Quality of life (QOL) is defined by the World Health Organization as "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns".
Happiness is a positive and pleasant emotion, ranging from contentment to intense joy. Moments of happiness may be triggered by positive life experiences or thoughts, but sometimes it may arise from no obvious cause. The level of happiness for longer periods of time is more strongly correlated with levels of life satisfaction, subjective well-being, flourishing and eudaimonia. In common usage, the word happy can be an appraisal of those measures themselves or as a shorthand for a "source" of happiness. As with any emotion, the precise definition of happiness has been a perennial debate in philosophy.
Positive psychology is a branch of psychology that studies the conditions that contribute to the optimal functioning of people, groups, and institutions. It studies "positive subjective experience, positive individual traits, and positive institutions... it aims to improve quality of life." It is a field of study that has grown as individuals and researchers look for common ground on better well-being.
Economic materialism can be described as either a personal attitude that attaches importance to acquiring and consuming material goods or as a logistical analysis of how physical resources are shaped into consumable products.
Genghis Blues is a 1999 American documentary film directed by Roko Belic. It centers on the journey of blind American singer Paul Pena to the isolated Russian Republic of Tuva to pursue his interest in Tuvan throat singing.
David Raphael Moscow is an American actor, producer and activist. He is best known for his role as young Josh Baskin in the 1988 film Big and as David Jacobs in the 1992 musical film Newsies.
Thomas Peter Shadyac is an American director, screenwriter, producer, and author. The youngest joke-writer ever for comedian Bob Hope, Shadyac is widely known for writing and directing the comedy films Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Nutty Professor, Liar Liar, Patch Adams, and Bruce Almighty. In 2010, Shadyac retired from the comedy genre and wrote, directed, and narrated his own documentary film I Am, that explores his abandonment of a materialistic lifestyle following his involvement in a bicycle accident three years earlier.
Gross National Happiness (GNH), sometimes called Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH), is a philosophy that guides the government of Bhutan. It includes an index which is used to measure the collective happiness and well-being of a population. Gross National Happiness Index is instituted as the goal of the government of Bhutan in the Constitution of Bhutan, enacted on 18 July 2008.
Jennifer Michael Hecht is a teacher, author, poet, historian, and philosopher. She was an associate professor of history at Nassau Community College (1994-2007) and most recently taught at The New School in New York City.
John Cardon Debney is an American composer and conductor of film, television, and video game scores. His work encompasses a variety of mediums and genres including comedy, horror, thriller, fantasy and action-adventure. He is a long-time collaborator of The Walt Disney Company, having written music for their films, television series, and theme parks. He has also collaborated with film directors such as Jon Favreau, Garry Marshall, Tom Shadyac, Peter Hyams, John A. Davis, Brad Anderson, Howard Deutch, Mark Dindal, and Robert Rodriguez.
The Satisfaction with Life Index was created in 2007 by Adrian G. White, an analytic social psychologist at the University of Leicester, using data from a metastudy. It is an attempt to show life satisfaction in different nations.
The economics of happiness or happiness economics is the theoretical, qualitative and quantitative study of happiness and quality of life, including positive and negative affects, well-being, life satisfaction and related concepts – typically tying economics more closely than usual with other social sciences, like sociology and psychology, as well as physical health. It typically treats subjective happiness-related measures, as well as more objective quality of life indices, rather than wealth, income or profit, as something to be maximized.
Roko Belic is an American film producer and director. His directorial debut, Genghis Blues, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
To be happy is to experience happiness: a feeling of contentment or joy.
Edward Francis Diener was an American psychologist, professor, and author. Diener was a professor of psychology at the University of Utah and the University of Virginia, and Joseph R. Smiley Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois, as well as a senior scientist for the Gallup Organization. He is noted for his research over the past thirty years on happiness, including work on temperament and personality influences on well-being, theories of well-being, income and well-being, cultural influences on well-being, and the measurement of well-being. As shown on Google Scholar as of April 2021, Diener's publications have been cited over 257,000 times.
I Am is a 2010 American documentary film written, directed, and narrated by Tom Shadyac. The film asks the question: "What is wrong with the world, and what can we do about it?", and explores Shadyac's personal journey after a bicycling accident in 2007 which led him to the answers "the nature of humanity", "the world's ever-growing addiction to materialism", and "human connections". Shot with Shadyac and a team of four, the film contrasts sharply with the director's most notable comedic works, such as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Liar Liar, and Bruce Almighty, all of which he collaborated with Canadian comic actor Jim Carrey.
Ruut Veenhoven is a Dutch sociologist and a pioneer on the scientific study of happiness, in the sense of subjective enjoyment of life. His work on the social conditions for human happiness at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, has contributed to a renewed interest in happiness as an aim for public policy. He has shown that happiness can be used a reliable measure to assess progress in societies which was one of the sources of inspiration for the United Nations to adopt happiness measures as a holistic approach to development. Veenhoven is the founding director of the World Database of Happiness and a founding editor of the Journal of Happiness Studies. He has been described as "the godfather of happiness studies", and "a leading authority on worldwide levels of happiness from country to country", whose work "earned him international acclaim".
The World Happiness Report is a publication that contains articles and rankings of national happiness, based on respondent ratings of their own lives, which the report also correlates with various life factors. As of March 2023, Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world six times in a row.
Brent Edward Huffman is an American director, writer, and cinematographer of documentaries and television programs, including Saving Mes Aynak (2015). His work has been featured on Netflix, Discovery Channel, The National Geographic Channel, VICE, NBC, CNN, PBS, Time, The New York Times, Al Jazeera America and Al Jazeera English and premiered at International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), and many other U.S. and international film festivals. He is also a professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University where he teaches documentary production and theory.
The World Happiness Council is a think tank of politicians and researchers based in the United Arab Emirates, intended to promote happiness and subjective well-being through the identification of public policy for policymakers worldwide and the standardization of happiness as a measure to guide governments.
