering gnosis, and becoming infinitely enlightened. Happiness, to them, came through enlightenment and was their summum bonum, the supreme good and the ultimate goal of their life.

There were many fast-spreading theories on the root of happiness in the centuries between the fall of Rome and the rise of psychology. Buddhism taught enlightenment and restraint as the path to spiritual peace. Purging the mind of unclean thoughts and pent-up emotions was their preferred path. The Gnostics sought knowledge and answers to impossible questions, while some foolishly taught – “ignorance is bliss.” Others eagerly championed righteous servitude to fellow humanity as the road to inner contentment, while many slipped from the streets of civilization to find their happiness in the solitude of the untouched natural world.

For every theory of happiness, there was another of opposite design: a lifetime could easily be spent chasing the different trends covering the times past. By the time of the twentieth century, the world was ready for science’s attempt at discovering the real source of happiness and subjective well-being. First, however, scientists had to find out who the happy people were.

Finding the happy bunch was not so easy, especially when facing over 2000 years of myths and conjecture. So before going further, it makes sense to refute a couple rather popular myths about happiness.

Myth: Our levels of happiness are affected by our age, and women tend to suffer more emotional stress than men.

Several independent studies attempted to define what segment of people were the happy bunch. Some argued that age is a significant predictor of happiness, or rather unhappiness. The hormonal teen years, feared middle 40s, or those in the final decades of their life were considered to be in prime position to suffer a life crisis and fall into spells of unhappiness. Others believed that females are inherently prone to unhappiness due to social changes throughout life.

Do age and sex play major roles in predetermining our happiness?

The World Value Survey that aggregates subjective well-being data from dozens of nations does not agree with these assumptions. In fact, over 150,000 respondents across all age groups and both sexes showed no significant difference in happiness. The old and young alike had similar response rates indicating satisfaction with life. Likewise, men and women had near identical returns. Although a 1991 study reported that women are twice as likely to face depression, it also showed evidence that men are five times as likely to face alcoholism, so it seems the scales are evened when considering multiple factors.

Myth: Wealth leads to leisure, and leisure leads to satisfaction and greater overall happiness in life.

Perhaps the root of happiness is less of an inherited factor and instead is imbued via the extrinsic, such as wealth and physical property? In 1970, less than 40% of Americans declared that financial wealth was “very important,” yet by 1993, this number was nearly double at 75%. Was this trend toward wealth as a critical life goal aligned with happiness? Does money really buy satisfaction?

To find out, scientists sought to determine if wealthy individuals really claim a greater level of happiness. In 1990, the director of World Value Surveys pointed out statistical data that showed Europeans were not happier with more money. Instead, most data showed that only people in developing countries experienced greater levels of happiness when they acquired more money.

Likewise, in the United Sates, an increase of wealth brought on no distinguishable increases in national subjective well-being. On further inspection, it appears that the data agrees with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Food, shelter, and security (the lowest levels of the hierarchy) are required for well-being; however, once those are sufficiently satisfied then additional affluence matters very little on overall happiness. That explains why a 1985 survey of Forbes’s list of wealthiest Americans came back with an overall happiness with no statistical difference from the average working person. The extremely wealthy were not necessarily happier. Although the average citizen of the United States had more than doubled their real income in less than 50 years (1957-2000), they had no net gains on happiness.

To be continued…