Developing a Research Hypothesis - Essay Example

People Who Are Happy Are More Successful at Work The idea that happiness helps people become more successful is the research topic that will be discussed for my paper. The article that was chosen is by Lyubomirsky and King (2005) who researched the idea that having a positive affect creates success. The premise for their research was that people who have a happy disposition much of the time, have a tendency to be happier in all aspects of their lives. When people maintain positive emotions, they are able to “think, feel and act in ways that promote both resource building and involvement with approach goal” (p. 804). The study design that these researchers used was to review a series of research articles that described this phenomenon.

They conducted cross-sectional empirical literature study. In doing so, they scoured PsycARTICLES database using a variety of keywords and then used two major databases, the Society of Personality and Social Psychology listserv and the Quality of Life Studies listserv. They found 225 articles that was comprised of 293 samples with over 275,000 participants. The results of their study found that happiness is “positively correlated” with “superior” mental and physical health. Essentially, they found that people who kept a positive affect were happier than those who did not.

This suggests that there is truth in the idea that happy people are more successful in all aspects of their lives including family, work and health. In fact, there was a positive correlation with the immune system and happiness that showed that people who were happy were healthier most of the time. Research Hypothesis: People who are naturally happy are more successful in life than those who are not happy. Independent variable: Happiness Dependent variable: Positive affect There is a lot of talk about people who are happy having more in life than those who are unhappy.

There are books about the law of attraction that state that if you can stay in a happy frame of mind, you can draw anything to you that you want. I chose this topic and these variables because I wanted to see whether there is scientific proof that a person who is happy is more successful in life. Reference Lyubomirsky, S. and King, L. (2005). The benefits of frequent positive affect: Does happiness lead to success? Psychological Bulletin. 131 (6), 803-855. DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.131.6.803