“Is Happiness Genetic and What Causes It?”, Kelly Miller,

Positive Psychology 

To go about answering the question, I researched data observing the happiness of others, real stories indicating the relationship of culture and happiness, and psychological research on the idea of happiness. Specifically, TED Talks regarding happiness, PsychologyToday research, and articles regarding personal stories in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Society Today. 

  Within the research, the answer to the question of how culture plays a role in happiness varied. While some said culture plays a huge role as it shapes ideals, others expressed that culture isn’t involved at all with happiness. Similarly;however, all research agreed that happiness is individual to each and every person and the culture one grows up in can either limit the possibilities to find it or open it up.For example, if one comes from a background where family decides most of the children’s lives, those kids will probably have difficulties finding happiness. In some cases, people will  start to want to be content with the things they have even if it wasn’t their first choice in life, called synthetic happiness. Synthetic happiness is basically a fake image of happiness where one makes themself believe that the current things they have is the best possible scenario. This implicates that it is possible that some people aren’t truly happy, but rather content themselves. In other words, imposing limits to the life of others can hinder their  path of reaching their own goals. This will then most likely lead to a false sense of happiness or depression. This brings about an even more important significance to happiness as it has proven to be an individual phenomenon that can only be achieved through one’s own motivation and goals.