Free Republic

According to polls — Pew Research Center, the National Science Foundation — and studies such as Arthur Brooks’s Gross National Happiness, conservative Americans are happier than liberal Americans. Liberals respond this way: “If we’re unhappier, it’s because we are more upset than conservatives over the plight of those less fortunate than ourselves.” But common sense and data suggest other explanations. For one thing, conservatives on the same socioeconomic level as liberals give more charity and volunteer more time than do liberals. And as regards the suffering of non-Americans, for at least half a century conservatives have been far more willing...

"According to polls . . . and studies . . ., conservative Americans are happier than liberal Americans. ". . . conservatives on the same socioeconomic level as liberals give more charity and volunteer more time than do liberals. And . . . for at least a half-century, conservatives have been far more willing to sacrifice American treasure and American blood (often their own) for other nations' liberty. "The upshot of all this? There is an amazingly simple way to defeat the left: Raise children who are grateful to be American, who don't complain, who can handle losing and who...

Despite a thriving pharmaceutical industry promising to change your brain chemistry and make you happy, depression continues to hit all-time highs in western culture.

Why Isn't Spain Happy? By Arthur C. Brooks Friday, September 10, 2010 /snip By all rights, Spain should be getting happier, too. After all, Spain has "progressed" tremendously over the past three decades, from increasing the size of government, to liberalizing social policy, to loosening the grip of the Catholic Church. Consider the following examples. Government social spending in Spain has increased from 15.5 percent of gross domestic product in 1980 to 21.2 percent today, well above the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average. Where once abortion was illegal, today Spain has the most liberal abortion laws in Europe,...

The Perfect Salary for Happiness: $75,000By Robert Frank September 7, 2010, 10:32 AM ET **SNIP** Bloomberg News The study, which analyzed Gallup surveys of 450,000 Americans in 2008 and 2009, suggested that there were two forms of happiness: day-to-day contentment (emotional well-being) and overall “life assessment,” which means broader satisfaction with one’s place in the world. While a higher income didn’t have much impact on day-to-day contentment, it did boost people’s “life assessment.” Now we have more details from the study, conducted by the Princeton economist Angus Deaton and famed psychologist Daniel Kahneman. It turns out there is a specific...

...Living in the first home of the whole human race, his mother's womb, this last Prophet of the Old Testament and First Prophet of the New responded to the arrival of Jesus the Savior with a dance of Joy. St. John the great theologian records in his Gospel where John the Baptizer explained the reason for his joy, "The one who has the bride is the bridegroom; the best man, who stands and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. So this joy of mine has been made complete. He must increase; I must decrease." (John 1:29 -...

Stress, anger and worry fade after the landmark birthday when we begin experiencing greater daily joy than younger adults, it is claimed. Despite increased risk of death and disease, it seems that people worry less and that they ignore the negatives and accentuate the positives. Dr Arthur Stone, a psychologist of Stony Brook University, New York, said the findings were "striking". "You would think as chronic illness threatens life would get worse but that is not the case because people don't focus on the threats," he said. "They focus on the good things in life like family and friends." A...

Life looks a little rosier after 50, a new study finds. Older people in their mid- to late-50s are generally happier, and experience less stress and worry than young adults in their 20s, the researchers say. The results, based on a Gallup phone survey from 2008 of more than 340,000 Americans, held even after the researchers accounted for factors that could have contributed to differences in well-being with age, such as whether the participants were married, had children at home or were employed. So if having a partner and getting rid of the kids aren't responsible for the uptick in...

"When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to Him: They have no more wine." John 2:3 This incident is a very fitting illustration of the failure of all this world's joys. The wine gave out at a wedding-feast. There was not enough of it to last through to the end of the feast. It is just so with all earth's pleasures. It comes in cups--not in fountains; and the supply is limited and soon exhausted. It is especially so with sin's pleasures. The prodigal soon ran out of money, and began to be in need. A poet compared the...

Would you be happier if you spent more time discussing the state of the world and the meaning of life — and less time talking about the weather? It may sound counterintuitive, but people who spend more of their day having deep discussions and less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier, said Matthias Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona who published a study on the subject. “We found this so interesting, because it could have gone the other way — it could have been, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ — as long as you surf on...

