Does Happiness Lead to Success?

Does Happiness lead to Success?

Society values certain characteristics and resources and these things are thought to correlate to happiness. It is usually assumed that the characteristic or resource is the cause of the happiness. An alternative pathway may be that happy people are likely to obtain favourable life circumstances.

It would seem to be a bidirectional process. Success leads to happiness and positive affect engenders success. Positive moods lead you to think, feel and behave in ways the promote successful resource building and involvement with approach goals.

Positive emotions usually imply that life is going well, goals are being met and resources are adequate. If you are in this situation you can Broaden and Build. i.e. expand your resources and friendships, improve your repertoire of skills, rest and relax to rebuild energy after a period of effort.

During such a period, free from immediate danger and unmarked by recent loss, people experiencing positive emotions seek new goals.

The characteristics of the positive affect include

Confidence

Optimism

Self efficacy

Likability

Positive construal of others

Sociability

Activity and energy

Prosocial behaviour

Immunity and physical wellbeing

Effective coping

Originality and flexibility

All these attributes encourage active involvement in goal pursuit. Positive emotions produce the tendency to approach rather than avoid. Thus the success of happy people has its foundations in two main factors

• Because there are frequent happy moods there is a greater likelihood of moving towards new goals while they experience those moods.
• There is a possession of past skills and resources built over time during previous pleasant moods.

Are happy people more likely to succeed at culturally valued goals such as work, love and health as well as behaviours and cognitions (characteristics, resources and skills) that parallel successful life outcomes? The following posts will examine areas such as the attributes of self efficacy, creativity, sociability, altruism, immunity and coping.