Factors Affecting Happiness: Conceptual Framework And Research Methodology

Conceptual Framework

Happiness is indefinable. Almost each person wants a happy life. However, it over and over again escapes us as we tussle with burdens of our day-to-day lives. Social researchers and philosophers have publicized that happiness has a knock on effects and benefits among them making people to be more compassionate and feeling healthier both emotionally and physically. Besides, it makes people to become more energetic, witty, creative, and fun to be around and it can correspondingly lead us to turn out to be more financially successful. Yet between all the yearning, striving, dreaming, struggling and grumbling, is there a way to attain eternal happiness or even the short-lived illusion of fleeting happiness? Humans are likely to wrestle with this notion for centuries with the number of empirical researches on the correlates and causes of happiness at the personal level being large and still growing.  

The domains of family and friendship have been extensively acknowledged as determinants of happiness. Marital status, the presence of children and employment status are normally included as control variables in happiness studies. A significant share of prior research into the impact of friends and family on happiness, yet, is based on cross-sectional data and has concentrated mostly on redundancy, marriage, divorce and domestic conflicts.

 Friends are far more than just somebody just to talk to. Friendship has been contended to be a significant cause of happiness (Lewis, Al-Shawaf, Russell, & Buss, 2015). Helliwell and Huang, (2013) explains that having close friends means a person is more likely to be healthier, much happier, and far less likely to get depressed.

Friends are far more than just somebody just to talk to. Friendship has been contended to be a significant cause of happiness (Lewis, Al-Shawaf, Russell, & Buss, 2015). Helliwell and Huang, (2013) explains that having close friends means a person is more likely to be healthier, much happier, and far less likely to get depressed.

Happiness is a notion that has attracted different definitions and interpretations, according to various philosophical traditions and the more current changing theoretical perspectives of psychologists, sociologists and economists. For instance, objective list theory presumes that a happy being does not perceive happiness based on pleasure vs. pain, or wanting vs. attaining. Rather, objective list theory pays more attention on things that have more value or meaning (Sheldon & Lucas, 2014). Things such as wellness and like health, strong faith, altruism and charity, good relationships, career achievements, and turning personal dreams into the reality. This papers provides new approach to understanding the role which family and friends can play in attaining lasting effects on happiness.

Methodology

The conceptual framework of this study is as shown in the Figure 1. The dependent variable in this, a variable whose value is dependent on that of other (s), is happiness. The independent variables, a variable who values is not dependent on the values of the other (s), are family and friends.

Figure 1: Conceptual Framework

Sociological investigation has revealed that families, and partners in specific, are significant for different individual positions in life, such as occupational and employment and status, health and health-related behaviors and careers, as partners may benefit from each other’s behavior and socio-economic resources (Grover and Helliwell, 2017).  As Brizzi and Shugaar (2015) explains, a connection to family offers a positive type of social support that a person cannot obtain from other people.  

Helliwell and Huang (2013) studied the correlation between support received from a friend, friendship, and happiness and established that alleged companionship was the ideal predictor of happiness. Tolstoy (2012) also testified that support from friends was allied to happiness. Chang (2012), disclosed that satisfaction and closeness with a friend was correlated to happiness. As for the quality of best friendship, Tolstoy (2012) established that friendship was more interrelated with happiness among the late adolescents and young adults than the elderly. It is imperative to emphasize that the literature cited above paid attention either to friends in general or best friendships.

Happiness is a notion that has attracted different definitions and interpretations, according to various philosophical traditions and the more current changing theoretical perspectives of psychologists, sociologists and economists. Invented by Danny Kahneman  NoHedonism, Nobel Prize winning Psychologist, Hedonism theory postulate that a happy individual is one whose life has less pain than pleasure, and therefore, they are also pleasurable and smiley (Cummins, 2014). Danny theorizes that happiness is an aspect of feeling that makes a happy person, to be wide-grinned, to have vibrant personality, with a blissful countenance and pleasant personality, similar to that of a Hollywood movie star or a playful puppy. Naturally, Danny holds that pleasure is recognized by not only the ones whose lives are in question, but all those that are watching.

Desire theory deduces that a happy being is one who acquires what they want. In other words, if individuals’ desires are gratified, they will be happy and so is their lives (So, 2015). This theory places the conclusion of happiness on the one doing the wanting, since while an individual’s neighbor may want a better car or new girlfriend/ boyfriend and interpretation those things as a path to happiness, another person may be desiring anything from a chocolate and a day off, a better job and a new girlfriend/ boyfriend (So, 2015). To desire theory, it does not matter what it is that is wanted; provided it is attained by a person doing the wanting, happiness can then be realized.

To conduct this study, the following predictions were made:

Hypothesis 1

Null hypothesis (H0): Family experiences are not significantly associated with individual happiness.

Alternate hypothesis (HA): Family experiences are significantly associated with individual happiness.

Hypothesis 2

Null hypothesis (H0): Friendship is not significantly associated with individual happiness.

Alternate hypothesis (HA): Friendship is significantly associated with individual happiness.

