ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some necessary theoretical and conceptual prerequisites for the scientific study of what makes for a good life. The literature on behavioural science in general, and on the good-life issue in particular, is replete with some symptoms. All humans evaluate persons and outcomes as good or bad, approaching the former and avoiding the latter. The relativity and malleability of good and bad experiences is even more impressive. Positive mood supports adaptive strategies of the assimilation type, encouraging intuitive decisions based on small samples of information, self-confident risk taking, curiosity, creativity, nonconformity, and constructive inferences beyond the information given. The adaptive style triggered by negative mood states supports adaptive functions of the accommodation type. The behavioural style triggered by euphoric mood states entails the potential for outcomes inducing negative mood, whereas the style triggered by dysphoric mood carries the potential for mood repair.
