Cognitive Happiness, or the Cognitive Component of Happiness

Jan Ott ()
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Jan Ott: Erasmus University

Chapter Chapter 4 in Beyond Economics, 2020, pp 45-60 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Thoughts, judgements and standards are elements in cognitive happiness. People adopt and apply standards in their appreciation of life, knowingly or unknowingly. They usually adopt standards without being aware of it, for example the standards of their parents, their school and their social environment in general. Cognitive peculiarities imply that they ignore relevant information, or rely on invalid information, in their adoption of standards. Such peculiarities have a negative impact on their pursuit of happiness. This negative impact can be aggravated by social dynamics like positional competition, secondary inflation, social comparison and manipulation. Diversity and instability in standards have a negative impact on the comparability of cognitive happiness, and consequently on the comparability of affective and overall happiness, through the interaction of affect and cognition. There are, on the other hand, also reasons to believe that people apply similar standards and do not change them easily. People usually respect the gratification of general needs as an important standard, and there is convergence due to globalization and commercial advertising. People are free, nevertheless, to adopt or reject standards at will, and this freedom may have a fatal impact on the consistency and comparability of happiness. The actual impact is less substantial, but deserves more attention.

Date: 2020
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-56600-5_4

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-56600-5_4

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