IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nathum/v7y2023i10d10.1038_s41562-023-01651-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A systematic review of the strength of evidence for the most commonly recommended happiness strategies in mainstream media

Author

Listed:
  • Dunigan Folk

    (The University of British Columbia)

  • Elizabeth Dunn

    (The University of British Columbia)

Abstract

We conducted a systematic review of the evidence underlying some of the most widely recommended strategies for increasing happiness. By coding media articles on happiness, we first identified the five most commonly recommended strategies: expressing gratitude, enhancing sociability, exercising, practising mindfulness/meditation and increasing nature exposure. Next, we conducted a systematic search of the published scientific literature. We identified well-powered, pre-registered experiments testing the effects of these strategies on any aspect of subjective wellbeing (that is, positive affect, negative affect and life satisfaction) in non-clinical samples. A total of 57 studies were included. Our review suggests that a strong scientific foundation is lacking for some of the most commonly recommended happiness strategies. As the effectiveness of these strategies remains an open question, there is an urgent need for well-powered, pre-registered studies investigating strategies for promoting happiness.

Suggested Citation

  • Dunigan Folk & Elizabeth Dunn, 2023. "A systematic review of the strength of evidence for the most commonly recommended happiness strategies in mainstream media," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(10), pages 1697-1707, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:7:y:2023:i:10:d:10.1038_s41562-023-01651-4
    DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01651-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01651-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41562-023-01651-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maarten van Rooij & Olivier Coibion & Dimitris Georgarakos & Bernardo Candia & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2024. "Keeping up with the Jansens: causal peer effect on household spending, beliefs and happiness," Working Papers 804, DNB.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:7:y:2023:i:10:d:10.1038_s41562-023-01651-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.