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External brain regions identified as activating during happiness. Note: image retrieved from http://animalia-life.club/other/human-brain-diagram-blank.html, colored added by author. Blue represents pleasure, yellow engagement, and red meaning. Areas that activated for multiple regions are represented by their color combinations (i.e. pleasure and engagement, green; pleasure and meaning, orange; engagement and meaning, purple; all three forms of happiness, brown). (Color figure online)
Source publication
A challenge in studying happiness is its conceptual nature. Is the happiness of hedonistic indulgence the same as the happiness of selfless volunteering? To understand some of these questions, a narrative review of 64 neuroimaging studies between 1995 and 2018 was conducted. Studies were grouped based on how they conceptualized happiness based on S...
Citations
... These areas support short-term memory processes that are essential for the storage and manipulation of information (79,80), while the occipital area facilitates perceptual experience of imagery (e.g. 81, 82). 2. We also expected that areas supporting recalled emotional states to be part of the circuitry supporting actually felt emotions, for example the left limbic system and amygdala for fearful state (32,(55)(56)(57)(58), the orbito-frontal cortex for the joyful state (e.g., 45,46,72), and the right temporal lobe for the sadness state (63,70,71,83). ...
... This text demonstrates the similarities between the concepts of happiness as pleasure, cheerfulness, and positive mood. The experience of happiness and cheerfulness is thought to be closely linked to the Orbitofrontal cortex (72). Furthermore, our data showed an asymmetry in the OBF activation, with a slightly more pronounced activation over the right orbitofrontal cortex, possibly related to the imagery nature of recalled affective states. ...
Introduction
The capacity to understand the others’ emotional states, particularly if negative (e.g. sadness or fear), underpins the empathic and social brain. Patients who cannot express their emotional states experience social isolation and loneliness, exacerbating distress. We investigated the feasibility of detecting non-invasive scalp-recorded electrophysiological signals that correspond to recalled emotional states of sadness, fear, and joy for potential classification.
Methods
The neural activation patterns of 20 healthy and right-handed participants were studied using an electrophysiological technique. Analyses were focused on the N400 component of Event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded during silent recall of subjective emotional states; Standardized weighted Low-resolution Electro-magnetic Tomography (swLORETA) was employed for source reconstruction. The study classified individual patterns of brain activation linked to the recollection of three distinct emotional states into seven regions of interest (ROIs).
Results
Statistical analysis (ANOVA) of the individual magnitude values revealed the existence of a common emotional circuit, as well as distinct brain areas that were specifically active during recalled sad, happy and fearful states. In particular, the right temporal and left superior frontal areas were more active for sadness, the left limbic region for fear, and the right orbitofrontal cortex for happy affective states.
Discussion
In conclusion, this study successfully demonstrated the feasibility of detecting scalp-recorded electrophysiological signals corresponding to internal and subjective affective states. These findings contribute to our understanding of the emotional brain, and have potential applications for future BCI classification and identification of emotional states in LIS patients who may be unable to express their emotions, thus helping to alleviate social isolation and sense of loneliness.
... The interest in understanding the processing of positive emotions such as happiness and joy and their neural correlates has increased [42][43][44][45][46][47]. A meta-analysis of imaging studies on happiness was conducted to identify the neural correlates of three happiness domains: pleasure, engagement, and meaning [47]. ...
... The interest in understanding the processing of positive emotions such as happiness and joy and their neural correlates has increased [42][43][44][45][46][47]. A meta-analysis of imaging studies on happiness was conducted to identify the neural correlates of three happiness domains: pleasure, engagement, and meaning [47]. A wide range of tasks was used to examine these three domains of happiness across the 64 studies included in the meta-analysis identifying 33 brain regions [47]. ...
... A meta-analysis of imaging studies on happiness was conducted to identify the neural correlates of three happiness domains: pleasure, engagement, and meaning [47]. A wide range of tasks was used to examine these three domains of happiness across the 64 studies included in the meta-analysis identifying 33 brain regions [47]. A further step would be the identification of the brain areas that are specifically involved in the reliving of positive AMs in healthy individuals. ...
