12 Oct What if there were something missing from your happiness formula?
via Business Insider by Chris Pash
A key factor has been added to the mathematical formula to the secret of happiness
The scientists who developed a neat equation to predict happiness, highlighting the importance of expectations, have a new, improved formula showing how well-being depends not only on what happens to us but also how this compares to other people.
The pursuit of a recipe for happiness has consumed many years for many scientists. They want to define the joy and feeling of happiness, how people come to experience it and how to help them get a bit more of it.
It’s a complicated search but there are some things we do know for sure about happiness.
We are more likely to be happier if we have a happy friend nearby. Happiness is infectious.
And we know that money does matter. We need enough of it to live well — that makes us happier than not having money. But after a point, more money doesn’t make a lot of difference.
And money spent on doing, rather than by buying things, works. Apparently an experience, such as a holiday or going skydiving, brings more happiness than a good shopping spree, according to research in the journal Psychological Science.
The new equation, showing how happiness depends not only on what happens to us but also how this compares to other people, has been developed by University College London researchers.
This team developed in 2014 an equation to predict happiness, highlighting the importance of expectations.
That earlier research showed how happiness depends not on how well things are going but whether things are going better or worse than expected.
The latest study, published in the journal Nature Communications, found that inequality reduces happiness…
…keep reading the full & original article HERE