Critical Happiness Studies

Critical Happiness Studies PDF Author: Nicholas Hill
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351397044
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
This volume draws together the work of a diverse range of thinkers and researchers to address the question of happiness critically, using a wide variety of theoretical and empirical methodologies. Broadening the discussion beyond what might be considered highly individual and insular conceptualizations of happiness, often based on purely positivist approaches to the subject, authors raise questions about the nature of individual and collective anxieties that might underpin the current emphasis on happiness and the ideological or governmental ends that may be served by the framing of happiness in psychology and economics. With attention to how individuals understand and pursue happiness in their daily lives, Critical Happiness Studies highlights different theoretical paradigms that demonstrate the role of power in producing specific conceptualizations of happiness and, consequently, how they frame individual self-understanding or subjectivities and (re)shape political problems. The collection makes available critical, theoretical, and methodological resources for addressing a powerful set of cultural, political, and scientific discourses that have loomed large since the closing decade of the 20th century. A call for the establishment of a body of work in critical happiness studies, this book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities interested in the age-old problem of happiness.

Critical Happiness Studies

Critical Happiness Studies PDF Author: Nicholas Hill
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351397044
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume draws together the work of a diverse range of thinkers and researchers to address the question of happiness critically, using a wide variety of theoretical and empirical methodologies. Broadening the discussion beyond what might be considered highly individual and insular conceptualizations of happiness, often based on purely positivist approaches to the subject, authors raise questions about the nature of individual and collective anxieties that might underpin the current emphasis on happiness and the ideological or governmental ends that may be served by the framing of happiness in psychology and economics. With attention to how individuals understand and pursue happiness in their daily lives, Critical Happiness Studies highlights different theoretical paradigms that demonstrate the role of power in producing specific conceptualizations of happiness and, consequently, how they frame individual self-understanding or subjectivities and (re)shape political problems. The collection makes available critical, theoretical, and methodological resources for addressing a powerful set of cultural, political, and scientific discourses that have loomed large since the closing decade of the 20th century. A call for the establishment of a body of work in critical happiness studies, this book will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities interested in the age-old problem of happiness.

Researching Happiness

Researching Happiness PDF Author: Cieslik, Mark
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1529206138
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
This original collection draws on the latest empirical research to explore the practical challenges facing happiness researchers today. By uniquely combining the critical approach of sociology with techniques from other disciplines, the contributors illuminate new qualitative and biographical approaches of the study of happiness and well-being.

Understanding Happiness

Understanding Happiness PDF Author: Mick Power
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317399854
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
We all want to be happy, and there are plenty of people telling us how it can be achieved. The positive psychology movement, indeed, has established happiness as a scientific concept within everyone’s grasp. But is happiness really something we can actively aim for, or is it simply a by-product of how we live our lives more widely? Dr. Mick Power, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of Clinical Programmes at the National University of Singapore, provides a critical assessment of what happiness really means, and the evidence for how it can be increased. Arguing that negative emotions are as important to overall well-being as the sunnier sides of our disposition, the book examines many of the claims of the positive psychology movement, including the relationship between happiness and physical health, and argues that resilience, adaptability in the face of adversity, psychological flexibility, and a sense of generativity and creativity are far more achievable as life goals. This is a book which will fascinate anyone interested in positive psychology, or anyone who has ever questioned the plethora of publications suggesting that blissful happiness is ten easy steps away.

The Happiness Track

The Happiness Track PDF Author: Emma Seppälä
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062344021
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
Everyone wants happiness and success, yet the pursuit of both has never been more elusive. As work and personal demands rise, we try to keep up by juggling everything better, moving faster, and doing more. While we might succeed in the short term, this approach comes at a high cost in the long term: it hurts our well-being, our relationships, and—paradoxically—our productivity. In this life-changing book, Emma Seppälä explains that the reason we are burning ourselves out is that we fall for outdated theories of success. We are taught that getting ahead means doing everything that’s thrown at us with razor-sharp focus and iron discipline, that success depends on our drive and talents, and that achievement cannot happen without stress. The Happiness Track demolishes these counterproductive theories. Drawing on the latest scientific research on happiness, resilience, willpower, compassion, positive stress, creativity, and mindfulness, Seppälä demonstrates that being happy is the most productive thing we can do to thrive—whether at work or at home. She shares practical strategies for applying these scientific findings to our daily lives. A fulfilling, successful, and anxiety-free life is within your reach. The Happiness Track will show you the way. Happiness Is the Fast Track to Success “Are you a hard-driving, multitasking, conscientiously striving professional? Then your ideas about success are probably all wrong—and you need The Happiness Track, Dr. Emma Seppälä’s investigation into the counter-intuitive factors that create career and life success. The best news of all? All these skills are well within your grasp.”—Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind “Emma Seppälä convinces us that reconfiguring our brain for happiness can change the way our lives unfold and the way we approach success. A worthwhile read for anyone who wants to achieve a successful and fulfilling life.”—Amy Cuddy, professor at Harvard Business School and author of Presence “Backed by extensive research in psychology and neuroscience, The Happiness Track offers a wealth of insight on changing how we approach our work, our personal lives, and our relationships. It’s a carefully researched, engaging look at how to improve ourselves without losing our authenticity or our sanity.”—Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals “Through her research-backed strategies, Emma Seppälä teaches us not only how to thrive in our chosen profession, but how to stay true to ourselves—and enjoy every moment of the process.”—Susan Cain, cofounder of Quiet Revolution and New York Times bestselling author of Quiet “For decades we’ve been tied to theories of success that have burned us out and driven us into the ground—because we don’t know of any alternatives. The Happiness Track provides us with a highly readable, science-backed solution to obtaining sustainable success, the sort of success we are all really striving for, that leaves us fulfilled, happy, and healthy.”—Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D., scientific director at the Imagination Institute at the University of Pennsylvania

