Between Pleasure and Contentment: Evolutionary Dynamics of Some Possible Parameters of Happiness.

ABSTRACT: We offer and test a simple operationalization of hedonic and eudaimonic well-being ("happiness") as mediating variables that link outcomes to motivation. In six evolutionary agent-based simulation experiments, we compared the relative performance of agents endowed with different combinations of happiness-related traits (parameter values), under four types of environmental conditions. We found (i) that the effects of attaching more weight to longer-term than to momentary happiness and of extending the memory for past happiness are both stronger in an environment where food is scarce; (ii) that in such an environment "relative consumption," in which the agent's well-being is negatively affected by that of its neighbors, is more detrimental to survival when food is scarce; and (iii) that havi

SUBMITTER: Gao Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4856412 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature