It’s A Happy Problem Happyologists Warn That Though Not Epidemic, Happiness Can Infect Anyone

“Don’t worry, be happy!” - Bobby McFerrin

“A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: It would be hell on Earth.” - George Bernard Shaw

Richard P. Bentall’s proposal cheers the joy-impaired.

Happiness, the psychology professor argued, should be classified as a psychiatric illness - “major affective disorder, pleasant type.” He pointed to a variety of negative consequences of the condition and speculated that if his suggestion were accepted, happiness-suppression clinics and anti-happiness medications would be soon to follow.

When the idea surfaced in the New Republic in December, a paradoxical flicker of said emotion lit the face of more than one otherwise miserable wretch. At last, it seemed, a reputable researcher had said what perpetual pouters have always known: that those cheerful, upbeat, “Have a Nice Day!”-spouting Gumpites who skip blithely through life are screwier than sun-addled squid.

Sadly, it turns out that the Liverpool professor’s proposal, first published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, was a flash of false hope for the habitually morose. His real intention, he said, was to satirize the methodology of psychiatric diagnosis.

Bentall is adamant that his proposal not be taken seriously. In fact, though, the study of happiness has taken a serious turn, as increasing numbers of psychological researchers - loosely termed “happyologists” - have shifted their scrutiny from pathology to this more upbeat condition. And while most of the research - OK, all of the research suggests that happiness is a good thing, it also calls into question much conventional wisdom on the subject.

According to Psychology Today’s periodic “happiness watch,” happyological studies show that nine of 10 North Americans consider themselves at least “pretty happy.” But that does not mean the condition is epidemic.

In an extensive compilation of studies in this esoteric field, noted happyologists David G. Myers, of Hope College in Michigan, and Ed Diener, of the University of Illinois, charted the supposed facts and myths of happiness, or “Subjective WellBeing,” which they define as “a preponderance of positive thoughts and feelings about one’s life.”

Among the conclusions they list in a paper to be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science: Happiness is not determined by a time of life. Teen angst, midlife crises, empty-nest blues and old-age depression aren’t the problems we’ve been led to think: “Knowing someone’s age gives no clue to the person’s average sense of wellbeing,” they report. While women tend more to miserableness than men - and men to antisocial personality disorder - when all’s said and done, happiness is an equal-opportunity condition.

European Americans report only slightly more happiness than African Americans, and African Americans are slightly less prone to depression.

Individual misery can indeed stem from poverty, and there is a marginal connection between a nation’s wealth and its collective happiness, Myers and Diener report. But such correlations are neither key nor universal: Studies found the Irish, for instance, generally more satisfied than the richer folks in what was then West Germany. And lottery winners’ euphoria soon dumps them back to their pre-wealth emotional state, the researchers found.

Moreover, only 32 percent of U.S. residents polled in 1993 said they were “very happy” - as opposed to 35 percent in the 1957 when, in real terms, the U.S. per capita income was only half as high.

Some happyologists believe there are traits and attitudes that can lead to a happier frame of mind - although things here get chicken-oreggy. According to the Myers and Diener study, happy people tend to:

Like themselves. (Maybe that’s because happy people are more likable.)

Feel that they have control over their lives. (Did anyone doubt that prisoners, nursing home patients and the subjects of despots would say they’re less happy as a rule?)

Are optimistic. (Happiness is usually determined by selfi-evaluation. Wouldn’t optimists tend to look on the bright side of their mental state?)

Are extroverted. (But aren’t the woeful more likely to mope?)

Beyond that, the researchers said, happy people have more friends and closer relationships. Married people of either sex are happier, as a rule, than divorced, separated or otherwise single people, and happy people enjoy their work.

Arthur A. Stone, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, has even shown that “positive affect,” of which happiness is a component, can be good for the immune system.

“I don’t know of any evidence, behavioral or physiological, that suggests happiness is detrimental,” Stone said.

Pressed, though, he did concede: “When you become happy, you can also become aroused. I guess someone with a cardiovascular disease might be at some small risk.”