Research methodologies play a central role in gathering the apposite data and information. It aids to gather, analyze, publicize and utilize research findings for the purposes of enhancing the satisfaction of the customers of the case study hospitality company, Accor hotel groups (Patton, 2015).The research method that was used in this study was the administration of online to collect quantitative data of survey. This was done using a questionnaire as the key research instrument. As said by Patton (2015), a research instrument is a tool that is used to collect data.The data that was used in this thesis was obtained by conducting an online survey with the help of World Values Survey platform. This technique of data collection was favored in this study as it is low-priced in terms of cost of survey administration and time (Patton, 2015). The target population for this study of this study consisted of persons who were working and families. A prudently sample was chosen for this survey. Bors (2018) elucidates that a sample is expected to provide a data representative of the population from which it has been drawn. The sample of this study was judiciously drawn from the group of folks using random sampling technique. On the word of Wigmans (2018), in non-probability sampling researchers make use of their verdict to pick the subjects to be involved in the survey based on their cognizance of the phenomenon. Purposive sampling was applied in this study. Patton (2015) describe random sampling as a technique of sampling in which each sample has an equal probability of being selected. According to Salkind (2018), random sampling is one of the simplest methods of collecting data from the total population The obtained responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics analysis with the help of SPSS (version 22) and the outcomes of the survey presented using frequency tables, charts and bars for reporting.

Before conducting data analysis, statistical assumptions were conducted. Normality according to Salkind (2010) assumes that the continuous variables to be applied in the analysis are normally distributed.  To test, the normality of the obtained data from this research, histogram were used.

Figure 2: Histogram 1

Figure 3: Histogram 2

Figure 4: Histogram 3

As shown by the three charts, all the three variables are normally distributed; all follow a bell-shaped distribution and are symmetric around the center (also known as mean).

Glazer (2016) describe linearity refers as a straight, or linear line, relationship between the dependent variable and the independent variable(s).  .   For this study, linearity was assessed using Pearson Correlation.

Table 1: Correlations

Correlations	Family important	Friends important	Feeling of happiness
Family important	Pearson Correlation	1	.151**	.129**
Sig. (2-tailed)		.000	.000
N	1038	1038	1036
Friends important	Pearson Correlation	.151**	1	.172**
Sig. (2-tailed)	.000		.000
N	1038	1041	1039
Feeling of happiness	Pearson Correlation	.129**	.172**	1
Sig. (2-tailed)	.000	.000
N	1036	1039	1039
Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

From table 2 above, all the three study variables i.e. family, friends and feeling of happiness are linear since their significance level is less than p-value i.e. 0.05 at 90% confidence level.

Multicollinearity is described by Wigmans (2018) as a state of very high inter-associations or intercorrelation, among the independent variables. To test multicollinearity, the VIF values is normally used.

Table 2: Multicollinearity Test

Model	Tolerance	VIF
1	(Constant)
Family important	.977	1.023
Friends important	.977	1.023

Homoscedasticity according to Bors (2018), denotes whether these residuals are evenly distributed, or whether they tend to spread far apart at some values, and at other values, bunch together.  For this study, the P-P scatterplot below was plotted.

Figure 5: Homoscedasticity Test

As observed from Figure 5, the new residual trend is not only centered on zero but also that the variance around zero is scattered randomly and uniformly. We thus conclude that the linearity the heteroscedasticity assumption is satisfied.

The researcher conducted descriptive statistics analysis. The results are presented in the subsequent sections using frequency tables, graphs and pie charts.

The frequencies of the three study variables are presented in the subsequent tables.

 Table 3: Importance of Family in regards to Happiness

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Very important	981	94.2	94.5	94.5
Rather important	44	4.2	4.2	98.7
Not very important	10	1.0	1.0	99.7
Not at all important	3	.3	.3	100.0
Total	1038	99.7	100.0
Missing	Missing; Not asked by the interviewer	2	.2
No answer	1	.1
Total	3	.3
Total	1041	100.0

According to the table 3, the highest fraction of the respondent recognized family as an important factor towards achieving individual happiness. This was reflected by over 94% of sampled respondents alluding to this.

Accordingly, the participants were asked to indicate how important they perceived friendships in regards to attaining individual happiness and they responded as shown in Table 4.

Table 4: Importance of Friends in regards to Happiness

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Very important	721	69.3	69.3	69.3
Rather important	282	27.1	27.1	96.3
Not very important	32	3.1	3.1	99.4
Not at all important	6	.6	.6	100.0
Total	1041	100.0	100.0

From Table 4 above, most participants felt that friendship was an important element in realizing individual happiness with 69.0 of the respondents confirming this.

About how happy they were during the time of survey, the respondents responded as shown in Table 5 below.

Table 5: Importance of Feeling Happy

	Frequency	Percent	Valid Percent	Cumulative Percent
Valid	Very happy	525	50.4	50.5	50.5
Quite happy	445	42.7	42.8	93.4
Not very happy	69	6.6	5.3	100.0
Total	1039	99.8	100.0
Missing	No answer	1	.1
Don´t know	1	.1
Total	2	.2
Total	1041	100.0

From Table 5 above, over 93% of the respondents were feeling more than just happy. However about 6.6% of the respondents were not happy with life during the time of conducting this survey.

