What Makes Us Happy?

Evidence from the article What Makes Us Happy? To support the hypothesis that people's level of life expectations has a direct correlation to their fulfillment and happiness is lacking to say the least. The article states that the Danish have been at the top of international happiness studies for 30 years (Shenk, 2009). Shenk states in the article that Danes have low expectations, which may in fact have some correlation to happiness however the article doesn't provide evidence to support the idea. It is an assumption based on the Danes, "having low expectations", and their level of happiness in the surveys. Questions that need to be answered in order to support the hypothesis is that low expectations are directly correlated to happiness in people are; what percentages of Danes have low expectations? How does that percentage rate compare to other people? What other common quantifiable factors could we use from the Danish people to find, "the secret to happiness"? Is their having low expectations all that is factored into the proposal that their level of happiness is high? Was it found to be the one similarity among all Danish? Assuming that the statement is a generalization of the Danish people, my thesis is that low expectations do not equate to happiness. According to the Grant Study by Vaillant there were seven factors to predict healthy aging physically and psychologically, those factors included; mature adaptations, some exercise, healthy weight, stable marriage, education and not smoking or abusing alcohol(Shenk, 2009). In the magazine article What Makes Us Happy? (2009), Shenk stated about the Grant Study:

Of the 106 Harvard men who had five or six of these factors in their favor at age 50, half ended up at 80 as what Vaillant called "happy-well" and only 7.5% as "sad-sick". Meanwhile, of the men who had three or fewer of the health factors at age 50, none ended up "happy-well" at 80.