New Equation Can Predict Your Happiness from Moment to Moment

Happiness may not seem like something simple enough to be predicted by a math equation, but some scientists beg to differ. They've created an equation that has predicted the happiness of over 18,000 people worldwide.

The new equation is actually based on how people view recent events, and predicts exactly how happy people will say they are from moment to moment. In fact, the equation revealed that happiness is largely based on the recent history of rewards and expectations.

In fact, the researchers investigated the relationship between happiness and reward, and the neural processes that lead to feelings that are central to our conscious experience, such as happiness. While scientists knew that life events could impact a person's happiness, they weren't sure exactly how happy people would be from moment to moment as they made decisions and received outcomes based on those decisions.

The scientists had 26 volunteers complete a decision-making task in which their choices led to monetary gains and losses. In addition, they were repeatedly asked to answer the question: how happy are you right now? Each person's neural activity was also measured using functional MRI; this allowed the researchers to create a computational model in which self-reported happiness was related to recent rewards and expectations. Then, the scientists tested this model on 18,420 participants to see if it worked.

"We expected to see that recent rewards would affect moment-to-moment happiness but we were surprised to find just how important expectations are in determining happiness," said Robb Rutledge, one of the researchers, in a news release. "In real-world situations, the rewards associated with life decisions such as starting a new job or getting married are often not realized for a long time, and our results suggest expectations related to these decisions, good and bad, have a big effect on happiness."

The new equation can capture expectations and shows how happy a person might be from moment to moment. This could potentially help those trying to assess population wellbeing and happiness.

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.