Neuroimaging studies using autobiographical recall methods investigated the neural correlates of happy autobiographical memories (AMs). The scope of the present activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis was to quantitatively analyze neuroimaging studies of happy AMs conducted with autobiographical recall paradigms. A total of 17 studies (12 fMRI; 5 PET) on healthy individuals were included in this meta-analysis. During recall of happy life events, consistent activation foci were found in the frontal gyrus, the cingulate cortex, the basal ganglia, the parahippocampus/hippocampus, the hypothalamus, and the thalamus. The result of this quantitative coordinate-based ALE meta-analysis provides an objective view of brain responses associated with AM recollection of happy events, thus identifying brain areas consistently activated across studies. This extended brain network included frontal and limbic regions involved in remembering emotionally relevant positive events. The frontal gyrus and the cingulate cortex may be responsible for cognitive appraisal processes during recollection of happy AMs, while the subthalamic nucleus and globus pallidus may be involved in pleasure reactions associated with recollection of happy life events. These findings shed light on the neural network involved in recalling positive AMs in healthy individuals, opening further avenues for future research in clinical populations with mood disorders.
... Out of the 17 reviews we identified: Four examined the neural correlates of well-being, encompassing concepts including overall well-being, positive affect, happiness, and psychological well-being (Keverne, 2004;Huppert, 2009;King, 2019;Alexander et al., 2021); four focused on positive and negative emotions (Critchley, 2003;Murphy et al., 2003;Vytal and Hamann, 2010;Machado and Cantilino, 2017); three examined wellbeing in specific scenarios or amongst specific populations, such as the relation between aesthetic emotion and psychological well-being and aging (Kryla-Lighthall and Mather, 2009;St. Jacques et al., 2013;Mastandrea et al., 2019); three specifically targeted happiness (Subramaniam and Vinogradov, 2013;Suardi et al., 2016;Tanzer and Weyandt, 2020); two evaluated neural processes linked to mindfulness practices by using mindfulness as their EWB-related measure probed with neuroimaging (Marchand, 2014;Kaur and Singh, 2015); and one focused on the neural foundation of anomalies in emotional stimuli processing in individuals with mood disorders (Leppänen, 2006). ...
... With respect to previously published systematic reviews of constructs related to EWB (e.g., Keverne, 2004;Huppert, 2009;Subramaniam and Vinogradov, 2013;Suardi, 2016;King, 2019;Tanzer and Weyandt, 2020;Alexander et al., 2021), our current scoping review distinguishes itself in several important ways: (1) We focused specifically on EWB, aligning our search with the working definition proposed by Park et al. (2023a). (2) Our inclusion criteria required that the brain imaging studies also include at least one subjective measure of constructs related to EWB identified by the scoping review of reviews conducted by Koslouski et al. (2022) that compiled a list of EWB measures extracted from previous reviews. ...
This scoping review provides an overview of previous empirical studies that used brain imaging techniques to investigate the neural correlates of emotional well-being (EWB). We compiled evidence on this topic into one accessible and usable document as a foundation for future research into the relationship between EWB and the brain. PRISMA 2020 guidelines were followed. We located relevant articles by searching five electronic databases with 95 studies meeting our inclusion criteria. We explored EWB measures, brain imaging modalities, research designs, populations studied, and approaches that are currently in use to characterize and understand EWB across the literature. Of the key concepts related to EWB, the vast majority of studies investigated positive affect and life satisfaction, followed by sense of meaning, goal pursuit, and quality of life. The majority of studies used functional MRI, followed by EEG and event-related potential-based EEG to study the neural basis of EWB (predominantly experienced affect, affective perception, reward, and emotion regulation). It is notable that positive affect and life satisfaction have been studied significantly more often than the other three aspects of EWB (i.e., sense of meaning, goal pursuit, and quality of life). Our findings suggest that future studies should investigate EWB in more diverse samples, especially in children, individuals with clinical disorders, and individuals from various geographic locations. Future directions and theoretical implications are discussed, including the need for more longitudinal studies with ecologically valid measures that incorporate multi-level approaches allowing researchers to better investigate and evaluate the relationships among behavioral, environmental, and neural factors.
Systematic review registration
https://osf.io/t9cf6/.
