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Happiness: Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth | 
 enlarge | Authors: Ed Diener, Robert Biswas-diener
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $15.29
You Save: $9.66 (39%)
New (22) Used (6) from $15.29
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 2800
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.3 x 1.4
ISBN: 1405146613
Dewey Decimal Number: 158
EAN: 9781405146616
ASIN: 1405146613
Publication Date: September 16, 2008 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
What is happiness? Does true happiness even exist? For most of us--regardless of age, income, or occupation--the search for "happiness" is our most coveted goal. Indeed, our entitlement to its pursuit is even written into our Declaration of Independence. But for all of its universal appeal, there seems to be little agreement on how best to achieve happiness. Or even how to properly define it.
Fortunately, happiness need not be the fleeting pot of gold at the end of our emotional rainbow. Utilizing his groundbreaking development of the field of subjective well-being, Dr. Ed Diener--recognized as the world's leading expert on happiness--challenges our modern assumptions about the causes and consequences of happiness. Ed and his son Robert Biswas-Diener share the results of three decades of research on happiness to help unlock the mysteries of this elusive Holy Grail. In this fascinating book the father and son team presents scientific evidence revealing that happiness is not overrated, and is good for people's health, social relationships, job success, longevity, and altruism.
Happiness describes the new concept of Psychological Wealth, which extends beyond material riches, and beyond popular concepts like emotional intelligence and social capital. Psychological wealth is your true total net worth, and includes your attitudes towards life, social support, spiritual development, material resources, health, and activities in which you engage.
Happiness is an intellectual and entertaining journey to help us understand the pursuit of one of our most defining and elusive ideals.
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| Customer Reviews:
Accessing the Science of Happiness September 16, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
Can money buy happiness? (See chapter 6). Are happier people healthier? (See chapter 3). Do happier people get paid more? (See chapter 5). Are religious / Spiritual people happier? (See chapter 7). Are some people just born happier? (See chapter 9). These are all components of the concept of psychological wealth.
In their new book, Happiness, Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth, Ed Diener and his son Robert Biswas-Diener take on these and other provocative questions. In a very thorough but thoughtful way the Dieners draw on the most current research in the field of Positive Psychology to answer these questions. Sometimes the answers are "yes" sometimes the answers are "no" and sometimes the best and most honest answer is "it depends."
Psychological Wealth
The Dieners define psychological wealth as "your true net worth, and includes your attitudes toward life, social support, spiritual development, material resources, health, and the activities in which you engage." Hence psychological wealth incorporates more than just one's finances. The components of psychology wealth help us understand why some people may be financially poor but are rich in terms of psychological wealth and happiness while others can be fantastically financially wealthy but have very little psychological wealth and are miserable.
The Dieners explore the research findings that are related to each of the components of Psychological Wealth:
-Life satisfaction
-Spirituality and meaning in life
-Positive attitudes and emotions
-Loving social relationships
-Engaging activities and work
-Values and life goals to achieve them
-Physical and mental health
-Material sufficiency to meet our needs.
For example, as it turns out, (contrary to the oft repeated old adage), money CAN buy some happiness - to a degree - it depends. Yes, other people DO, in fact, matter. In the end, the Dieners say, "psychological wealth is about having a balanced portfolio. This book provides an overview of the elements of psychological wealth that research reveals are good investments."
Four Parts
The book is divided into four parts. Part one focuses on understanding true wealth and the explanation of the concept of psychological wealth. Part two is focused on why happy people function better physically, socially, and at work. Part three digs deeper into the other components of psychological wealth including money, religion/spirituality, culture, and "the happiness set point." Part four pulls everything together and provides a series of surveys and questionnaires for the reader to take to measure one's own psychological wealth.
Science can be fun
If you think all this science and research results in a dull, dry book to read, think again. This book is absolutely a delight to read. The Dieners have made the science very accessible and practical. You will love the stories they weave into the text - both the stories about themselves and the stories about the people they have studied. The Dieners take us along on their adventures around the world. From Africa to the Arctic to the Amazon, we tag along as they unlock the mysteries of happiness. As you read the book you come to understand why Ed is known as the "Jedi Master of Happiness" and why Robert has been called the "Indiana Jones of Psychology." Get the book, settle into a comfortable chair, buckle your seatbelt, and enjoy the ride.
Parting Quote
The Dieners conclude their book by wishing us all happiness and psychological wealth, "If you are high in psychological wealth, congratulations on a life that is well-lived. If you are impoverished, or poorer than you would like to be, now is the time to increase your [psychological] wealth, and hopefully this book has given you knowledge to help you get started." It does, it undoubtedly does.
