Pursuing Happiness in Everyday Life: The Characteristics and Behaviors of Online Happiness Seekers

Although the last decade has witnessed mounting research on the development and evaluation of positive interventions, investigators still know little about the target population of such interventions: happiness seekers. The present research asked three questions about happiness seekers: (I) What are their general characteristics?, (2) What do they purposefully do to become happier?, and (3) How do they make use of self-help resources? In Study I, we identified two distinct clusters of online happiness seekers. In Study 2, we asked happiness seekers to report on their use of 14 types of happiness-seeking behaviors. In Study 3, we tracked happiness seekers' usage of an iPhone application that offered access to eight different happiness-increasing activities, and assessed their resulting happiness and mood improvements. Together, these studies provide a preliminary portrait of happiness seekers' characteristics and naturalistic behaviors.