18 Chapter 2 • The Meaning and Measure of Happiness
chief goal of life is the pursuit of happiness and
pleasure. Within psychology, this view of well-being
is expressed in the study of SWB (Diener, 1984;
Diener et al., 1999). Subjective well-being takes a
broad view of happiness, beyond the pursuit of
short-term or physical pleasures defining a narrow
hedonism. Subjective well-being is defined as life
satisfaction, the presence of positive affect, and a relative
absence of negative affect. Together, the three
components are often referred to as happiness.
Research based on the SWB model has burgeoned in
the last 5 years (Ryan & Deci, 2001). Studies have
delineated a variety of personality characteristics and
life experiences that help answer questions about
who is happy and what makes people happy. A
major portion of this book is devoted to reviewing
the research and theory on SWB.
Eudaimonic Happiness
Is happiness enough for a good life? Would you be
content and satisfied if you were happy and nothing
else? Consider a hypothetical example suggested by
Seligman (2002a). What if you could be hooked to
an “experience machine” that would keep you in a
constant state of cheerful happiness, or whatever
positive emotion you desired, no matter what happened
in your life. Fitting the hedonic view, you
would experience an abundance of happiness all
the time. Would you choose to be hooked up? We
might like it for awhile, but to experience only one
of our many emotions, and to have the same cheerful
reaction to the diversity of life events and challenges
might actually impoverish the experience of
life. And some of what we would lose might be
extremely valuable. For example, negative emotions
like fear help us make choices that avoid threats to
our well-being. Without fear and other negative
emotions we might make very bad choices. We’d be
happy, but we might not live very long. Seligman
(2002a) argues that we would likely also reject the
experience machine because we want to feel we are
entitled to our positive emotions, and to believe
they reflect our “real” positive qualities and behaviors.
Pleasure, disconnected from reality, does not
affirm or express our identity as individuals.
Above all, most of us would probably reject
the experience machine because we believe that
there is more to life than happiness and subjective
pleasure. Or as Seligman (2002a) describes it, there
is a deeper and more “authentic happiness.” Much
of classical Greek philosophy was concerned with
these deeper meanings of happiness and the good
life. Waterman (1990, 1993) describes two psychological
views of happiness distilled from classical
philosophy. Hedonic conceptions of happiness, discussed
above, define happiness as the enjoyment of
life and its pleasures. The hedonic view captures a
major element of what we mean by happiness in
everyday terms: We enjoy life; we are satisfied with
how our lives are going; and good events outnumber
bad events.
In contrast, eudaimonic conceptions of happiness,
given fullest expression in the writings of
Aristotle, define happiness as self-realization, meaning
the expression and fulfillment of inner potentials.
From this perspective, the good life results from living
in accordance with your daimon (in other words,
your true self). That is, happiness results from striving
toward self-actualization—a process in which our talents,
needs, and deeply held values direct the way we
conduct our lives. “Eudaimonia” (or happiness) results
from realization of our potentials. We are happiest
when we follow and achieve our goals and develop
our unique potentials. Eudaimonic happiness has
much in common with humanistic psychology’s
emphases on the concepts of self-actualization
(Maslow, 1968) and the fully functioning person
(Rogers, 1961) as criteria for healthy development and
optimal functioning.
What kinds of experiences lead to eudaimonic
happiness? Waterman (1993) argued that eudaimonic
happiness results from experiences of personal
expressiveness. Such experiences occur when
we are fully engaged in life activities that fit and
express our deeply held values and our sense of
who we are. Under these circumstances we experience
a feeling of fulfillment, of meaningfulness, of
being intensely alive—a feeling that this is who we
really are and who we were meant to be.
At this point, you might ask whether hedonic
and eudaimonic views of happiness are very different.
Aren’t activities that bring us pleasure also generally
the ones that are meaningful because they express our
talents and values? Waterman believes that there are
many more activities that produce hedonic enjoyment
than activities that provide eudaimonic happiness
based on personal expression. Everything from alcohol
consumption and eating chocolate, to a warm
bath can bring us pleasure, but there are fewer activities
that engage significant aspects of our identity and
give a deeper meaning to our lives.

You have probably noticed in your educational career that some people are very good at remembering facts and therefore do well at tests that require memorization. Other students, on the other hand, struggle with tests that require memorization.  To understand how memory works, this exercise will ask you to trace the memory system – from the stimuli to long-term memory. 

