Dating happiness

Is happiness really love?

Vaillant’s conclusion that happiness is love is no doubt overly strong. The data do not quite support anything that extreme. For example, it wasn’t shown that love as such is a route to happiness.

Does rational love lead to happiness?

Rational love leads to happiness. Irrational love does not. That is the real finding of the study. This is one of the reasons it is so important to regulate our emotions when they are harmful to us.

Is intimacy the key to happiness?

Vaillant found that the ability to be intimate with another person was one of the strongest predictors of health and happiness. Intimacy phobic and commitment phobic individuals were among the most unhappy and discontented individuals.