DETERMINANTS OF HAPPINESS IN UNDERGRADUATE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS D eborah M . F lynn Nipissing University S tephanie M ac L eod Nipissing University Abstract This study explored the relationship between happiness, and six other life domains: Academic Success, Financial Security, Familial Support, Living Environment, Self-Image and Social Relations. Participants were one hundred and ninety- two students from a small undergrad­ uate university. The purpose of the study was to determine which life domain had the greatest influence on student happiness. Assessment tools included the Oxford Happiness Inventory, the Multidimensional Student Life Satisfaction Scale, and a Financial Success Survey creat­ ed by the authors. Results indicate that Self-esteem, Academic Success and Financial Security, respectively, explained most of the variance in student happiness. Key Words: Happiness, University Student Stress, Determinants of University Student Happiness Introduction Positive psychology has brought aware­ ness to the study of individual happiness and the obvious and potential benefits to society. Identifying variables responsible for and cor­ related with the feeling of well-being or hap­ piness has become an important topic in many areas of psychological research. Researchers such as Cummins et al. (2009) go as far as to suggest that when individuals are happier whole societies functions better. The concept of happiness is one that has been defined by researchers and lay people in many ways, ranging from life satisfaction, a sense of well-being, to brief momentary plea­ sures. However, in the literature, happiness has been broadly described as positive subjec­ tive experiences. Using frequency of positive experiences as an indicator of happiness has empirical support. In a large number of stud­ ies, measuring happiness in a variety of ways, it was found that happy people are those that report feeling mild to moderate positive moods and emotions the majority of the time. The consistency of positive affect appears to be more important in defining happiness than intensity (see Diener et al. 1985; Diener et al. 1991). Regardless of definitions used by re­ searcher over the years, the evidence appears to be quite consistent; being happy is advan­ tageous to the individual in a multiple of life domains. It is well known in the positive psychol­ ogy literature that increased happiness is related to multiple benefits including better mental and physical health, (see Lyubomirsky et al. 2005). A number of positive health be­ haviours have been associated with happiness 452 Determinants Of Happiness In Undergraduate University Students /453 including better dietary habits and the main­ tenance of normal body weight (Chang and Nayga 2010; Piqueras et al. 2011), better oral health practices (Dumitrescu et al. 2010), and being more physically active (Piqueras et al. 2011). The industrial organizational literature has happiness correlated with greater pro­ ductivity, higher salaries and greater success at work (Hoggard 2005; Lyubomirsky et al. 2005). Happiness is correlated with individu­ als being more energetic, sociable, altruistic, original and having more fulfilling marriages, friendships and a longer life (Martin 2005; Norrish and Vella-Brodrick 2008). The individual benefits can pale in com­ parison to the potential societal gains of hav­ ing a population comprised of such happy and therefore, “successful” individuals. Accomplishing the goals set out by one’s society is often the operational definition of such success. Most societies value intelli­ gence and academic accomplishment and therefore the relationship to happiness is a well investigated one. The relationship between the concept of happiness or positive affect and the intellec­ tual ability of university students has been researched for quite some time (Hartman 1934; Jasper 1930; Washbume 1941). The interest in happiness has mostly been in the relationship between intelligence and positive affect. Some have found a posi­ tive relationship (Diener and Fujita 1995; Fox and Spector 2000; Kashdan and Yuen 2007) some a negative relationship (Block and Kremen 1996) and others, none at all (Chamorro-Premuzic et al. 2005). Studies that have investigated the relationship be­ tween positive affect and grades have similar mixed results. Frisch, et al. (2004) found that people who report high subjective well-be­ ing are more likely to graduate from college than those whose self-reports are less favor­ able to their happiness. Small but positive correlations are found (Chow 2005; Marsh et al. 2006), as well as negative (Trockel et al. 2000) and others report no relation at all (Myers 2005) between grades and happiness or positive affect. Studies are often inconsistent in thenfindings with regard to the importance of ac­ ademic achievement as a contributing factor in happiness. For example, Kirkcaldy et al. (2004) explored the relation between aca­ demic performance in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy of 30 nations, using the Programme for International Student Assess­ ment (PISA) survey. In this study, happiness was consistently related to the three literacy scores, with the greatest association being with reading. Huebner (1991) contradicts this theory when he examined students on various life domains, including grades, concluding