Use your text book and research from the Internet to learn the process of memory – from beginning to end. Your description should include the following:

• Identification and description of each step in the human memory model. As you describe these steps, use an example to illustrate the process
• Discussion of factors that enhance or impede information flow in each step of the process
• Explanation of proactive and retroactive interference and how you might counteract their effects while studying in order to facilitate maximum retention via long-term memory
• Explanation of other kinds of forgetting and a discussion of strategies that can improve memory consolidation and retrieval

Submit this in the form of a 2 -3 page paper. You can use illustrations to demonstrate the process.    Be sure to document your references using the APA format.

• Margins – set to one inch
• Font – 12pt. Times New Roman, no bold, or underline
• Title – center above the paper, 12 pt. font (Level A Heading), no bold, underline, or italics
• Pagination – every page; consists of a header containing a short title for the paper and page number placed in the upper right corner of the page
• Line Spacing – double space all work including the References Page
• Point-of-View – third person, objective; limit perspective to research; no personal opinion or narrative
• In-text citations – must conform to APA requirements
• References list – must conform to APA requirements   

Assignment 1: Discussion—Expression of Emotions

The psychology of gender can be significantly influenced by interpersonal interactions and environment. You often learn to communicate emotionally from the people around you and the expected social norms in your community.

In this assignment, you will explore your own emotional development and how it has supported your gender expression. You will also learn how expression of emotions has an impact on relationships.

Using the module readings, the Argosy University online library resources, and the Internet, research emotional development and gender expression.

Respond to the following:

• Explain how the expression of emotion has affected your ability to have successful personal and professional relationships.
• Describe what or who has influenced your ability to express emotions successfully.
• Describe in which areas of your life you have struggled to communicate emotion. Describe what or who has contributed to the development of these challenges.

Be sure to provide personal examples and experiences along with research in support of your responses.

Write your initial response in 300–400 words. Apply APA standards to citation of sources.

By Saturday, November 22, 2014, post your response to the appropriate Discussion Area. Through Wednesday, November 26, 2014, review and comment on at least two peers’ responses.

Assignment 1: Discussion—Expression of Emotions

The psychology of gender can be significantly influenced by interpersonal interactions and environment. You often learn to communicate emotionally from the people around you and the expected social norms in your community.

In this assignment, you will explore your own emotional development and how it has supported your gender expression. You will also learn how expression of emotions has an impact on relationships.

Using the module readings, the Argosy University online library resources, and the Internet, research emotional development and gender expression.

Respond to the following:

• Explain how the expression of emotion has affected your ability to have successful personal and professional relationships.
• Describe what or who has influenced your ability to express emotions successfully.
• Describe in which areas of your life you have struggled to communicate emotion. Describe what or who has contributed to the development of these challenges.

Be sure to provide personal examples and experiences along with research in support of your responses.

Write your initial response in 300–400 words. Apply APA standards to citation of sources.

By Saturday, November 22, 2014, post your response to the appropriate Discussion Area. Through Wednesday, November 26, 2014, review and comment on at least two peers’ responses.

1. Topic: Introduction to Hypothesis Testing

   In an article entitled “Science and ethics in conducting, analyzing, and reporting psychological research” in the journal Psychological Science (1994), psychologist Robert Rosenthal examines the relationship between a researcher’s methods and the ethical implications of these methods. In particular, he examines what he terms “causism,” defined as “the tendency to imply a causal relationship where none has been established (i.e., where the data do not support it)” (p.128). He goes on to state that causism can arise from the language chosen to describe the results of hypothesis tests, especially when authors use words such as “consequence” or “cause” instead of “related to” or “inferred from.” He argues that the stronger language can be misleading, causing the result to “appear more important or fundamental than it really is” (p. 128). This, in turn, misleads the public into drawing conclusions or implementing policies that could be based on faulty assumptions. With this in mind, read the following excerpt from the Discussion section of a hypothetical research study by Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe linking prenatal vitamins with a certain birth defect called Birth Defect X, and answer the questions that follow.

   “As shown in the previous section, our results were significant at the .05 level (p = .047, n = 23). These highly significant results prove the research hypothesis that there is a higher incidence of Birth Defect X in babies of mothers who consume prenatal vitamins daily versus babies whose mothers do not consume such vitamins. Thus, we can state with some certainty that taking daily doses of prenatal vitamins during pregnancy can cause the birth defect in question in many cases. This is a landmark study, the first of its kind that examines the link between prenatal vitamins and the consequent appearance of Birth Defect X” (Dewey, Cheatum, & Howe 2000).

   1. discuss the errors in the conclusions the authors have drawn from their statistical tests.
   2. Imagine that these results are disseminated to the general public through publication and media coverage. Write about 1 possible harmful consequence these conclusions could have in the everyday world.

   Read Psalm 15; this passage describes how God wants his followers to live. How do these verses apply to the obligation of Christian psychologists (and psychologists in general) to care for the public interest when wording and reporting their findings