ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the rapidly growing body of psychological research on subjective well-being (SWB) before offering prospective insights into some directions the study of happiness can take in the years ahead. SWB is defined as the overall evaluation a person makes regarding his or her life and emotional experience. The advent of measurement strategies to assess SWB opened a field of work aimed at identifying the consequences of happiness. Happier people spend more time socializing and engaging in social activities than less happy people and are more popular and likable. Interventions targeting the SWB of workers have been implemented at the organizational level and have been shown to promote both the general happiness of workers as well as job satisfaction and other positive workplace behaviors. An ever-expanding body of research suggests that happiness is not only the phenomenological experience of good, but it also has wide-ranging individual and societal benefits in domains including physical health, social relationships, productivity, and prosociality.
