Introduction

What is happiness? What makes people authentically happy? Is it an ecstatic feeling of bliss? Or a calm sense of harmony? Is it fleeting or enduring? Cyclical or progressive? Or is it perhaps less of a moment-to-moment feeling, and more of a cognitive evaluation: reflective retrospection on a job well-done, or even an entire life well-lived? Does happiness derive from a sense of safety and stability? Good health? Being surrounded by a loving family and deep friendships? Or does it arise from looking forward with a sense of hope for the future? Are any one of these factors in isolation sufficient? Or does happiness arise from particular combinations of these diverse elements? And, more broadly, is it the individual that strives to obtain a happy life, or is it an entire society that makes individual happiness possible? While happiness is a common pursuit for the myriad collectives—past and present—that constitute our shared humanity, and among the most enduring research themes across the humanities and social sciences, uncertainties around what it means to ‘be happy’ abound.