“When I have a lot of money, I’ll be happy.”
“If I could get a promotion, I would be happy.”
Wrong, says Jessica Kamrath, assistant professor of human communication studies at Cal State Fullerton. Achieving happiness involves a lot more than reaching a certain milestone or goal.
“Happiness is not a destination or something tangible that you can grab a hold of and then you are happy,” she explained. “However, it is something within our control. Research has found that happiness is 50% heritable, 10% circumstantial and 40% intentional.”
The concept of happiness and what it takes to obtain it has been studied for years in psychology, but Kamrath sees a place for it in communications as well. Happiness is rooted not only in human behaviors, but in interactions, intentions and communicative acts.