Oral Presentation 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

Revisiting the Happiness Pie Chart: The Science of Interventions Aimed at Increasing Well-Being (#384)

Sonja Lyubomirsky 1
  1. UC Riverside, Santa Monica, CALIFORNIA, United States

Nearly two decades ago, Lyubomirsky and colleagues introduced the happiness pie chart to provide a framework for the then-nascent literature on well-being. The pie chart has been both impactful and widely misinterpreted. In this plenary, Lyubomirsky will clarify and update her approach to the pie chart, which suggests that people canintentionally improve their well-being. Notably, growing research not only supports this conclusion, but offers increasingly nuanced accounts of the mechanisms and boundary conditions underlying the pursuit of happiness. As a case in point, Lyubomirsky will present evidence for the positive activity model, which describes when and why activities like gratitude or kindness can promote (and sometimes undermine) well-being, as well as bringing benefits to other life domains.