Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile by Daniel Nettle Buy at: Amazon

Accessible study of the psychology, physiology, philosophy and politics of happiness.

First off I should say it's interesting in itself to think about happiness for a while. And perhaps that's the best part of this book, to force you to think about how happy you are. With that said, I found the discussions of some of the various experiments probing happiness to be surprising and encouraging. "For example, in one study, experimenters contrived to allow participants to find a dime on the photocopy machine just before they were asked questions about life satisfaction. Participants who had just found a dime reported significantly higher satisfaction with their entire lives".

It's not a self help book, although the book does discuss ways to increase happiness. The conclusion, though, isn't necessarily what you'd want to hear: "If you are actively unhappy, you need to do something about it because the potent negative emotions invade our health and hamper our ability to concentrate on other things. But if you are above neutral, but below maximum most of the time, then this is probably as good as it gets." The recommendation is to do worthy or challenging things, not things that increase wealth.

back