Avowed Happiness As An Overall Assessment of The Quality of Life

Avowed Happiness as an Overall Assessment of the Quality of Life
Author(s): D. C. Shin and D. M. Johnson

Source: Social Indicators Research , Oct., 1978, Vol. 5, No. 4 (Oct., 1978), pp. 475-492
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27521880
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D. C. SHIN AND D. M. JOHNSON
AVOWED HAPPINESS AS AN OVERALL ASSESSMENT

OF THE QUALITY OF LIFE
(Received 16 August, 1977)
ABSTRACT. The concept of happiness has been mistakenly identified with feelings of
pleasure in recent studies of quality of life. This paper clarifies the meaning of the
concept 'happiness' and establishes grounds for its proper use in scholarly research. In
addition, an empirical test of four major accounts of happiness derived from a careful
review of philosophical and empirical literature is undertaken to propose a theory of
happiness. The theory suggests that happiness is primarily a product of the positive
assessments of life situations and favorable comparisons of these life situations with
those of others and in the past. The various personal characteristics of an individual
and the resources in his command, such as sex, age and income, influence happiness
mostly through their effects upon the two psychological processess of assessment
and comparison.
Throughout history, many philosophers have argued that man exists in order
to be happy and that the search for happiness is the chief goal of human
action. For example, Aristotle identified happiness as the chief and final good
in his first book of the Ethics and wrote more than nine books inquiring
about the nature of human happiness. Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy
Bentham claimed that government's primary purpose is to ensure the greatest
amount of happiness for the greatest number. The Declaration of Independence
pronounces all men as possessors of an 'unalienable' right to 'the pursuit of
happiness'. There is a general agreement among thoughtful people that
happiness is the final end of human activity.
Happiness, however, is known to be a peculiarly difficult subject to frame
and analyze. Although everyone is sure that happiness is desirable, no one
seems to know exactly what it is or how it can be achieved. Is it the same as
peace of mind, contentment or statisfaction? Is it enjoyment and pleasure or
creative activity? Does happiness emanate from riches, fame or power? These
are age-old philosophical and empirical questions which still need to be ans
wered. The present study represents a systematic attempt to deal with some
of these questions.
Recent years have seen a substantial increase in empirical research into
self-assessments of happiness. Many scholars have examined the individual
Social Indicators Research 5 (1978) 475-492. All Rights Reserved

Copyright ? 1978 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland

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476 D. C. SHIN AND D. M. JOHNSON
relationships between various demographic, sociological, psychological and

behavioral characteristics and self-assessments of happiness (Allard, 1975;
Alston et al., 1972; Andrews and Withey, 1976; Bradburn and Caplovitz,
1965; Bardburn, 1969; Brenner, 1975; Cameron, 1974; 1975; Campbell
et al., 1976; Easterline, 1973, 1974; Glenn, 1975;Gurin, 1960; Harry, 1976;
Phillips, 1967; Robinson and Shaver, 1969; Spreitzer and Snyder, 1974;
Wilson, 1967). Although their studies have produced valuable information on
the correlates of avowed happiness, they have not developed a systematic
line of research mainly due to the absence of theoretical frameworks. Most of
these empirical works have failed to present systematic accounts of happiness,
because for the most part, they are confined to the individual impact of a
limited number of arbitrarily selected variables upon self-reports of happiness
without considering their mutual interactions. What is known from such
works is little more than that income, youth, education, marriage, social
participation and positive feelings are positively correlated with happiness.
Consequently, the formulation of theory in self-assessments of happiness is
only nascent and requires a broader framework of explanation and sophisticated
methodology. The present inquiry is intended to formulate a broader
explanatory framework; derive researchable hypotheses; and subject them to
empirical testing through multiple-regression analyses. For this purpose,
an attempt will be made to synthesize philosophical accounts of happiness
with the findings derived from previous empirical research.
I. THE NOTION OF HAPPINESS
From the Epicureans to contemporary social scientists, there has been con
siderable confusion about what precisely happiness means. Even in present
English usage, happiness carries quite a variety of meanings and thus
frequently creates a semantic snare (Margolis, 1975, p. 23). To clarify the
meaning of the concept and establish grounds for its proper use in scholarly
research, a conceptual investigation will be attempted of the philosophical
and empirical literature on happiness. In addition, the three main uses of the
term 'happy' will be distinguished here (Thomas, 1968).
The first use of the term refers to a feeling, which is usually of short
duration. When Homer and Herodotus understood happiness to be basically
physical pleasure and when Allard, Campbell and Bradburn thought of it as
an affective state, they were referring to short-term moods of gaiety and