How to build a life that matters. September 13, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
How to build a life that matters....How shall we live to achieve a life of happiness, meaning, and contentment? This is the BIG QUESTION for us all. This book tells us everything science knows by the world authority on happiness and a practicing coach/counselor who knows how to make the science clear and palatable to readers.
After factoring out our genetics and temperament--are you generally cheerful or in a bad mood all the time, perhaps 50-80% of our happiness is under our control. The problem is we don't know how to use our power. Happiness tells us how to build a life of meaning and happiness...
Some of the authors tips: Find rewarding circumstances like close friends or a loving relationship and a job full of friends and flow--times of total immersion where time stands still. Pay attention to the good things in life--savor these and recall them often. Don't give in to cynicism and pessimism. As the Buddhists say, your consciousness is your movie, you do not have to play a disaster or horror movie all the time!
The authors argue convincingly for a kind of psychological wealth that may matter more than material goods. As the the old blues song goes: "The world's richest person, is a pauper at times, compared with the man/woman, with the satisfied mind...."
The Pursuit of Happiness September 9, 2008
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Our Founding Fathers stated that human beings are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Each one of these words has been questioned: When does "life" begin? Does someone's "liberty" constitute a threat to others? What is this "happiness" that we are all pursuing?
This valuable book goes a long way in addressing and answering the "happiness" question. There are many many books about this topic, so why read this one? Perhaps because it is even handed, scientific, easily readable, authoritative, and will inform and enrich you. I generally don't read books like this, but this one is exceptional.
well-needed, fair and balanced book on the science of happiness September 8, 2008
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
The first thing you should ask yourself is why on earth do we need another happiness book? David Myers wrote the Pursuit of Happiness in 1992, Martin Seligman wrote Authentic Happiness in 2002, and then Sonja Lyubomirsky wrote the How of Happiness and Marci Shimoff wrote Happy for No Reason in 2007. Then there are dozens of other books on the topic in the last 3 years. Do we really need another one?
My initial answer was absolutely not until I read this book. Ed Diener is the first scientist to devote a career to studying the nature of happiness. After 30 years of conducting research on the topic, he IS the authority on the topic and its about time he wrote a book. As for his son, Robert Biswas-Diener, he has been out in the field conducting the exotic, exciting research in various cultures that everyone else writes about. Why not hear about the nuances of their work from them instead of watered-down, overly simplified versions by others?
There are several chapters in this book that do a killer job at addressing the complexity of what we know and don't know about happiness.
Chapter 6 is about money and happiness. Forget the soundbites you hear that if you make more than $40,000/year, an increase in money is irrelevant to happiness. The Dieners' dig into the data, providing a fair and balanced analysis of the situations when money is relevant to happiness.
Chapter 7 is about spirituality and religion. Another topic that has been reduced to a useless soundbite that being religious is good, end of story. Again, the Dieners' dig further into the research than their predecessors. They toe the line perfectly of what the research says and doesn't say.
Chapter 8 is about how happiness operates in different countries and cultures. A point often missed except for intriguing data showing that we should all be living in Denmark (happiest place in the world?). Like other chapters, they describe scientific studies like a novelist. Interesting, informative, and thought provoking. Interspersed with personal stories of Robert's travels, it reminds you that science needs good storytellers and the Dieners' fit the bill.
Another topic that has been shortchanged by soundbites is the idea that humans have this amazing ability to adapt to life circumstances. Thus, happiness is hard to hold onto (sound familiar?). I honestly believe that the way adaptation is discussed in this book will change the way people will discuss and teach this topic. I was amazed that they were able to distill the information in layperson terms but they did it.
This is what they do best: take complex issues with multiple points and caveats, and write about them in a way that's interesting and easy to digest. It will be easy for readers to miss the subtle new interpretations of old ideas. They do a great job of shredding apart soundbites tossed around by journalists, other authors, and the mob of people interested in positive psychology or happiness. Insights are assured by a close reading of this book.
Outstanding book about the nature of happiness. September 8, 2008
17 out of 18 found this review helpful
This is a fascinating book, packed with concise, accessible discussions of the major issues in the science of happiness. I read a lot on this topic, and I learned a huge amount.
The connection between money and happiness (more complicated than many people admit), the connection between spirituality and happiness, the happiness "set-point," and dozens of other intriguing questions are tackled.
The book does a particularly good job of presenting these issues thoroughly and accurately, but also in engaging language that's not hard to fight your way through.
A great addition to the many books that tackle this topic: like Stumbling on Happiness, The Paradox of Choice, Strangers to Ourselves, Authentic Happiness, etc.
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