America's Gross National Happiness


You'd never guess it listening to Obama or Hillary talk, but Americans are among the happiest people on Earth.

We are also one of only two nations in human history to make "happiness" an explicit core of our national agenda, as economist Arthur C. Brooks points out in his new book "Gross National Happiness." [snip]

Why? Brooks emphasizes one important variable: personal efficacy. He points to an experiment in which nursing home residents were given two simple freedoms: They could decide which night would be "movie night," and they could choose and care for the plants on their floor. Even such tiny differences in personal choices had huge effects on the happiness of these senior citizens. [snip]

But in a seeming paradox, Brooks also points out that another opposite factor also influences personal happiness: "moral constraint." Moral traditionalists -- who accept that right and wrong impose strong constraints on their own actions -- are far happier than those who believe anything goes...

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