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AVOWED HAPPINESS 477
elation, different from the core meaning of satisfaction. Such feelings of

happiness are often termed euphoria: the presence of pleasure and the
absence of pain. Viewed from this perspective, happiness is a hedonic
concept.
A second use is one in which a person is 'happy with' or 'happy about'
something, and these expressions mean being 'satisfied with' or 'contented
with', and do not at all imply that one has any particular feeling. The word
is used to describe the welfare aspect of life experience, not the hedonic
aspect of human life.1
Thirdly, the term 'happy' is often used evaluatively to make an appraisal
of one's overall quality of experience rather than to make a statement of fact
as in the case of the second use (Benditt, 1974; Cameron, 1975). When a man
says that he is happy, he means that he has a happy life, a life in which all of
his objectives form a harmonious and satisfying whole (Simpson, 1975,
p. 175). When one makes such a judgment in the context of the concept of
happiness, he takes into account various aspects of his condition and circum
stances, as well as how he feels about them. For this reason, philosopher
Austin (1968, p. 52) claims that a person's being happy represents the highest
assessment of his total condition.
Unlike the first two segmented views of happiness, which focus upon
either pleasure, fulfillment or welfare, this third conception of happiness
includes all human needs, desires, interests, tastes and demands, and seeks
to determine whether they constitute a harmonious whole, which Professor
Fletcher (1975, p. 14) characterizes as a sensitive commixture of mind and
feeling (see also Goldstein, 1973). Since mind without emotion, so it is
believed, is impoverished and since emotion without mind is squalid, they
would make a partnership in the form of happiness. Happiness is not
episodic like pleasure, or subject to momentary moods. Feelings of pleasure
and pain can occur both in the context of a happy life and in the context of
an unhappy life. The distinction between feeling happy and being happy
should be considered in systematic accounts of happiness (McCall, 1973,
p. 232).
Yet, this important distinction and the value of happiness as a conceptual
tool for assessing life quality through the eyes of the beholder have been
little appreciated in recent studies of the quality of life (Allard, 1975;
Andrews and Withey, 1976; Campbell et al., 1976). Despite substantial and
consistent evidence contrary to their claims, many well-known scholars have

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identified happiness with short-term moods of gaiety and elation. For

example, Bradburn viewed happiness as a product of positive feelings and the
absence of negative feelings, although his data explain only small portions of
variations in happiness. His study (1969, pp. 63?68) reports that the gamma
values for the association between self-reports of happiness and the balance of
positive and negative affect ranged from 0.33 to 0.51. Similarly, a recent
national sample survey conducted by the University of Michigan (Andrews
and Withey, 1976, p. 85) reveals that the Affect Balance Scale explains only
26 percent of the variance in self-reports on happiness.2 No doubt, one's
perception of pleasure and pain is not identical with his assessment of
happiness. As a recent empirical study by Brenner (1975, p. 330) suggests,
happiness should not be equated with an experience of feeling or affect.
Instead, it should be viewed as a global assessment of a person's quality of life
according to his own chosen criteria.
II. SOURCES OF HAPPINESS
If the search for happiness is considered as the prime force of human action,
the question that matters, then, is of what does happiness consist? Philosophers
and social scientists have constantly examined numerous factors in search for
the determinants of happiness.3 Some people argue that happiness consists of
the possession of a solid estate, while as many others have said that it is
granted only to those who have no attachment to the things of this world.
Power, virtue, love, solitude, friendship, the pleasure of the sense ? each has
been recommended by some, and rejected by others, as constituting true
happiness.
According to von Wright (1963, pp. 92?94), there are at least three well
known accounts of the happy life. He calls the first of these 'Epicurean ideals',
according to which happiness consists in having (as opposed to doing) certain
things that give one passive pleasure. For example, one might get pleasure
from having certain possessions. Happiness for such an individual consists,
then, in getting sufficient pleasure by having enough of these pleasure
producing things. The Lockean idea that property is the foundation and
means of happiness and the Whiggish conception of happiness as possession
of property belong to this materialistic theory of happiness (Schaar, 1970,
p. 10). Such materialistic conceptions are still widely held in the popular
belief that money buys happiness.

