title: Between Pleasure and Contentment: Evolutionary Dynamics of Some Possible Parameters of Happiness.
abstract: We offer and test a simple operationalization of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being ("happiness") as mediating variables that link outcomes to motivation. In six evolutionary agent-based simulation experiments, we compared the relative performance of agents endowed with different combinations of happiness-related traits (parameter values), under four types of environmental conditions. We found (i) that the effects of attaching more weight to longer-term than to momentary happiness and of extending the memory for past happiness are both stronger in an environment where food is scarce; (ii) that in such an environment "relative consumption," in which the agent's well-being is negatively affected by that of its neighbors, is more detrimental to survival when food is scarce; and (iii) that having a positive outlook, under which agents' longer-term happiness is increased by positive events more than it is decreased by negative ones, is generally advantageous.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Computer Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States of America.
authors.forename: Yue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, United States of America.
authors.forename: Shimon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Edelman
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D057181:Pleasure