Conceptions of Happiness and Unhappiness among Italian Psychology Undergraduates

The present study aims at investigating the conceptions of happiness and unhappiness in a sample of Italian psychology undergraduates. Participants completed a questionnaire asking them to report the most important things that made them feel happy (happiness components) and those ones that made them feel unhappy (unhappiness components). Different measures of overall happiness and overall unhappiness were also obtained by asking respondents to assess to what extent each reported happiness and unhappiness component was present in their life, and by inviting them to provide a global judgment about their happiness and unhappiness. Results indicated that participants did not conceptualize happiness and unhappiness as perfect antonyms. Indeed, both investigated concepts encompassed a similar set of semantic components; however, the perceived salience of some of them − assessed in terms of frequency of citation and average ranking − significantly varied between happiness and unhappiness. With regard to the measurement of overall happiness and unhappiness, on average, respondents considered themselves as moderately happy and only slightly unhappy. However, a judgmental asymmetry was found when comparing global and specific evaluations of unhappiness. Theoretical and empirical implications of the study are discussed.