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The second kind of ideal of the happy life is, according to von Wright,
found in the writings of the utilitarians, for whom happiness was seen as
dependent upon the satisfaction of desire. Happiness, in such a view, is
essentially contentedness ? equilibrium between needs and wants on the one
hand and satisfaction on the other; the prompt satisfaction of needs produces
happiness, while the persistence of unfulfilled needs causes unhappiness
(Wilson, 1967, p. 302). The happy life for a person would be a life in which
as many as possible of one's needs and desires are met; frustration in
obtaining them, accordingly, would be a main source of unhappiness.
A third category of ideals of the happy life, as revealed in the philosophical
literature, sees happiness neither in passive pleasure as in the possession of
property nor in the satisfaction of desire. The third view, which is found in
Aristotle's concept of eudaimonia, equates happiness with creative activity
(McKean, 1941, pp. 1093?1112). Happiness is thought to come from the
fulfillment of one's capacities by doing what one is keen on. As Simpson
(1975, pp. 172-176) and Schaar (1970, pp. 22-25) argue, happiness is
an achievement brought about by man's inner productiveness, the accom
paniment of all productive activity. Sociologist Phillips (1967) demonstrated
that social participation would increase happiness.
While philosophical accounts search for the main source of happiness in
individuals in terms of their unique needs, interests and capacities, social
scientists take the position that happiness is a concept relative to the
culture in which they function and relative to their personal life history
(Margolis, 1975, p. 23). Unlike moods, which are heavily affected by
immediately prior circumstances, happiness as a person's appraisal of his
'overall' quality of existence takes in broader considerations. Like the
concepts of poverty and wealth, happiness is influenced by past experience
as well as comparisons with others (Crosby, 1976). For example, a recent
14-nation study of happiness reached the conclusion that "relative status is
an important ingredient of happiness" (Easterline, 1974, p. 113).
Considering all these important accounts of happiness, we propose that
happiness consists of the possession of resources; the satisfaction of needs,
wants and desires; participation in self-actualizing activities; and comparisons
with others and past experience. By determining how these four sources
individually and collectively contribute to self-assessment of happiness, the
present inquiry seeks to outline a causal model in skeletal form for further
analysis.