About 10 years ago I was having my annual holiday party, and my niece had come with her newly minted M.B.A. boyfriend. As he looked around the room, he noted that my employees seemed happy. I told him that I thought they were. Then, figuring I would take his new degree for a test drive, I asked him how he thought I did that. "I'm sure you treat them well," he replied. "That's half of it," I said. "Do you know what the other half is?"

Happy people tend to talk more than unhappy people, but when they do, it tends to be less small talk and more substance, a new study finds. A group of psychologists from the University of Arizona and Washington University in St. Louis set out to find whether happy and unhappy people differ in the types of conversations they tend to have. For their study, volunteers wore an unobtrusive recording device called the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) over four days. The device periodically records snippets of sounds as participants go about their lives.

If you're trying to buy happiness, you'd be better off putting your money toward a tropical island get-away than a new computer, a new study suggests. The results show that people's satisfaction with their life-experience purchases — anything from seeing a movie to going on a vacation — tends to start out high and go up over time. On the other hand, although they might be initially happy with that shiny new iPhone or the latest in fashion, their satisfaction with these items wanes with time. The findings, based on eight separate studies, agree with previous research showing that experience-related...

Want your kids to be happy and successful? Well, then couples should spend less time striving to be perfect parents - and instead try to be perfect spouses. The advice comes from family therapist and Wall Street Journal writer David Code in a new book entitled To Raise Happy Kids, Put Your Marriage First . He said that kids become demanding and dissatisfied if they receive too much attention from over-anxious ‘helicopter parents’ who hover over them constantly. Instead, parents should leave their children to forge their own path and instead focus on having a fulfilled marriage to provide them...

As readers of The Up Blog know, I don’t write many personal posts mentioning my life or family. But before you view what will be one of the most inspirational videos you ever watch (if you enjoy humor and sappiness), I wanted to fill you in an a few details that caused me to find it. My wife and I are church planters. We have dedicated our life to helping people know Jesus. We befriend many people who have felt rejected at church and decided to leave. We have gathered these new friends into “Bible Study” ” Better Man” “Better...

According to data gathered by the Centers for Disease Control, the five happiest states in the nation are Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida, Tennessee, and Arizona. Analyzing the data in the December 17, 2009 issue of Science, Professors Andrew J. Oswald and Stephen Wu concluded that these states offer a higher level of "life satisfaction." This is scientist-talk for saying that people are happier in places with abundant sunshine, less congestion, and lower taxes and living costs. Those of us who reside in one of the aforementioned states know this to be true, but I believe that another factor plays a crucial role....

Last year was not a happy one. Economic crisis. Job losses. Wars. Yet, while we can quantify things such as gross domestic product or home foreclosures, it's harder to measure their impact on our collective happiness. One way to gauge that effect is through what has become known as the economics of happiness -- a set of new techniques and data to measure well-being and contentment. Hundreds of thousands of people are surveyed and asked how happy or satisfied they are with their lives, with possible answers on a scale between very unhappy and very happy. How much happiness does...

Our little girl was clinging to me, wondering why we were in this strange place. Then I looked at my wife, understanding that in a short time she would be hospitalized. Brain surgery in Boston. The doctor inserted a shunt from her brain to her heart, passing under the skin behind her ear. Her hair was shaved off in preparation for the surgery. That year, we were both alone for Christmas in the "big city." Holidays would be quite strange that season, that was for certain.

In this season given to tidings of comfort and joy, word has come that we New Yorkers are the sad sacks of the United States. This is something of a surprise. Sure, we complain a lot. Grumbling could qualify as the official state sport. But are we really the unhappiest of them all? It seems so, judging from a study by two economics professors, newly published in Science magazine. The academics — Andrew J. Oswald, of the University of Warwick in Britain, and Stephen Wu, of Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. — examined piles of data, tossed them into a...

Buckled up and ready for takeoff, the 47 “wish kids” and their families erupted in deafening screams and applause as the Air Transat flight started to taxi down the runway. The festive, 90-minute flight was sponsored by Air Transat and organized by the Children’s Wish Foundation, which grants wishes to children with life-threatening illnesses.