ABSTRACT
This chapter describes several kinds of investigation into the potential consequences of happiness. In everyday settings, significant correlations have been found between happiness and certain behaviours, and laboratory comparisons have shown that inducing positive affect gives rise to positive thoughts and increased social interaction. Global happiness comes largely from the accumulation of more-focussed feelings. This means that short-term feelings are especially important as they combine with other feelings into broader-scope, longer-duration happiness. The chapter looks at findings in two areas — people’s thought processes and their interactions with others. Experimental research in the laboratory has also indicated that happiness inductions can promote creativity, in terms of the elicitation of more unusual and more diverse associations to neutral stimulus words. The chapter also looks at possible moderators — aspects of the situation or person that can account for differences in the size of correlations between happiness and behaviour.