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III. METHODOLOGY
The data for this study were collected in the summer of 1975 as part of a
larger investigation into the quality of life in three middle-size cities in Illinois
Using a random digit-dialing technique, telephone interviews were made with
a sample of 665 male or female heads of households in Decatur, Peor?a and
Springfield. The sample consisted of 263 males, 36 of whom were over 65;
403 were females, 76 of whom were over 65. Six hundred fifteen were
whites, and 50 were blacks. Comparisons of the sample with census data for
the areas indicated that the sample represented the target population with
the exception that both males and blacks were slightly underrepresented.
The questionnaire item used in the present research to measure happiness
has been included in previous surveys conducted by the National Opinion
Research Center and the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan.
On the assumption that each individual is the best judge of his present
state of happiness, the question was framed to elicit self-evaluation of
happiness in terms of the respondent's own conception of it. As in previous
surveys, the respondents were asked the straightforward question, 'Taking
all things together, how would you say things are these days ? would you say
you are very happy, pretty happy or not too happy?' The wording of
the question enabled the respondents to make the distinction between
being happy and feeling happy and thus make an appraisal of their overall
conditions of existence. As Bradburn (1965, 1969) and Robinson and
Shaver (1969) point out, this self-rating item has the advantage of simplicity,
face validity and, more importantly, the 'stable test-retest reliabilities'. Con
sidering the answer to the question in terms of the subject's best estimate
of happiness, we took such self-reports as the basic dependent variable.
Twenty independent variables were selected from our Quality-of-Life
questionnaire to operationalize the conceptual model presented earlier;
they were grouped into four theoretical clusters composed of (1) resources,
(2) assessments of needs and wants, (3) participation and (4) relative life
standing. The resource cluster included achieved resources (income, educa
tion and home ownership), biological or physiological resources (sex, race
and age) and inter-personal relationships (marital status, the number of
children and the number of people living together). Income was measured by
the amount of family income before taxes, and education was measured by
the highest level of schooling each respondent achieved or completed at the

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time of interview. Home ownership was measured by asking whether or not

the subject owned the place in which he or she lived. Information on sex, race,
age, marital status, the number of children and of people living together in
the same household were collected following standard procedures.
The second cluster 'assessment of needs and wants' encompassed a number
of important areas of human needs whose satisfaction are known to be
essential to human survival and well-being. Subjects were asked to rate their
health, education, housing, standard of living, leisure time, community and
local government from a Likert-type rating scale ranging from very satisfied
to very dissatisfied or from excellent to very poor.
The third cluster focused on participation in communal activities and work
because they represent a variety of opportunities for self-actualization. Com
munal participation was measured by nine items, which were later converted
into index form. Specifically, respondents were asked whether or not they
had (1) written or spoken to a local political or public official about their
community; (2) written to a local newspaper about community matters; (3)
attended a meeting or gathering in which local government or community
policy matters were a major subject for consideration; (4) contributed time
or money in a local campaign; (5) been a candidate for and/or held one
local elective office; (6) been a member of a local political club or organiza
tion; (7) contributed money to social service organizations; (8) worked as
a volunteer with any social service organization; and (9) always voted in local
elections. By summing up responses to these nine items, a nine-point Com
munal Participation Scale (CPS) was constructed. Participation in work was
determined by determining whether or not the subject was working for pay
at the time of interview.
The final theoretical cluster included two separate assessments of life
standing according to relative criteria. The first item was designed to suggest
that respondents compare themselves with the people whom they know in
terms of life enjoyment. In addition, the respondents were requested to judge
whether their financial situation had been getting better, stayed about the
same or had been worse during the past few years.
IV. DATA ANALYSIS
For an extensive exploration of the theoretical model outlined above, the

present research employed a series of powerful statistical techniques. First,

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zero-order correlations (r) were computed to measure the gross relationships

between the twenty independent variables on the one hand and self-assess
ments of happiness on the other. Then, standardized partial regression coef
ficients were calculated to determine the relative effect of each independent
variable in the prediction of happiness when the effects of the remaining
variables were removed. Finally, the relative and absolute predictive power of
each of the four theoretical domains was measured and compared through
multi-mode regression analysis to determine the nature of their interactions
and thereby to develop a predictive model of happiness.
In the statistical analyses, all categorical variables were used as dummy
variables. Males, whites, the married, the employed and those owning their
housing unit were coded as one; females, blacks, the unmarried, the
unemployed and those who rent their place were correspondingly coded as
zero. Missing data on any of the variables included in the present research
were handled by means of listwise deletions (Nie et al., 1975, pp. 347?348).
This reduced the number of cases to 549.
Table I presents Pearson product-moment correlations to determine the
general relationship between the 20 independent variables and the dependent
variable of happiness. As expected, most of the relationships were found
to be statistically significant. Of the four theoretical domains outlined earlier,
the participation cluster fails to significantly relate. The Index of Communal
Participation and work status variables are not significantly correlated with
self-assessments of happiness. More surprisingly, the work status variable
is inversely associated with happiness. These findings appear to raise some
doubt about either the importance of participation to happiness or the
validity and reliability of our measures of self-actualizing work. In any event,
the present evidence does not support the conclusion drawn by sociologist
Phillips (1967), p. 487) that self-reports of happiness is highly related to
participation.
Table I reveals two other negative correlations besides participation in
work. Apparently, being a male or having children seems to work against the
achievement of a happy life. The same table displays a great deal of variations
in the magnitude of association as the values pf the Pearson r's range from
very weak 0.04 to substantial 0.43. While such variables as the perception
of life enjoyment relative to others and satisfaction with the standard of
living explains nearly 15 percent of the variance in avowed happiness, several
other variables such as sex, age and communal participation explain little or

