Explain the bottom-up and top-down theories of happiness

What will be an ideal response?


In a review of the different types of influences on subjective well-being, Diener introduced the notion of bottom-up theories of happiness versus top-down theories of happiness. The bottom-up idea is predicated on life's circumstances influencing our happiness (i.e., the sum of our positive experiences)—all the things around us bubble up to affect our happiness levels. On the other hand, the top-down concept suggests that our happiness levels begin in ourselves, and as we look at our circumstances, we view them through our rosy or dark glasses. Although it appears that the top-down theory accounts for most of our happiness levels, we need to also be mindful that life circumstances may interact with top-down influences in a variety of ways. For example, a person who values achievement (top-down) will be happier when getting promoted (bottom-up) than a person who doesn't care about getting ahead.

Psychology

You might also like to view...

Mary is investigating factors related to alcohol use among college students, so she lives in a college dormitory for a month to observe students and conduct in-depth interviews with them. This is an example of what type of research?

A. experimental B. ethnography C. representative research D. survey research

Psychology

Maria had cancer and underwent long and unpleasant treatment. She is now in recovery and reports a deepened emotional awareness of how precious is each day and each person in her life. She has also become a leader in a support group for women with breast cancer, although she says she was always a shy person before her recovery. Maria's recovery illustrates which type of coping outcome?

a. thriving b. distress c. emotion-focused d. social support

Psychology

________ proposes that young infants possess innate knowledge concerning many important aspects of the world

a. Vgotsky's theory c. Core knowledge theory b. Information-processing theory d. Dynamic systems theory

Psychology

The effectiveness of retrieval cues depends on the extent to which they

A. encourage the transfer of information from short-term to long-term memory. B. relate to information that was encoded at the time of original learning. C. invoke visual images. D. are presented to us by a trusted source.

Psychology