Happiness-enhancing activities for older adults by Annette Henricksen and Christine Stephens, PhD

People generally agree that happiness is desirable. In addition to being a popular goal, researchers have found that happiness is associated with other good things in life, like health, friendship, income, work performance and marriage.

Happiness usually comes along with desirable behaviors and attributes, such as sociability, likeability, pro-social behavior, positive views of self and others, coping and creativity (Lyubomirsky, King & Diener, 2005). Happiness has been suggested to cause many of these outcomes. Thus, happiness can be beneficial in numerous ways, which has positive implications for individuals and society and suggests that promoting happiness is a wise investment in social and public health (Sheldon & Lyubomirsky, 2007).