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TABLE I
Ranges, means, standard deviations and zero-order correlations of predictor variables
with happiness
Variable Mean Standard Correlation
deviation with happiness
Resources
Race 0.93 0.26 0.09a
Sex 0.41 0.49 -0.03
Age 3.33 1.65 0.06
Income 3.29 1.50 0.11a
Education 2.38 0.97 0.05
Home ownership 0.75 0.43 0.18a
Marital status 0.69 0.46 0.23 a
Number of children 1.45 0.74 0.04
Number of People living together 2.91 1.46 0.04
Assessment of
Stadard of living 3.36 0.72 0.38a
Leisure time 3.43 0.71 0.34a
Housing 3.54 0.59 0.29a
Health 3.38 0.82 0.21a
Education 4.32 0.68 0.15 a
Community 3.34 0.83 0.17a
Quality of government 1.96 0.96 0.09 a
Participation
Communal activities 2.87 1.94 0.06
Work status 0.64 0.47 -0.06
Comparison of Life Situation
With others 2.45 0.57 0.43 a
With the past 1.36 0.67 0.22
a Product moment correlation coefficient significant at 0.05 level.
nothing in the variance of happiness. By and large, subjective meas

assessments of various needs and perceptions of life standing tend
strongly associated with happiness than various objective indica
resources and participation domains. This is consistent with th
literature on social indicators (Schneider, 1975; Campbell et a
Andrews and Withey, 1976; Inglehart, 1977).
Table II summarizes a stepwise regression analysis that provides a
of the relative effect of each successively-introduced independent
stepwise prediction of happiness; a significance test is performed
sessive increments in explained variance. The betas in the Table are s
partial regression coefficients which tell us the expected change in
tion variable while holding the other independent variables c

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Reflecting the amount of change expected in the dependent variable when

the remaining independent variables are controlled, the betas provide a
measure of the relative contribution of each predictor in accounting for self
assessments of happiness.
TABLE II
Stepwise multiple regression of happiness
Variable Multiple Cumulative R2 Standardized

correlation variance change partial regression
explained (R2) coefficient
Perceived life enjoy

ment relative to
others 0.430 0.185 0.296
0.185
Satisfaction with
0.0790.264
living standard 0.514 0.168
Satisfaction with
leisure time 0.546 0.298 0.034 0.164
Marital status 0.572 0.327 0.029 0.156
Perceived quality
of home 0.581 0.337 0.010 0.095
Perceived financial
0.005
change over time 0.585 0.082
0.343
Sex 0.589 0.347 0.005 0.053
Perceived health 0.592 0.350 0.003 0.073
Income 0.594 0.353 0.003 0.061
Home ownership 0.595 0.354 0.001 0.046
Number of children 0.596 0.356 0.001 0.054
Age 0.597 0.357 0.001 0.061
Community satisfac
tion 0.598 0.358 0.001 0.034
Work status 0.599 0.359 0.001 0.033
Number of people
0.006
living together 0.599 0.359 0.031
Race 0.599 0.359 0.000 0.021
Education 0.599 0.359 0.000 0.024
Perceived quality of
government 0.600 0.360 0.000 0.012
Satisfaction with
education 0.600 0.360 0.000 0.015
Communal participa
tion 0.600 0.360 0.000 0.013
Examination of the magnitude of individual regression coefficients points

out that the perception of life enjoyment relative to other people is the
strongest predictor of happiness. The coefficient of this subjective measure
is more than one and one-half times that of any other variables in the

