Happiness Hypothesis 'And' A Formula For Happiness

During this class we have been looking at many different pieces of literature that talk about happiness. Most of the stories and articles point to the same conclusion, money does make people happier until they hit a certain income then the feeling level out. The authors of the stories and articles will include other factors that cause people to be happier with their lives. There are three articles that connect very well with each other. These three include Chapter five in The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, “A Formula for Happiness” by Arthur C. Brooks, and “High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being” by Kahneman, D., & Deaton, A. In The Happiness Hypothesis, Haidt talks about many different things throughout

The results of the research that were uncovered by these universities was very surprising. In research that was conducted by the University of Minnesota they separated two identical twins at birth and gave to two different families with different backgrounds. After some time, the researchers discovered that we inherit a surprising proportion of our happiness. It is almost 48 percent of our happiness is inherited from our parents (Brooks, 2013). The research results also support Haidt’s argument that external conditions do have an impact on our happiness. About 40 percent of our happiness comes from isolated events and one-time event like getting into the college that someone always dreamed about getting into or having that dream job that they have always been looking for (Brooks, 2013). Additionally, after about half of our happiness is inherited and almost 40 percent of our happiness comes from past experiences there is about 12 percent (give or take a few percent) that we are able to have under control. This 12 percent is including the four basic values that we all try to pursue. These four basic values are faith, family, community and work. People pursue the values because we can control these values to an extent. We are not able to control who is in our family but we are able to control our faith, community and