Trait Theories

These theories hold that happiness is a static characteristic of an individual, comparable to the color of one’s hair. One variant claims that happiness is largely genetic, some people are born to be happy, and others to be constitutionally depressive (e.g., Lykken, 1999). Another variant is that our early experiences program us to enjoy life or not. Cummins’ (1995) set-point theory assumes that we are all hardwired to feel reasonably happy (between 7 and 8 on scale 0-10) and that homeostatic mechanisms keep us around that level, unless extreme circumstances push us below or above.