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equation. The beta value of 0.30 means that for each unit change in the meas
urement of the perceived relative life enjoyment there is more than a quarter
point difference in the happiness scale. Moreover, the positive value of this
coefficient signifies that better comparison with other people enhances self
assessments of happiness. The cumulative variance explained (the square of
multiple regression) in the third column of Table II indicates not only that
this factor is the strongest of all, but also that it alone accounts for the
absolute majority of the explained variance in happiness (19 percent).
Evidence clearly suggests that people do compare with others when they
assess the present status of their happiness and that their comparison with
others is an important determinant of happiness.
Table II also reveals that satisfaction with the standard of living is the
second strongest predictor, explaining a percent of the variations of reported
happiness. This financial satisfaction is followed by leisure time satisfaction,
marital status and housing quality in the order of the relative potency of
predictability. This group of four variables, taken together, explains 15
percent of the variation of happiness, about four percent less than that
accounted for by the single item of the perceived relative life enjoyment.
When all 20 predictors are considered, the equation accounts for an
impressive 36 percent of the variance in the dependent variable of happiness
(multiple correlation = 0.60), but this figure is only two percent higher than
that accounted for by the five predictors which have the highest beta
values. This means that the other twelve independent variables with low beta
values (mostly those bearing on the resources and participation domains)
contribute little or nothing to the prediction of happiness.
While confirming the conclusion derived from the 1973 General Social
Survey that financial satisfaction is an important source of happiness
(Spreitzer and Snyder, 1974; Harry, 1976), the present evidence contradicts
the conclusions drawn from earlier studies that perceived health, socio
economic status and social participation play very prominent roles in creating
happiness. Both work status and communal participation variables, which are
considered as indicators of the participation domain, contribute virtually
nothing to the prediction of reported happiness as the figures in the fourth
column of Table II (R square change) and their beta values suggest. Similarly,
education and income are also found to have little influence on happiness
by explaining 0.3 percent or less of the variations of the dependent variable.
More surprisingly, their beta values are negative and less than 0.08, the value

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which is commonly considered as the minimum level of significance. The fact

that these important components of socio-economic status have trivial
negative beta values must be considered unanticipated, although highly
intriguing. Apparently, income and education have two conflicting effects in
predicting happiness.
While the positive influence of education and income outweighs their
negative influence, the residual effects of them upon reported happiness are
found to be negative when their positive effects are stripped away by statistical
control. Less surprising than these findings on education and income is the
reversal of the original positive relationship between aging and happiness.
Consistent with some previous findings (Spreitzer and Snyder, 1974, p. 458),
regression coefficient (B = ?0.09) indicates that aging in itself detracts from
happiness with adjustments made for all other variables.
The final objective of the present inquiry is to determine the relative
potency of each of the four theoretical domains presented earlier in the
prediction of happiness and thereby to outline a causal model in skeletal
form for further analysis. Changes in the magnitude of the coefficients of
multiple determination (R2 or percent of explained variance) associated with
the four theoretical clusters when they were considered individually and
jointly were used as a means of evaluating the direct contribution of each
cluster to the prediction of the dependent variables and of ascertaining the
interactions among themselves. In this statistical analysis, independent
variables belonging to each cluster were simultaneously entered into the
equations in multiple (as opposed to stepwise) mode. Table III summarizes
the results of a series of such multi-variate analyses by presenting the coef
ficients of multiple determination and standardized betas.
As discussed earlier, our conceptual model of happiness is composed of
the four major domains of sources of happiness derived from philosophical
and empirical accounts of happiness. These domains are the subject's
biological, interpersonal and achieved resources; his assessments of various
individual and communal needs; his self-actualizing activities; and the percep
tion of his life standing relative to other people and his past life experience.
The set of the nine resources variables accounted for 9.0 percent of the
variance in happiness. Seven assessments of individual and communal needs,
taken together, explained as much as 24.4 percent of the variance in the same
happiness measure. Two items of the relative life standing domain explained
20.7 percent of the same measure. By contrast, the composite index of

