Most people think that happiness is due to situations that include things we want, like being married, having a high income, or belonging to a culture that supports you. But these things don't actually determine whether a person is happy or healthy. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay The difference between happy and unhappy people lies in their thought processes. Each person's thoughts, moods, feelings, behaviors, and motivation seem to determine their state. Many people have similar experiences, but how they interpret and think about them shows what type of person they are. Happy people don't focus on negative things and don't let comments affect their mood and self-confidence. However, unhappy people still demonstrate lower self-esteem, by being sensitive to feedback, criticizing their performance on tasks, and being sensitive to comparisons with other people. In decision making, happy people stay happy by using multiple coping strategies. when a difficult decision must be made. They use the “satisfactory” method to deal with their situation. Unhappy people look at every possible negative aspect of every possible decision and end up having a harder time making a decision. And once they make a decision, they often don't feel happy with their choice. Unhappy people tend to use the "maximization" method, where they try to make the best choice possible. Unhappy people constantly focus on introspection and negative things about themselves and their lives. Even when people are happy in the moment, they return to their usual level of happiness, or their “happiness baseline.” There is also an association between personality and baseline level of happiness: personality characteristics are fixed and linked to each individual's levels of happiness. One idea that psychologists have tried to use is the sustainable happiness model, where cognitive, behavioral, and motivational thought processes should be changed to focus more on the positive. Examples include intentional acts of kindness (behavioral), visualizing the best possible self (cognitive), expressing gratitude (cognitive), and pursuing life goals (motivation). The no side of this issue contains several articles that claim to have evidence suggesting much less control. about the happiness we have. One theory from a paper they reviewed claimed that the heritability of happiness was about 0.50, suggesting that half of the variability in population happiness scores is caused by genes and l the other half through experiences. Another theory is that of the hedonic treadmill, which suggests that each individual has a baseline of happiness, but can nevertheless adapt slightly to life experiences, both good and bad. But they generally remain close to their baseline level. There is a theory that the no camp has disproved, known as the 40% estimate. It states that if heritability is 50% and 10% is due to demographic variables, the rest – 40% – might be within our power to change. But the biggest problem non-opponents have found with this idea is the fact that the 40% we have left is actually all that could possibly affect our happiness. This makes things very complicated.?