WELCOME TO
HAPPINESS360
(A Behavioral Laboratory)
Dr.Walt,Founder
"If in any manner, let alone scientifically, you and your Non-Profit Foundation can help increase the level of happiness of Americans...please let me know and I would love to help this humanitarian cause."
Vice-President Al Gore
VISION STATEMENT
To scientifically and significantly increase the level of happiness for humankind.
MISSION STATEMENT
To scientifically increase the level of happiness for 10 Million Americans by 2015.
QUALITY STATEMENT
Never compromise any decisions. All decisions will be based on the highest level of integrity, honesty and values.
INTRODUCTION
HAPPINESS360 (An Educational Non-Profit Foundation and Behavioral Laboratory) announced on April 13, 2010 that they have cracked the DNA code of happiness.
The benefits of increasing happiness:
-
Increased longevity.
-
Decreased chance of heart disease (the #1 killer in America).
-
Decreased chance of diabetes.
-
Decreased chance of high blood pressure.
-
Reduced stress.
-
Better health (both physical and mental).
-
Better sleep habits.
-
Improved relationships.
Americans are least happy between the ages of 25 - 59. This age group makes up 140 Million out of the total U.S. population of 305 Million. In other words, about 46% of Americans are not as happy as they should be or can be.
HAPPINESS360 was launched in 2005 as a behavioral research laboratory. They pioneered the new frontier by seeking the 'scientific predictors and measures of happiness'. This has proven to be ground-breaking research.
HAPPINESS360 disseminates its findings, discoveries and innovations to the public 100% FREE. In their first six-years of scientific inquiry HAPPINESS360 had concentrated 100% of its revolutionary efforts and time (approximately 20,000 hours) in; designing, conducting and analyzing 17-rigorous, scientific, research projects.
Conventional Subjective Well-Being and Positive Psychology efforts main short-comings have been that they are subjective. As a result, this has caused a major quagmire and a slippery-slope of understanding as to what truly is happiness.
Another major short-coming of virtually all the previous research is that it has caused major confusion by interchangeably using terms such as; happiness, well-being, gratification, quality-of-life, life satisfaction, joy, emotions and pleasure.
HAPPINESS360 proprietary investigation discovered a tightly held group of 13-human behaviors that predict happiness at over a 92% probability. These behaviors include:
- social-support group
- work-life balance
- volunteering
- spirituality
- hobbies
- leisure time
- music
- intimacy
- donating
- exercise
- touching
- preventative health
- random acts of kindness
Scoring very low in predicting happiness includes:
- income
- wealth
- keeping up with the Jones'
- fancy vacations
- material goods
- raising children
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The previous proclamations and recommendations of both the Subjective Well-Being and Positive Psychology experts were simply no longer acceptable.
According to internationally renowned and well-respected happiness expert, Veenhoven (2006), "The goal of finding the objective predictors of happiness is the direction that future research in this field must take."
Why is happiness important to humankind? According to many of the World's greatest historical scholars, philosophers, sociologists and psychologists ‘seeking happiness is the most common desire amongst humankind’. To quote Aristotle “The highest of all goods achievable by human action is happiness" (the later term translated from the Greek word eudemonia - 350 B.C.). The Dali Lama has summarized it well when he said, "May you find happiness." In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote "...it is a self-evident truth that the pursuit of happiness is an unalienable right”. The United States of America is the only nation in the World whose citizens have the legal right to pursue happiness.
Anthropologically speaking, Buddha was the earliest to seriously speak of the importance of happiness. Later, some of the most important contributors have included: Confucius, Aristotle, Socrates, Layard, Gilbert, Kahneman, and Ben-Shahar.
Veenhoven, in his breakthrough book “Conditions of Happiness” (1984) and “The Journal of Happiness Studies” made a fine preliminary contribution in defining happiness. He defined happiness as “The overall appreciation of one’s life-as-a-whole.” Veenhoven has gone on to innovate the World’s first and largest World Database of Happiness.
Ed Diener published one of the earliest, premier, research articles on what he termed 'Subjective Well-Being'. Diener's research was and continues to be subjective. Diener defined six domains of Subjective Well-Being. Happiness was one of the original five domains that Diener’s research hypothesized predicted 'subjective well-being'. The other four domains were: 1) life satisfaction; 2) absence of emotional reactions; 3) absence of unpleasant moods and 4) pleasant emotional reactions.
Seligman (2000) coined the term 'Positive Psychology'. Seligman had been the previous President of The American Psychological Association. The primary emphasis of Positive Psychology is to discover a person's strengths and then build upon them.
Why is this topic paramount not only to individuals, but also to nations of the World? Over the past thousands of years the definition that most free-democratic nations have used to measure their success and/or failure was the 'greatest number of happy citizens' (economics). Not until approximately 1750 A.D. (as a result of the manifestation of the Industrial Revolution) did nations start to benchmark their success and/or failure by dollars and cents (economics). This measure of a nation's economics has morphed into what is currently referred to as Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Many of the World's current global thought-leaders, including but not limited to; King Wangchuck (Bhutan), Blair (United Kingdom), Sarkozy (France) and Brooks (American Enterprise Institute) agree that the definition of a nation’s success and/or failure is again morphing into what is currently understood to be Gross National Happiness.
The following emphasizes the academic, scientific and the public's most recent dynamic interest in the field of happiness and how this popular topic is logarithmically growing. In 2005 when the term ‘happiness research’ was Googled 760 citations were found. In 2010 when 'happiness research' was Googled about 7 Million citations were found.
THE FUTURE OF HAPPINESS
Now, hopefully behavioral scientists, psychologists, sociologists, neurologists, medical researchers and behavioral economists will work together and evolve their collaborative efforts, using grounded theory, in pursuing the Holy Grail of Life; Happiness.
HAPPINESS360 forecasts that:
-
By 2015 individuals will understand that happiness can be learned and improved while taking responsibility for their own happiness.
-
By 2016 an approved curriculum, teaching happiness as a core subject matter, will be installed in the K-12 classrooms throughout the United States.
-
By 2017 the nations of the World (at least the free-democratic nations) will no longer measure and compare economics solely by Gross Domestic Product but rather by a hybrid-model that embraces both Gross Domestic Product and Gross National Happiness.
To quote the well-respected, international, motivational guru Tony Robbins, "The ultimate goal of life is happiness."
Dr. Walt is the Founder & Executive Director of Happiness360. If you have any questions please contact Happiness360 at: email:dr.walt.happiness360@happiness360.org or phone Dr. Walt at: 505-819-3913.