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TABLE III
Prediction of happiness by three cluster of variables
Beta coefficients
Resources Assessments Comparions Resources Resourc

only only only and and
assessments compari
Resources
Race 0.04 0.01 0.05
Sex -0.07 -0.04 -0.09
Age 0.03 -0.04 0.01
Income 0.04 -0.05 -0.01
Education 0.05 0.03 -0.04
Home ownership 0.11 0.04 0.10
Marital status 0.22 0.17 0.18
Children -0.09 -0.06 -0.06
Household members - 0.04 0.02 -0.01
Assessments
Standard of living 0.25 0.24
Leisure time 0.22 0.21
Housing 0.10 0.10
Health 0.15 0.13
Education 0.03 0.02
Community 0.05 0.05
Government 0.02 0.01
Comparisons
With others 0.40 0.39
With the past 0.14 0.15
Explained Variance
(adjusted multiple R2 ) 9.0 % 24.4% 20.7% 27.8% 27.2%

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communal activities and work status together explained only 0.8 percent of
the variations in reported happiness.
It is clear that the participation variables are very poor predictors
of the happiness measure, which implies that participation as measured here
is not a main source of happiness. The participation variables are also found
to explain virtually none of the variance in happiness that could not be
alternatively, and more effectively, accounted for by any other domain. Note,
for example, that adding the two participation measures to the set of
assessment measures resulted in no increase in the variance explained; 24.4
percent of the variance explained by the assessment domain remained intact.
This means that the participation variable makes no independent contribution
to what can be predicted by other domains. The weak explanatory power
shown by the figures for the percentage-of-variance shown in Table II and the
absence of their net contribution to the prediction of happiness led us to
withdraw this domain from the prediction model which the present analysis
is proposing.
To determine whether the resource domain has any effect appart from
that mediated by the other three domains, the nine resource measures are
included in further analysis together with the other domains. The results of
this analysis, presented in Table HI, show that addition of the resource
measures makes a small but significant increase over the predictive capacity
shown by the set of assessments or the relative life standing variables. For
example, the set of assessment measures alone account for 24.4 percent of
the variance in happiness, and adding our nine measures of the resource
domain to this information brings the total to 27.8 percent, an increase of
3.4 percent. When the resource variables entered into the equation with the
two measures of the relative life standing, the equation's predictive capacity
rose by 6.5 percent from 20.6 to 27.2. Even when the assessment and
relative life standing domains were considered together, the addition of the
resource variables increased the squared value of multiple regression by 3.6
percent. These findings imply that there are some limited direct effects of the
various resources covered in the present analysis on happiness, beyond those
mediated by the assessments of needs and wants and the perception of
relative life standing. This fact is mirrored by some of the betas for the
resources in the final column of Table III, which remain non trivial.
As reported earlier, the set of nine assessments explained 24.4 percent,
while the set of two relative life standing measures explained 20.7 percent of