Deconstructing Happiness

Deconstructing Happiness PDF Author: Jordan McKenzie
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317565452
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
This book offers an original account of the good life in late modernity through a uniquely sociological lens. It considers the various ways that social and cultural factors can encourage or impede genuine efforts to live a good life by deconstructing the concepts of happiness and contentment within cultural narratives of the good life. While empirical studies have dominated the discourse on happiness in recent decades, the emphasis on finding causal and correlational relationships has led to a field of research that arguably lacks a reliable theoretical foundation. Deconstructing Happiness offers a step toward developing that foundation by offering characteristically sociological perspectives on the contemporary fascination with happiness and well-being. In doing so, it seeks to understand the good life as a socially mediated experience rather than a purely personal or individually defined way of living. The outcome is a book on happiness, contentment and the good life that considers the influence of democracy, capitalism and progress, while also focusing on the more theoretical challenges of self-knowledge, reason and interaction.

Manufacturing Happy Citizens

Manufacturing Happy Citizens PDF Author: Edgar Cabanas
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 9781509537884
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The imperative of happiness dictates the conduct and direction of our lives. There is no escape from the tyranny of positivity. But is happiness the supreme good that all of us should pursue? So says a new breed of so-called happiness experts, with positive psychologists, happiness economists and self-development gurus at the forefront. With the support of influential institutions and multinational corporations, these self-proclaimed experts now tell us what governmental policies to apply, what educational interventions to make and what changes we must undertake in order to lead more successful, more meaningful and healthier lives. With a healthy scepticism, this book documents the powerful social impact of the science and industry of happiness, arguing that the neoliberal alliance between psychologists, economists and self-development gurus has given rise to a new and oppressive form of government and control in which happiness has been woven into the very fabric of power.

Critical Perspectives in Happiness Research

Critical Perspectives in Happiness Research PDF Author: Luka Zevnik
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3319044036
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 165

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Book Description
This book presents an interdisciplinary exploration of the origins of happiness in the modern Western culture and makes the argument that happiness is not universal but is instead a culturally and historically specific experience, characteristic only to the Western world. It begins with an overview of the main research approaches to happiness and then studies the important but elusive theme in the context of culture and relations of power. The second part of the book analyses the social, religious, ethical and political processes that lead to the emergence of the experience of happiness, including consumer culture in contemporary societies. It presents an analysis of the medieval Christian experience which concludes that the modern experience of happiness only emerged in the 17th and 18th century, when the ideal of human existence increasingly started to be pursued in the present life. In its conclusion, this book explores the concept of modernization as the collective pursuit of happiness.

Health, Happiness, and Well-Being

Health, Happiness, and Well-Being PDF Author: Steven Jay Lynn
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1452203172
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 473

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Book Description
CHAPTER 14: MAKING MARRIAGE (AND OTHER RELATIONSHIPS) WORK -- CHAPTER 15: THE JOYS OF LOVING: ENHANCING SEXUAL EXPERIENCES -- CHAPTER 16: RAISING OUR KIDS WELL: GUIDELINES FOR POSITIVE PARENTING -- CHAPTER 17: FINANCIAL SKILLS -- AUTHOR INDEX -- SUBJECT INDEX

The Origins of Happiness

The Origins of Happiness PDF Author: Andrew E. Clark
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691196958
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
A new perspective on life satisfaction and well-being over the life course What makes people happy? The Origins of Happiness seeks to revolutionize how we think about human priorities and to promote public policy changes that are based on what really matters to people. Drawing on a range of evidence using large-scale data from various countries, the authors consider the key factors that affect human well-being, including income, education, employment, family conflict, health, childcare, and crime. The Origins of Happiness offers a groundbreaking new vision for how we might become more healthy, happy, and whole.

Happiness

Happiness PDF Author: Jeffrey R. Di Leo
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000529487
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 127

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Book Description
This book introduces the reader to the ways in which happiness has been explored in philosophy and literature for thousands of years, in order to understand the newest theoretical approaches to happiness. Jeffrey R. Di Leo draws on its long and rich history as a window into our present obsession with happiness. Each of the four chapters of this book provides a substantially different literary-theoretical account of how and why literature matters with respect to considerations of happiness. From the neoliberal happiness industry and the psychoanalytic rejection of happiness to aesthetic hedonism and revolutionary happiness, literature viewed from the perspective of happiness becomes a story about what is and is not the goal of life. The multidisciplinary approach of this book will appeal to a variety of readers from literary studies, critical theory, philosophy and psychology and anyone with an interest in happiness and theories of emotion.