... Over the past few decades, with the growth of positive psychology, an increasing number of studies focused on subjective happiness (or subjective wellbeing) (1). Subjective happiness refers to individuals' sense of good and wellness, including satisfaction with life, enjoyment, love, and overall positive feelings. ...
Building on the Conservation of Resources Theory and the Stress-Coping Model, the present study explored the relationship between perfectionism (rigid, self-critical, narcissistic) and subjective happiness among youth. In this relationship, we also examined the mediating roles of substance use (i.e., drinking and smoking) and Internet addiction symptoms. Our sample comprised 431 Romanian university students aged 18–25 (M = 20.50, SD = 1.58), and most of them were females (79.81%, self-reported gender). Participants completed self-reported anonymous scales through a web-based survey at the beginning of 2023. Correlation analysis results indicated that all forms of perfectionism were associated with Internet addiction symptoms. Self-critical and narcissistic perfectionism and drinking, smoking, and Internet addiction symptoms were negatively associated with subjective happiness. Path analysis suggested that health-risk behaviors completely mediated the effect of perfectionism on subjective happiness. High levels of perfectionism were associated with high levels of health-risk behaviors, and high levels of addictive behaviors were associated with low levels of subjective happiness. We discuss the present findings considering their practical use regarding students' subjective happiness.
... Indeed, many of the regions involved in the embodied self (68), nested in emotional processing more generally (76,77), are also implicated in neuroimaging studies of wellbeing. In addition to the insula, these include the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, basal ganglia, dorso-and medial prefrontal cortices, and thalamus (50)(51)(52)(53)(54)(55). ...
... Indeed, of all regions, the superior temporal gyrus (associated with language comprehension) and precuneus (associated with autobiographical memory) are often the most predictive of mental health and wellbeing (for a review, see) (60). These regions also regularly appear in neuroimaging studies of wellbeing (50)(51)(52)(53)(54)(55). ...
How does the brain support ‘wellbeing’? Because it is a multidimensional construct, it is likely the product of multiple co-active brain networks that vary across individuals. This is perhaps why prior neuroimaging studies have found inconsistent anatomical associations with wellbeing. Furthermore, these used ‘laboratory-style’ or ‘resting-state’ methods not amenable to finding manifold networks. To address these issues, we had participants watch a full-length romantic comedy-drama film during functional magnetic resonance imaging. We hypothesised that individual differences in wellbeing measured before scanning would be correlated with individual differences in brain networks associated with ‘embodied’ and ‘narrative’ self-related processing. Indeed, searchlight spatial inter-participant representational similarity and subsequent analyses revealed seven sets of co-activated networks associated with individual differences in wellbeing. Two were ‘embodied self’ related, including brain regions associated with autonomic and affective processing. Three sets were ‘narrative self’ related, involving speech, language, and autobiographical memory related regions. Finally, two sets of visual-attention related networks emerged. These results suggest that the neurobiology of wellbeing in the real-world is supported by diverse but functionally definable and separable sets of networks. This has implications for psychotherapy where individualised interventions might target, e.g., neuroplasticity in language-related narrative over embodied self or visual-attentional related processes.
Significance Statement
Humans deeply care about their own and others wellbeing. Yet, the role the brain plays in generating it remains unestablished, perhaps because wellbeing means different things to different people. Here, we asked whether individual differences in wellbeing are associated with differences in brain networks supporting ‘embodied’ and ‘narrative’ selves. That is, how people feel in their bodies and their emotions might contribute more to wellbeing in some individuals. In others, the stories people tell about themselves might be a more important determinant. Supporting this, we found that different self-ratings of wellbeing are associated with different embodied and narrative self-related networks. We also found differences in networks associated with visual-attention, suggesting that what people attend to in the visual world also contributes to wellbeing. These results have implications for how mental health professionals and other individuals might intervene to improve wellbeing by differentially focusing on embodied-self, narrative-self, or visual-attentional related processes.
... While certain specific and peculiar measurement modalities are also available which focus on one particular domain of life that makes a central or significant contribution towards satisfaction, depending upon the individual and the kind of life they lead. Various studies have determined that irrespective of the measurement instrument that is deployed, this subjective wellbeing averages between 70-90% on a standardised 0-100% scale for western populations within Europe and America [8]. This subjective wellbeing is the direct determinant of an individual's own perception of the inherent quality of the life that they lead. ...