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the variance in avowed happiness. If the effects of the perceived life standing
were entirely indirect and mediated by the nine assessments included in the
analysis, the combined explanatory power of both sets would not increase
beyond the 24.4 percent explained by the assessments alone. If, on the other
hand, the effects of the relative life standing on happiness were entirely
independent of these assessments, the total explanatory power of both sets
taken together would be the sum of the explanatory power of the two sets
taken separately, or 45.1 percent. In fact, the sixth column of Table HI
shows that the total explanatory power of the two sets is 32.3 percent; this
suggests the existence of interactions between these two sets of measures,
which results in a mixture of direct and indirect effects of them on self
assessments of happiness, with the preponderance being indirect.
Finally, the relative predictive power of each theoretical domain was
assessed by measuring each domain's direct contribution to the prediction of
happiness. Again, such direct influence was computed by means of the
squared part correlation coefficient, a measure of the difference between
two R2 values (Nie et al., 1975, p. 334). The part coefficient between the
assessment domain and happiness is 0.087, which means that the nine assess
ments add an increment of 8.7 percent to the variation already explained by
the other two domains. The relative life standing and resource domains are
found to raise the potency of prediction by 8.1 percent and 3 percent re
spectively. A comparison of these three squared part coefficients suggests
that the most important source of happiness is the satisfaction of various
human needs followed by favorable comparisons of life situations and then
resources at disposal. This seems to accord with utilitarian accounts of
happiness that happiness consists in an equilibrium between needs and wants
on the one hand and satisfaction on the other (Leiss, 1976).
The findings documented thus far can be integrated to propose a general
model of happiness and this model is presented in specific form in Figure 1.
Happiness is shown as depending primarily on the manner in which a person
perceives and evaluates particular needs of his existence and in which he
compares his life situations. The assessment of his needs and the comparison
of his life situations are, in turn, influenced by characteristics of the
respondent and resources at his command. These resources and characteristics
are viewed as having a direct bearing on happiness, in addition to their
predominant indirect effects through the assessment and comparison of
particular situations. The processes of such assessment and comparison

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Assessments of Needs
Resources - > Happiness
\ Comparison of Life
Si tuations
?tf ) The cross-hatched arrow represents that the streng

relationship is relatively minor compared to others in the
Fig. 1. Model of determinants of happiness.
influence each other in evaluating the present state of happines

the effects of the other process. This is because the degree
required to produce the sense of satisfaction depends on as
which is influenced by the particular standards of comparison
as past experience and comparisons with others and becaus
particular standards for comparison is influenced by the given
satisfaction. Which needs and standards of comparison are
to the assessment of happiness is an empirical question waiting
investigation.
v. CONCLUSION
Social scientists have been for a long time studying the determinants of
happiness, which is known to be the final end of human action. However,
a careful review of the current literature on happiness reveals the absence of a
systematic line of research and this calls for the expansion of the existing
theoretical framework and the application of a sophisticated methodology.
The purpose of this paper involved an attempt to develop a theoretical model
of happiness.
The task of developing a theoretical model has been addressed in the
present work (1) by identifying the proper criteria for the use of the term
'happiness'; (2) by synthesizing major accounts of happiness; and (3) by
testing those accounts with empirical data. On the basis of the findings,
two major conclusions are noteworthy.
While the concept of happiness carries a variety of meanings, many social
scientists have failed to understand the important distinction between those
divergent meanings and the proper criteria for their use. As a result, they have

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mistakenly identified happiness with feelings of pleasure, and thus have mis
understood the value of the term as an important conceptual tool for
assessing the quality of life through the eyes of the beholder. When the term
is used in an evaluative context, it simply refers to being happy and requires
an appraisal of the overall conditions of one's existence.
The results of an empirical test of the four major accounts of happiness
derived from a review of philosophical and theoretical literature imply that
happiness is primarily a product of the positive assessment of life situations
and the favorable comparison of these life situations with those of others and
the past. The various characteristics of an individual and the resources at his
command, such as sex, age and income, influence happiness mostly through
their effects upon the two psychological processes of assessment and com
parison. In addition, they also exert a small but significant amount of direct
influence upon happiness. All in all, our model proposes that happiness is a
concept relative to individuals, their unique needs and resources and to the
culture and environment in which they function as social beings.
Center for the Study of Middle-Size Cities,

Sangamon State University, Springfield, Illinois
NOTES
1 For an illuminating discussion of this subject, see George von Wright (1963).
2 The Affect Balance Scale measures the difference between the scores on the positiv
and negative feeling indices (Bradburn, 1969).
3 For an interesting discussion of the American philosophical literature on the sources
of happiness, see Schaar (1970).
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Avowed Happiness As An Overall Assessment of The Quality of Life

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