Compared with misery, happiness is relatively unexplored terrain for social scentists. Between 1967 and 1994. 48.380 articles indexed in Psychologoal Abstracts mentioned depression, 38,851 anxiety, and 5,099 anger. Only 2,389 spoke of appioess, a 340 ife satisfaction, and 405 o Recently we ard other researchers have begun a systematic study of happgess. During the past two decades, dozens of investigators throughout the world have asked several hundred thousand m representatively sampled people to reflect on their happiness ard satislaction with life po or what psychologists call 'subjective th well-being. In the US the National Opinon Se Research Center at the University of has a de samoe of roughly 1,500 people a year fo 1957: the institute for Social su Research at the University of Mohigan has carried out smiar studies on a less regular of basis, as has the Gallup efforts have also eo probed the moods of European countries. We have uncovered some surprising findings. People are happier than one expect, and haopiness does not appear to po depend significantly on external cramstances. Although viewing life as a tragedy has long and honorable history, pe the responses of random samples of no peopie around the world about their un happiness paints a much rosier picture.