Extensive research has determined that music possesses the ability to evoke affective responses within human beings by systematically triggering the parts of the human brain that are controlled and regulated by means of dopamine. The concept of music holds an enigmatic quality, and it has been determined that it has been present throughout ancient human history as well. Hence it can be readily established that music holds a certain modicum of hedonic power that enables it to induce certain feelings of intrinsic satisfaction and happiness that can effectively mitigate the impact of mental stressors and initiate feelings of motivation, encouragement and power. This research article aims to systematically deduce the ability of music to invoke feelings of happiness within the minds of individuals. This research employed a secondary qualitative research design. A substantial body of literature was extracted from extant research publications and subjected to a systematic content analysis. Through this research, it can be readily concluded that music can potentially affect the human brain in profound ways. Listening to music can directly evoke feelings and emotions pertaining to happiness. The general happiness and satisfaction from ones life can be accurately measured through the levels of associated subjective wellbeing of a human at any particular point in time. This particular value averages at a certain level, which is representative of generalized life satisfaction in human beings and is directly proportional to happiness.
... In a meta-analysis [27] (p. 2695), the following keywords that were derived [28] were highlighted, which included terms such as, "happiness" OR "fulfillment" OR "satisfaction" OR "subjective well-being" OR "meaning" OR "pleasure." ...
... Women disagreeing with subservient gender attitudes reported higher happiness [8,135], and research showed males had higher happiness levels than females [136]. Most pregnant women, of maternal age (21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40), and with no smoking history independently correlated with higher happiness [17]. Women with more planned pregnancies, and who had more difficulty in deciding to terminate, experienced lower levels of happiness when it came to deciding about abortions [137]. ...
The aim of this study was to review the literature on what constitutes happiness across cultures and countries to advance scholarly knowledge on the happiness construct. A systematic review was conducted to examine the determinants of happiness in samples across cultures and countries. Five different databases, including APA PsycNet, EBSCO-Academic, EBSCO-Business, Project MUSE, and Google Scholar, grey literature, and in-text references from relevant review articles were used. A total of 155 articles were included in the review, encompassing studies from over 100 countries and 44 cultures. Myriad determinants of happiness were found that were placed into three broad categories labeled Health, Hope, and Harmony. The predominant happiness determinants were mental, emotional, and physical well-being, a purposeful holistic work–life balance, nurturing social relationships, caring for self and others, and being in harmony with one’s culture, traditions, community, religion, and environment. This study engendered an “Integrated Model of the Determinants of Happiness” to provide a universally applicable conceptualization of the happiness construct. By examining studies on determinants of happiness across the globe in the past 90 years, this review uncovered that happiness constitutes multiple determinants that fall under three major categories: ‘Health’, ‘Hope’, and ‘Harmony.’
... Furthermore, evidence from confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) has demonstrated that HWB and EWB are two related but distinct constructs (Joshanloo, 2016). In addition, HWB and EWB have been found to engage distinct gene regulatory programs (Fredrickson et al., 2013) and involve different neural mechanisms (Tanzer & Weyandt, 2020;Urry et al., 2004). Thus, it is essential to investigate two types of well-being simultaneously in a study. ...
Hedonic and eudaimonic motives have been shown to have different effects on well-being, but most prior studies concentrated on hedonic well-being. To further verify the predictive associations between happiness motives (i.e., hedonic and eudaimonic motives) and well-being, especially eudaimonic well-being, we used a two-wave cross-lagged longitudinal design in a sample of 419 teenagers (mean age = 15.17 years, SD = 0.43 years) with an interval of eight months. The results showed that eudaimonic motives significantly predicted later hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, while only eudaimonic well-being, in turn, predicted later eudaimonic motives. There were no predictive associations between hedonic motives and two dimensions of well-being. After controlling the effects of age, gender, and subjective socioeconomic status, these results remained significant. Furthermore, after adding the lagged paths between two types of well-being, only eudaimonic well-being predicted eudaimonic motives, while eudaimonic motives could not predict hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Besides, eudaimonic well-being significantly predicted hedonic well-being, while negative affect rather than positive affect of hedonic well-being could predict eudaimonic well-being. These results provide further evidence for the directionality of the links between happiness motives and well-being, especially eudaimonic well-being in adolescents.
