The pursuit of happiness: pitfalls and promises (opens in new tab)

All humans strive to be happy in some form. Yet the pursuit of happiness is sometimes successful and sometimes self-defeating. This review aims to resolve when and why pursuing happiness is successful or self-defeating by showing that it depends on how people pursue happiness. Building on process models of goal pursuit, we consider five aspects of pursuing happiness: the happiness goals people pursue, affect regulation, monitoring of one’s happiness, responses to one’s happiness, and the broa...