Happiness has always been a controversial subject, whether the debate is on its definition, causes, pursuit, or consequences. And in these debates, one of the matters of discussion that stands out is the question of what a person needs in life to be truly happy. People of different cultural backgrounds, gender, and affluence are just a few of several perspectives that contribute to this dispute. One can observe in life different people performing different actions to be happy and their happiness getting affected in multiple ways. No matter what people do in order to attain happiness, however, what they are actually looking for can be classified into one basis: social interaction. Generally, in order to achieve happiness, the average American adult needs to have an active social life in which they feel a sense of belonging.
People of different levels of affluence in the U.S. are able to perform varying degrees of actions that enable them to be happy through feeling a sense of belonging. Although a rich person is able to access more of his or her riches and use them to ‘buy happiness,’ a poor person can feel the same happiness even under his or her terrible living conditions. For instance, Aristotle believed that “in many actions, [people] use friends and riches and political power as instruments” (Aristotle) of happiness. While he failed to include the concept that riches are used as instruments to gain friends, which are then used to achieve happiness, it is implied that happiness is caused by the social interaction that friendship, whether it is fake or not, gives to a person of high affluence.
Why they would spend their money to attract people into becoming their friends is so that they can have some form of social interaction, which everyone knowingly or unknowingly associate with happiness. In the case of a person with low wealth, there have been findings in which “many poor people say that they are satisfied with their lives… even in harsh environments” (Haybron). This is because, in slum areas, which are usually small, there is strong communication between people and a presence of a close-knitted community, which contributes to the happiness of a person caused by their social interactions. This reveals that even though people may be of different economic status, they are still able to achieve the same happiness through ways of meaningful relationships.
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To further corroborate this, a study was conducted where a group of male students from Harvard College and a group of extremely poor boys from Boston “who were from some of the most troubled and disadvantaged families” (Waldinger) were tracked throughout their maturation. Researchers reported that the “clearest message that [they got] from this 75-year study [was] this: good relationships keep [people] happier and healthier” (Waldinger). Essentially, the results show that a quality social life in which people “are more socially connected to family, to friends, [and] to community” (Radwan) causes them to be happier. Through the study’s methodical design and its results, one can comprehend that wealth did not have an effect on a person’s happiness. On the contrary, it was the sense of belonging in a community through relationships and other forms of social interaction that made a person truly satisfied and happy.
Similarly, people of different genders perceive different actions that implore a social life with acceptance and belongingness as steps to achieve happiness. Reasonably, men are more boastful of their abilities, achievements, and wealth than women. One might suspect this to be characteristic of arrogance; however, “contrary to common beliefs people who show off aren’t arrogant but they are just in need of love and acceptance” (Radwan). This reveals that the reason men like to boast about themselves is that they want to feel a sense of acceptance and belongingness around other people. Women do not fail to fall under this particular category too: it can be reasonably stated that women like to gossip among each other.
Though people associate gossip with negative connotations, it is actually “an integral part of conversation, information sharing and even community building that comes naturally to us” (Gottfried). This reveals that the reason women are fond of gossip is that they unwittingly feel an urge to “feel close to people” (Gottfried) and contribute information as a member of a social community, making them feel a sense of acceptance and belonging through this form of social interaction. Additionally, the central claim applies to the LGBT+ community, particularly in the U.S. where the community has become increasingly accepted by American society. Pride events actually started out as gay rights protests where happiness was to be achieved by having equality for all genders. Now, these pride marches’ purposes have become to allow similar people to join in and feel a sense of belonging in a community of people alike.
With the parades’ “unifying aspect” being the “[celebration of] of acceptance, pure and simple,” (Desta) the LBGT+ community has become more vocal about bringing people together and making them feel happy through acknowledging the fact that they are part of something bigger, something they can identify with and belong to. Also, modern parades in the U.S. “include dance parties, ‘best dressed for drag’ contests” (Desta) and others that allow freedom of a person’s expression of their true identity in front of like-minded people, giving them a chance at interactions where they can feel a sense of belonging. Again, although the identities of people may differ from one another, their happiness is induced by a common factor: social interactions that pave the way to acceptance and belongingness.
American people of different cultural backgrounds also respond differently to what they perceive in life as a requirement to achieve happiness and yet, it all condenses into the desire for an accepting social community. From the view of Asian Americans, specifically Korean Americans, their stipulation is the ability to integrate themselves into a close-knit community, given that in Asian culture, being with family and similar people is important. For this reason, “the church has become a major… institution for Korean immigrant society” because it “[provides] for the holistic needs of their members, including social services… or simply socialization in an accepting environment” (Marriage & Family Ency.).
This reveals that when faced with discrimination, Korean Americans turn to communities in which there are similar people as them in order to feel welcomed, accepted, and belonging to something. To achieve happiness, they seek comfort in these communities of similar people to have supportive social interactions with them, which will provide them with “a stronger sense of purpose and security, as well as crucial social support during times of stress and crisis” (Nottingham Trent Univ.).
According to Dr. Juliet Wakefield, people “tend to identify with groups that share [each other’s] values, interests and life priorities” and it is quite obvious “how this would link to happiness” (Nottingham Trent Univ.). This is why there are many organizations for foreigners in places like universities, where there are Korean student organizations or African-American student clubs, all throughout the United States. When people of the same culture identify as a single group, happiness is instigated. African-Americans’ requirement for happiness is similar to that of Korean-Americans, albeit there is a minor difference: they also want to find happiness through belonging in a community, just not in a restricted African-American community but American society itself.
To substantiate this, evidence states that “African Americans are happier today than they were in the 1970s… despite the fact that economic inequality between blacks and whites hasn’t improved much, if at all, over the last four decades” (Marsh). In addition to revealing the conception that economic status does not directly impact happiness, it also allowed researchers to come up with the conclusion that “the decline of overt racism” (Marsh) is what caused their happiness. As American society becomes more and more accepting of its African-American residents, their levels of happiness increase. This reveals that some people do not only want social relationships with similar people; their happiness stems from their efforts to be accepted and belong in a broader community: American society itself. On the whole, people of different cultural backgrounds desire either belonging in a community of like-minded people or being accepted as an integral part of the broader society.
In conclusion, social interactions that allow a person to feel a sense of acceptance and belonging in society can be considered a necessity in attaining happiness. If the actions of people of such different economic statuses, cultural backgrounds, and gender who desire happiness are ultimately similar in their deeper motive, it can be generalized for the entire American society that striving for happiness is essentially striving for social belonging. Truly, with these existing abundant amounts of concrete evidence, it is no surprise that one could hypothesis the idea that “good social relationships are, like food and thermoregulation, universally important to human mood” (Diener).
