Can Happiness Be Successfully Pursued? A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Pursuit and Assessment of Happiness

The worst way to achieve some goals is by directly pursuing them. In the present study, the pursuit of happiness, or subjective well-being, is examined as a possible ironic process. This is done using the logic of a randomized controlled trial in a factorial design, N = 413. As a subset of this possibility, in separate experiment, the assessment of happiness is examined as a potential source of decreased happiness, N = 175. Results show that the pursuit of happiness is not self-defeating when effort is isolated as a variable. It is further found that the assessment of happiness is not self-defeating compared to control assessments. Both experiments were conducted in in-vivo settings and used email and online surveys. Implications and further ways of advancing the field with regard to effort and subjective well-being are discussed.