An Entertaining Travelogue

Excerpt

In recent years there has been much interest in happiness studies. One regularly comes across articles in magazines and newspapers about research on happiness and well-being. Researchers such as Ruut Veenhoven, Ed Diener, and Alex Michalos are frequently interviewed by journalists. In addition, there have been numerous books written for the general public by researchers, such as Daniel Gilbert, Richard Layard, Sonja Lyobomirsky, Daniel Nettle, Martin Seligman, and, just recently, Ed and Robert Biswas-Diener. Readers of the Journal of Happiness Studies might well note that this is as it should be: the focus of happiness research is on people’s lives and on what makes them happy. Such research should ultimately be useful to people, and distribution of its findings through the popular press and other media can help this come about. …