Your Daily Activities Affect Your Happiness Today, AND Tomorrow

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There is something predictable about being a researcher who studies happiness—when I tell people what I do, I tend to hear two questions: (1) how can I increase my happiness? and (2) people do that for a living?

Taking the second question first, yes, you can do that. As for the first question, honestly, I struggle with giving happiness advice. Fortunately, pretty solid research exists on the types of daily behaviors that increase people’s happiness.

Steger, Kashdan, and Oishi asked people, over a four week period, to define the types of activities they did each day and their levels of daily well-being, satisfaction, and positive emotions. The goal was to determine the behaviors which are associated with “the good life” or, at least in this case, the good day.

What’s important are the two categories of behaviors they measured: hedonic experiences and eudaimonic activities.

Hedonic experiences are those types of behaviors we engage in that are really only pleasure-oriented (e.g, getting drunk, watching television or playing video games, buying jewelry or electronics just for yourself, or having sex purely for pleasure).

Whereas eudaimonic activities, which relate to a life lived to its fullest potential, are more pro-social and purpose-oriented (e.g., volunteering, giving money to someone in need, expressing gratitude, listening carefully to another person's point of view).

In general, the more a person engaged in eudaimonic ('good, pro-social') behaviors the higher their well-being, satisfaction, and positive emotions were that day. However, engaging in hedonic behaviors did not result in changes in these measures of well-being. Interestingly, there was also a carry-over effect, in that the previous day’s eudaimonic activities improved the well-being a person experienced the following day.

Why is this? We expect that eudaimonic behaviors are beneficial because they satisfy basic psychological needs (autonomy, relatedness, and competence) which are necessary for our ultimate well-being.

So, before you can know if specific behaviors are increasing your daily well-being, you need to know your current level of well-being. To receive personalized feedback on your current level of psychological need satisfaction and eudaimonic well-being, first Login with BeyondThePurchase.Org then take the Basic Need Satisfaction Inventory and the Flourishing Scale. After you complete these quizzes, you will receive personalized feedback as well as tips for improving your daily happiness.

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Clair

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