ABSTRACT
Happiness isn't just a direct response to an external event, like an electric light that has been switched on. Comparisons of that kind are being made all the time, and research comparing unhappy versus happy individuals has shown that unhappiness goes along with more comparisons of the upward kind; unhappy people are more likely to look out for better-off others and feel bad when they find them. Winning competitors who received silver medals for attaining second place were on average found to be less happy with their position than were bronze medalists, the ones who only managed third place. Job happiness or unhappiness are more strongly linked to a particular feature if that feature is judged to be personally important. People's different wants, for job content as well as for other things, have been studied in terms of "values." A value concerns what a person consistently approves of, prefers against alternatives, wants, or considers important.
