Happiness: Observational Study

Happiness. What a complicated word this can be. To truly define happiness is a difficult task to do as each individual in society has his or her own definition of this term. Everyone defines happiness according to their own personal perspectives and each individual describes their inner feelings in ways that won’t be possible to be compared with others. Happiness can be determined in various ways. Some individuals may feel happy when they have intimate relationships. To me however, love alone is not enough to provide happiness seeing that there are many frustrated lovers in the world. If relationships that we have grown accustomed to do not meet our expectations, it does not mean that we have lost all chances of happiness as many would like …show more content…
In my opinion, observational studies has its disadvantages. By simply observing an individual, this would not be truly reliable, there can be many factors that can influence the researcher to come to a conclusion that someone is happy or not without fully getting in depth. Observational reports in many cases also turns out to be description of events, rather than explanation. It would also be difficult to observe an individual for one day and come to a conclusion that he is happy. This process would need to be a lengthier and time consuming one. Being that sampling the entire population of both male and female sexes will be a challenging experience, it would be best for me to select randomly, only a portion of both sexes, due to time and expense. It is also obvious that it would be cheaper to obtain data from a sample rather than the whole …show more content…
One study that was conducted to determine happiness was that of the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire. This questionnaire was developed by psychologists Michael Argyle and Peter Hills at the Oxford University and is considered to be a valid contribution to the measurement of overall happiness. Answering a questionnaire would make it possible for me to make judgment on what these individuals define as happiness. No survey can achieve success without a well-designed questionnaire that has been put together. Before issuing the questionnaires to the respondents, I would first inform them that the questionnaire is strictly confidential. As an interviewer, I must respect the respondent's right to privacy and confidentiality. Informing them about this is critical in making sure that the answers will be more honest as it is my responsibility to set their minds at ease. The level confidentiality will encourage individuals to be more open and honest in their response. The suspicion of linking data back to them can affect data retrieved. After collecting the questionnaires that has been given to an even proportion of the male and female sex, I would then have to analyze these information. This step is critical as need to make sense of the information that has been collected. Data analysis is critical to acquiring meaningful insights. Without