AOL News has a new home! The Huffington Post.
Click here to visit the new home of Politics Daily!Hot on HuffPost:
Controversial Book On Obama Appears To Have Lifted Key Quote
Walker Recall Effort Struggles To Gain Momentum
happiness
Study Finds Daydreaming No Escape From Sadness
By Traci Watson - AOL News
(Nov. 11) -- Allowing your mind to drift may seem like a pleasant escape from that report you're writing for the boss or the junk you're clearing from the garage. But a new study says daydreaming actually lowers happiness. In research out today, scientists report that people who are focused on the task at hand -- no matter how boring or aggravating -- are happier than people whose thoughts are wandering to something else. Even pleasant daydreams don't lift mood very much. "A lot of us have the intuition that when we're doing something that's not very enjoyable, if we can escape somewhere ...
Study: Republicans Happier Than Democrats
By Paul Kix - AOL News
(Oct. 31) -- One word that's seldom -- well, all right, never -- used to describe the conservative commentariat is "joyful." But maybe it should apply to them, and to the millions of conservatives who watch them on Fox or listen to them on the radio: A recent study says that Republicans are happier than Democrats and -- and! -- have more friends. The study, published in the journal Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, is the work of Jacob Vigil, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico. He gathered 701 undergrads at a university in Florida in the months before ...
Aloha! Hawaii Tops State-by-State Wellness Poll
By Katie Drummond - AOL News(July 23) -- Surprise, surprise. Residents of the Aloha State have held onto their top spot ranking on Gallup's annual wellness survey -- and set a record for the highest score tabulated since the survey was launched in 2007. Hawaii took No. 1 for the first half of 2010, with a total wellness score of 72.3. But there's good news for every state: overall, scores are on the rise. The country as a whole averaged out to a score of 67.0, up from 65.9 in 2008 and 2009. The statistics are compiled with nationally representative interviews. For the 2010 surveys, Gallup pollsters interviewed 176,000 ...
Parenting and Happiness Pair Well, Despite What You Read
By Sarah Wildman - Politics DailyNew York Magazine has been doing a good job, lately, of beating parents into the ground. First there was a devastating piece about the abuse of nannies in Brooklyn and Manhattan, about the utter exploitation of babysitters – one to the point of physical abuse – their total import to families, their total powerlessness. That alone, surely, was enough to make the child-less (child-free?) feel pretty happy. And then came Jennifer Senior's cover story last week: "I love my children. I hate my life." Study after study, Senior wrote, has shown that your little bundle o' joy is not ...
Global Survey: More Bling Won't Buy Bliss
By Katie Drummond - AOL NewsBad news for those with big pocketbooks: Cold, hard cash can leave you feeling satisfied, but it won't yield much in the way of emotional happiness. That's the bottom line of a major new Gallup study, which surveyed 136,000 people in 132 countries on their income, day-to-day feelings and overall life satisfaction. Regardless of gender, geographic location or career choice, those who reported high income levels were more likely to feel satisfied overall. But when it comes down to positive feelings, those whose day-to-day lives involved close social relationships and a sense of control, ...
Opinion: The Economics of Happiness Is Catching On
By not in system - AOL News(June 22) -- The economy is apparently out of recession, but national debt remains over $13 trillion. Unemployment might be declining, but the trade deficit is growing again. Familiar headlines, but what if none of it mattered? What would happen if we forgot about economics and, instead, measured society's progress through happiness? That is what many of the world's leading politicians, economists and intellectuals are advocating. After all, when asked for their most important goal in life, participants in a recent global survey ranked "happiness" top, ahead of "'success," "knowledge" or ...
Women's Happiness Studies Are Bringing Me Down
By Ria Misra - Politics DailyLizzie, I agree that all the studies out there theorizing why ladies are darn near impossible to make happy are a little, well, sad. They're so ubiquitous you would almost think there were some Ladies Home Journal of Unhappiness -- most likely with a pink cover, featuring a gaggle of scientists brunching while they compare research notes and their latest shoe purchases -- exclusively dedicated to the topic of female glumness. Whether women really are suffering from a happiness deficit is debatable -- Gallup just released a poll of 600,000 men and women on Monday that had levels of reported ...
Measuring Economic Progress: Is GDP the Bottom Line?
By Delia Lloyd - Politics DailyEarlier this week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called upon world leaders to stop using gross domestic product as their primary measure of economic progress. Instead, he pushed for a focus on quality-of-life indicators like health care availability and leisure time. ...
Follow Politics Daily
POPULAR
- Nancy Pelosi Confirms House May Skip Up or Down Vote on Senate Health Bill
- Debrahlee Lorenzana: A Double Take on Those Double D's
- Campbell Brown Quits CNN With Shockingly Frank Farewell
- Palin Earnings Estimated at $12 Million
- The Five Most Racist Obama Cartoons?
- Soraya M., Stoned to Death for Being an "Inconvenient Wife''
- Jimmy Carter Leaves Church Over Treatment of Women
- No posts are available.
News From Our Partners
- Dragon arrives at space station in historic 1st
- Picking new leader, Egyptians search for superman
- Egyptians vote in first free presidential vote
- Moon chips from Vegas casino mogul sent to NASA
- Egyptians vote to rid nation of autocratic rule
- More Stories »
- 'Masters of the Universe' Sure Have Fragile Egos
- Romney: My Mistakes 'Haunt Me'
- Newt Lauds Romney: He's Like Eisenhower
- Irked Senate Panel Votes 30-0 to Cut Pakistan Aid
- GSA Bash Organizer Steps Down
- More Stories »
- Know Your Enemy
- Obama’s Challenge in Egypt
- The Edwards Waiting Game
- Are Doctors Doing Too Much?
- The Pagan Cult of Reagan
- More Stories »
- Ambition Counteracting Ambition
- Robert Blagojevich Speaks Out
- In Iowa, Obama Calls Romney's Words 'A Cow Pie of Distortion'
- In Iowa, Obama Calls On Congress to Act on Clean Energy Tax Credits
- Romney Has Interesting Morning in Inner-City Philly
- More Stories »
Top News
More News
More on Aol
Local News
More Blog/Sites
Sites and Services
HuffPost Politics