that grades were not significantly related to life satisfaction. Chang et al. (2003) studied Hong Kong 2nd and 8th graders focusing on developmentally invariant and variable predictors of life satisfaction and concluded that social self-concept was a strong predictor of life satisfaction in adolescents only, with actual academic test scores being a strong pre­ dictor among only the children. Cheng and Fumham (2002) studied the effect of three variables (peer relations, self-confidence, and school performance) on happiness evaluating high school students with results demonstrating that both school performance and self confidence were significantly cor­ related with happiness with self confidence more strongly related. Studies evaluating the variables of debt and financial security on happiness resulted in contradictory outcomes. For example, Zhang & Kemp (2009) examined the rela­ tionship of student debt on motivation, hap­ piness and academic achievement. Results showed that none of the three variables were affected by student debt. Students with debt were no less happy than students without 454 / College Student Journal debt, however higher debt levels were as­ sociated with a more tolerant attitude to debt. Moghaddam (2008) also showed that non-pecuniary factors (religion and emotion) were significantly correlated with happiness, whereas pecuniary factors (income) were not. However, the results did indicate that financial security remained a significant de­ terminant in measured happiness; although absolute income was not a significant fac­ tor. Pinquart and Sorensen (2000) in a me­ ta-analysis o f 286 studies investigating older adults, income was significantly correlated with happiness and life satisfaction and more so than with education. Numerous other studies have discussed the effect o f various life domains on hap­ piness including the role o f support from family and friends. Crossley and Langdridge (2005) conducted a study on the evaluation of the various sources o f happiness for men and women. The results indicated that females listed “helping others”, having a “close fam­ ily” and “being loved by loved ones” as the most important determinants of happiness; while men listed “sexual activity”, “sports” and “being liked”. Chang et al. (2003) found that emotional support and parental warmth significantly correlated with happiness, but less than test scores, general self-concept, social self, academic self-concept, and sports self-concept. Nonetheless, it appears social relations are a strong indicator of overall happiness regardless o f one’s stage in life. Westaway et al. (2007) measured happiness on seven independent variables (oneself, family life, friends, time to do things, neighbours, social life and health). The study also incorporat­ ed sample groups (Indians, Caucasians and African Americans) to see whether race was correlated with happiness. Although Cau­ casians were found to be most happy, satis­ faction with people was a highly significant determinant o f happiness in all races. Chan and Lee (2006) also showed that happiness is positively correlated with network size and social support and that network size was more significantly correlated, suggesting that the number o f friends was more important than the quality o f the friendships in predict­ ing happiness. Demir and Weitekamp (2007) however showed that friendship quality was the greatest predictor of happiness, followed by number of friends, and personality. It remains unclear which among these many factors play the greatest role in happi­ ness of the average university student. The aim of the present study is to evaluate which of the following factors is the greatest deter­ minant of happiness in the life of the universi­ ty student: academic success, financial acces­ sibility, familial support, living environment, self-image or social relations. Materials and Method Method Participants and Procedure Two hundred undergraduate students par­ ticipated on a voluntary basis and were from various programs across 5 years of study. Participants were informed of their rights under the Research Ethics Guidelines includ­ ing their right not answer questions if they so chose and that they could withdraw from the study at any time without penalty. Those with omitted data or completion errors were dis­ carded, leaving a sample size of 192. Partici­ pants consisted of 155 females and 37 males (representative of the gender distribution of the student body). Ages ranged from 18 to 44 years old (M = 20, SD = 2.56). Participants completed their package in approximately 20 minutes. The questionnaire package consisted demographic information, the Oxford Hap­ piness Questionnaire, the Multidimensional Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale, and a Fi­ nancial survey. Determinants Of Happiness In Undergraduate University Students / 455 Materials Financial Survey. Oxford Happiness Questionnaire Participants’ happiness was assessed by means of the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ) (Hills & Argyle, 2002). The OHQ was developed to provide a more accessible measure of the Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI). Robbins et al. (2010) found the inven­ tory to demonstrate good internal consistency reliability (alpha=.92) and good construct validity in terms of positive association with extraversion (r = .38 p