... In these four categories, happiness (or at least the language used to talk about it) cannot be equated to emotions or affections. Our results are in agreement with those of Tanzer andWeyandt (2020, p. 2693) in their experiment on imaging happiness, who concluded that, in the English language, "happiness is not best understood as an affective state, but better understood within its behavioral context, as an emergent property of activity". ...
This article attempts to study the language of happiness from a double perspective. First, the impact and relevance of sentiment words and expressions in self-reported descriptions of happiness are examined. Second, the sources of happiness that are mentioned in such descriptions are identified. A large sample of "happy moments" from the HappyDB corpus is processed employing advanced text analytics techniques. The sentiment analysis results reveal that positive lexical items have a limited role in the description of happy moments. For the second objective, unsupervised machine learning algorithms are used to extract and cluster keywords and manually label the resulting semantic classes. Results indicate that these classes, linguistically materialized in compact lexical families, accurately describe the sources of happiness, a result that is reinforced by our named entities analysis, which also reveals the important role that commercial products and services play as a source of happiness. Thus, this study attempts to provide methodological underpinnings for the automatic processing of self-reported happy moments, and contributes to a better understanding of the linguistic expression of happiness, with interdisciplinary implications for fields such as affective content analysis, sentiment analysis, and cultural, social and behavioural studies.
... For example, sadness is a type of negative affect that largely induces a sense of loss, helplessness, and disappointment (Salerno et al., 2014); therefore, an overreaching adaptive response of sadness is self-verification (such as seeking out social acceptance and self-promotion; Macht, 1999). On the other hand, happiness signals success and achievement (Bongers et al., 2013), which is why happy people tend to be perceived as being more socially attractive (Tanzer and Weyandt, 2019). As a result, happy people often seek to continue feeling the emotion of happiness and even desire to augment the pleasurable feelings they are currently experiencing in their happy state (Bongers et al., 2013). ...
... Outcome-desire fulfillment occurs when an individual accomplishes objectives and experiences favorable situations (Bagozzi et al., 1999). The main emotion that arises with this appraisal type is happiness (Tanzer and Weyandt, 2019). Outcome-desire fulfillment transpires when an individual accomplishes objectives, experiences favorable situations, or escapes from unfavorable situations, thus invoking happiness (Bongers et al., 2013). ...
... In particular, functionalists suggest that the emotions of happiness are productive to the pursuit of self-improvement, which, in turn, encourages impulsive, Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org indulgent, and hedonic consumption (Tanzer and Weyandt, 2019). For example, research has shown that the tendency toward emotional eating in response to feelings of happiness was prominent for female adults seeking weight loss (Bongers et al., 2013); the authors of this particular study suggested that happiness facilitates short-term and unconscious craving for hedonistic experiences, and this affective hunger often overrides individuals' long-term goals (such as weight control, body fit, and disease prevention). ...
This study sought to challenge prevalent accounts of emotional eating by exploring the effects of situation-dependent emotions on consumers’ food craving. Four specific game situations in the context of spectator sports, each corresponding to the four types of emotional coping (outcome-desire conflict, avoidance, fulfillment, and pursuit), were identified as follows: decisive victories, decisive losses, close victories, and close losses. By employing laboratory-based virtual reality spectatorship, Study 1 tested the causal effects of happiness (fulfillment), anger (conflict), sadness (conflict), fear (avoidance), and hope (pursuit) on food craving. Study 2 further designed fans’ previous association between emotions and eating as a moderating mechanism in the context of online sport viewership. The results of the two experiments supported the three theoretical principles of eating behavior, including the “food as fuel” principle of anger, the hedonic eating principle of happiness, and the self-regulation principle of hope. However, the results rejected the escape awareness principle of sadness and fear. The study concludes with a discussion of context-dependent emotional positioning and intervention strategies for marketers and policy makers.
