Sustainable happiness model: intentional activities increase happiness
"STATEMENT: Sustainable Happiness Model
SOURCE (1): "the integrative model of happiness we present accommodates the role of both personality/genetic and circumstantial/demographic factors in happiness...Most important, the model incorporates the role of motivational and attitudinal factors, consistent with the assumption that happiness can be actively pursued. We attempt to show that certain types of intentional activities indeed offer ways to achieve sustainable changes in well-being" p114-115
STATEMENT: intentional activities offer the best potential route to higher and sustainable levels of happiness.
SOURCE (2): "many different motivational and attitudinal factors have been linked to well-being, factors that are presumably amenable to some volitional control. Examples of possible motivational factors include the successful pursuit of life goals that are intrinsic in content (e.g.,Kasser & Ryan, 1996); concordant with a person’s interests, motives, and values (Brunstein,Schultheiss, & Grassman, 1998; Sheldon & Elliot, 1999; Sheldon & Kasser, 1995); and internally consistent (e.g., Emmons & King, 1988;Sheldon & Kasser, 1995)" p114 STATEMENT: increase in happiness that is dependent on circumstances does not last as long as the one that results from activity.SOURCE (2): "Our model specifies that the person’s current circumstances (e.g., his health, income, or the region where he lives) can either add to or detract from his constant set point, as can the person’s current intentional activities (e.g., her behavioral activity of exercising regularly, her cognitive activity of trying to accentuate the positive, or her cognitive activity of trying to gain admission to a professional program)" p59"activity-based changes, by definition, involve continual effort and engagement in some intentional process, whereas circumstance-based changes are, by definition, one-time changes that tend to occur independently of effort and engagement" p59
STATEMENT: High levels of goal progress predict increased well-being
SOURCE(3): "Sheldon and Kasser (1998)...hypothesized that longitudinal attainment promotes positive change in well-being. More importantly, they also hypothesized that "not all progress is beneficial"- that is, that only individuals attaining self-concordant goals would experience enhanced well-being.This was based on the assumption that concordant goals, when obtained, would be more satisfying of individual's organismic needs than less concordant goals. Again, concordant goals were assumed to better represent the individual's true values, interests, and developmental trends, so attaining them should provide more emotional benefits for the person." p70-71
STATEMENT: Self-concordant goal-achievement has been shown to apply in non-Western cultures as well
SOURCE (4): "In sum, although some theoretical perspectives and cross-cultural data suggest that pursuing self-concordant personal goals should be beneficial within any cultural context, other perspectives and data suggest that it may always not be the case (Markus, Kitayama, & Heiman, 1996). The current research sought to shed new light on these issues by assessing personal goals, self-concordance, and SWB within four different cultures: the United States, China, Taiwan, and South Korea. Based on past findings concerning the current measure of self-concordance, our primary hypothesis was that self-concordance would be positively associated with SWB in many, if not all, of these cultures." p211
Source (1): Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K. M., & Schkade, D.. Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Review of General Psychology (2005), 9, 111-131. DOI: 10.1037/1089-2680.9.2.111 http://sonjalyubomirsky.com/wp-content/themes/sonjalyubomirsky/papers/LS...
Source (2): Sheldon, K. M., & Lyubomirsky, S. "Achieving sustainable gains in happiness: Change your actions, not your circumstances," Journal of Happiness Studies (2006) 7:5586 DOI 10.1007/s10902-005-0868-8 http://sonjalyubomirsky.com/wp-content/themes/sonjalyubomirsky/papers/SL...
Source(3): Sheldon, K.M. (2002). The self-concordance model of healthy goal-striving: When personal goals correctly represent the person. In E.L. Deci & R.M. Ryan (Eds.), Handbook of self-determination research (pp. 65-86). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. http://web.missouri.edu/~sheldonk/pdfarticles/SDchpt.pdf
Source (4): Sheldon, K. M., Elliot, A. J., Ryan, R. M., Chirkov, V., Kim, Y., Wu, C., Demir, M., & Sun, Z. (2004). Self-concordance and subjective well-being in four cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 35, 209-233 http://web.missouri.edu/~sheldonk/pdfarticles/JCCP04.pdf
[verified 4/17/14]