infonet-economy

There is a longstanding idea that happiness causes people to live longer, healthier lives. However, convincing evidence that subjective well-being (the more scholarly term for happiness) contributes to longevity and health has not been available. Recently, however, social psychologists Diener and Chan (1) showed that many kinds of studies, using different methods, conclude that happiness has a positive causal effect on longevity and physiological health.