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Comment by WalterGR | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know of any good meta-analyses of studies about happiness / life satisfaction?

Or put another way: what does actual research suggest the "commandments" for happiness are?

There are a lot of blog posts out there, many of which refer to peer-reviewed literature (or at least to news articles about peer reviewed literature).

This is one of the best IMO: http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2011/09/10-things-you-need-to-know...

A lot of it aligns with what you might consider "common sense":

exercise

a sense of purpose and meaning (can be religion-based, but doesn't have to be)

meaningful work

gratitude for positive things in your life

having someone you can talk to about your problems and difficulties

regular and consistent connections with friends and family

That list contains a lot of good advice. However, I did pause at:

3) Money isn’t going to make you much happier. It might make you unhappier.

It's true that above a certain point, money doesn't correlate much with happiness. People are terrible at affective forecasting, so most rich people don't spend their money on things that will make them happy.

If you are wealthy, see the paper "If money doesn't make you happy, then you probably aren't spending it right" for some ideas on how to purchase hedons: http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dtg/DUNN%20GILBERT%20&%20WILSON%...

This is a great read, much more interesting than the original article.

Thanks for the link.

I definitely concur.

Here's another life story that has resonated with me - http://www.alvinlaw.com/

I always think being grateful for what you have is a major ingredient for happiness. Alvin's story really made me reflect on all the good things in my life.

While many of these common-sense things do really have peer-reviewed research behind them, most of the others do not. Pretty much everything that is under-defined, vague or unintuitive is wrong. Fear of failure, comparing yourself to others, surrounding yourself with positive people and so on - these are bullshit in general with no scientific backup. There is in fact more evidence that if you isolate yourself in your happy place with everything positive and no fear of failure, you will eventually have to confront reality very hard at some point in your life. The only reason they work in the short to mid term is because they are sort of a religion-substitute.

Nowhere in my comment or in the literature does anyone advocate ignorance or avoidance of reality.

I understand the difference between advocating something and stating facts or results of a study objectively.

For example, you refer to this blog where religion is mentioned which can be considered as both avoidance of reality and ignorance. I am not saying you or anybody advocates it.

And I just want to point out that many of these "happiness recipes" have no science behind them or at best some misinterpretation of a study. But I still agree that there are some legit studies as well (which are common-sense anyway though).

Almost by definition this is shaky science at best, but Daniel Gilbert seems to be one of the best.

His book on the topic is here -> http://www.amazon.com/Stumbling-Happiness-Daniel-Gilbert/dp/...

The impatient can look at his TED talk here -> http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.h...

Principia Cybernetica's entry http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HAPPINES.html

World Database of Happiness http://www1.eur.nl/fsw/happiness/

This was a real good talk I saw on the science of happiness. How it is as a video not sure.

http://www.psy.uq.edu.au/activity/media.html?mid=35

Some points from memory - Pets are good (Dogs beat cats). Wage matters. Friends beat family (Not sure if this talk mentions this) Money can buy happiness by buying experiences(Not things) and when you spend it on others. Long commuting time to work is bad. (IE A big house in the suburbs sucks)

Not a meta-analysis, but this 76 year study of 268 male Harvard students: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/06/what-mak... is more illuminating than much of the pop-psych literature on "happiness" that I've come across.

There are a few TED talks, including from the 2012 Life Hacks series, that partly address the issue of happiness.

The book "the paradox of choice" by barry schwartz touches the subject (among others) and is an interesting and entertaining read.

Martin Seligman is one of the father's of positive psychology (the study of happiness). He has several popular books.

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