The researcher recorded mean, median and mode of the three variables as shown in Table 6.

Table 6:Mean, Median, Mode

	Family important	Friends important	Feeling of happiness
N	Valid	1038	1041	1039
Missing	3	0	2
Mean	1.07	1.35	1.57
Median	1.00	1.00	1.00
Mode	1	1	1
Std. Deviation	.320	.569	.657

From Table 6, the mean, median and mode of the three study variables ranged between 1 and 5.57.

Standard deviation of the descriptive analysis model was recorded as shown below.

Table 7: Standard Deviation

	Family important	Friends important	Feeling of happiness
N	Valid	1038	1041	1039
Missing	3	0	2
Std. Deviation	.320	.569	.657

The standard deviation of family-variable was 0.320 meaning that it deviated 32% from the actual mean of the variable.

The standard deviation of friend-variable was 0.569 meaning that it deviated 56.9 % from the actual mean of the variable.

The standard deviation of the importance of feeling happy-variable was 0.657 meaning that it deviated 65.7% % from the actual mean of the variable.

Correlation of the study variables was done and recorded as shown below.

Table 8: Correlation of Study Variables

	Family important	Friends important	Feeling of happiness
Family important	Pearson Correlation	1	.151**	.129**
Sig. (2-tailed)		.000	.000
N	1038	1038	1036
Friends important	Pearson Correlation	.151**	1	.172**
Sig. (2-tailed)	.000		.000
N	1038	1041	1039
Feeling of happiness	Pearson Correlation	.129**	.172**	1
Sig. (2-tailed)	.000	.000
N	1036	1039	1039
Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

From Table 8, all variables have correlations that are significant at 90% confidence level as their sig. level is 0.000 which is less than the p-value which is usually taken to be 0.005

For the regression model of this study, the following statistics were recorded.

Table 9: Model Summaryb

Model	R	R Square	Adjusted R Square	Std. Error of the Estimate	Durbin-Watson
1	.201a	.040	.038	.645	1.975

a. Predictors: (Constant), Friends important, Family important

b. Dependent Variable: Feeling of happiness

Table 10:ANOVAa

Model	Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
1	Regression	18.038	2	9.019	21.713	.000b
Residual	429.089	1033	.415
Total	447.127	1035

Table 11: Coefficients

Model	Unstandardized Coefficients	Standardized Coefficients	t	Sig.	Collinearity Statistics
B	Std. Error	Beta	Tolerance	VIF
1	(Constant)	1.101	.080		13.833	.000
Family important	.216	.063	.105	3.415	.001	.977	1.023
Friends important	.180	.036	.156	5.059	.000	.977	1.023

From the table of coefficients, it can be deduced that holding all other factors constant, a unit change in Family factor indicator of happiness would subsequently lead to 0.216 units change in the level of happiness. Notably, a unit change in friend factor indicator of happiness would subsequently lead to 0.180 units change in the level of happiness. The constant of the model (Y-axis) of this model is 1.101 which implies that if all factors were held constant (Family, friends and others), the level of happiness would be at 1.101 units.

For this model, the R-squared is 40% implying that family and friends contribute 40% to individual level of happiness. It can also be observed that the model is significant (refer to table 10) as the sig. value is 0.000 which is less than p-value of 0.005 at 90% confidence level.

The findings discussed above reveals that happiness is significantly determined by friends and family. These findings echoes the findings of Tolstoy (2014)  who stated that then applied in a general sense, the word happiness according to is identical with well-being or quality of life. In this connotation, Lewis, et al. (2015) means that life is good, on the other hand does not point out what is good about life. To suffice the finding of this study, the obtained data matches the findings of Dawson (2016) in his survey on the impact of family on happiness. According to Dawson (2016) happiness results to individual subjective well-being or can operate to control and restrain people within social structures. The domains of friendship have also been extensively acknowledged as determinants of happiness. Dawson (2016) further elaborate that provided the family members are not rigorously emotionally toxic, individuals may generally depend on their families during  calamities for practical and emotional support, and from time to time even financial provision when one is desperately in need. As stated by Lewis, et al.  (2015), our families take our past with them, and they typically share our prospect as well.  Tolstoy (2012) goes further to ask, “Who better than parents, siblings, and other close kinsfolks can reminisce with us about our past experiences?” This link to fond memories, care in times of need and near-unconditional love is an exceptional way that family contributes to happiness in addition to relief from stress.

 Helliwell and Huang, (2013) explains that having close friends means a person is more likely to be healthier, much happier, and far less likely to get depressed. Various researches have supported Chang (2012) argument about friendship by concentrating on features, number and overall quality of friendship (e.g., supportiveness). Lewis, et al. (2015) postulate that self-validation and companionship features of friendship are the most significant predictors of happiness.

Over and above these findings of this survey it is more than important to be open and willing to accept that the facts and the concept of lasting happiness can only be realized by having family members and good friends to support a person.  However, for one to do this, they should get rid of the negative energies that come from negative family members and/or friends and which cause a person to feel unhappy or at best, make a person feel as though he/she is merely existing or drifting through life.

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