Richard Wiseman

                           Experiment of happiness

   This project lasted 4 days, and was conducted by psychologist Richard Wiseman. Over 26,000 people signed up for the project.
     

   In one part of the study participants were randomly assigned to one of five groups. People in each group watched a video describing one of four techniques commonly used to boost happiness – expressing gratitude, smiling, recalling a pleasant event from the day before and carrying out an act of kindness. The fifth control group was simply asked to think about what had happened the day before. This latter group was very important, because it helped assess the degree to which any reported changes in happiness were due to a placebo effect.

 

   All of the techniques, including the control, resulted a rise in reported happiness. However, participants who had been asked to think about one positive thing that had happened the day before reported the greatest increase.
  
   In another part of the project the researchers carried out two national surveys (one before and one after the study). The results showed a 7% increase in cheerfulness after the experiment. However, it is impossible to say if this rise was due to the happiness project as it might be caused by many different factors, including world events or changes in the weather.