Aversion to happiness, also called fear of happiness, is an attitude towards happiness in which individuals may deliberately avoid experiences that invoke positive emotions or happiness.[1][2][3] Aversion to happiness is not a recognized mental health disorder on its own, but it can contribute to and/or exacerbate existing mental health issues.
Mohsen Joshanloo and Dan Weijers identify four reasons for an aversion to happiness:
a belief that happiness will cause bad things to happen
that happiness will cause you to become a bad person
that expressing happiness is somehow bad for you and others
that pursuing happiness is bad for you and others.[4]
For example, "some people—in Western and Eastern cultures—are wary of happiness because they believe that bad things, such as unhappiness, suffering, and death, tend to happen to happy people."[5] Empirical studies show that fear of happiness is associated with fragility of happiness beliefs, suggesting that one of the causes of aversion to happiness may be the belief that happiness is unstable and fragile.[6] Research shows that fear of happiness is associated with avoidant and anxious attachment styles.[7] A study found that perfectionistic tendencies, loneliness, a childhood perceived as unhappy, belief in paranormal phenomena, and holding a collectivistic understanding of happiness are positively associated with aversion to happiness.[8]
^Joshanloo, M.; Lepshokova, Z. K.; Panyusheva, T.; Natalia, A.; Poon, W.-C.; Yeung, V. W.-l.; Sundaram, S.; Achoui, M.; Asano, R.; Igarashi, T.; Tsukamoto, S.; Rizwan, M.; Khilji, I. A.; Ferreira, M. C.; Pang, J. S.; Ho, L. S.; Han, G.; Bae, J.; Jiang, D.-Y. (3 October 2013). "Cross-Cultural Validation of Fear of Happiness Scale Across 14 National Groups". Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. 45 (2): 246–264. doi:10.1177/0022022113505357. S2CID 73617183.
^Joshanloo, Mohsen; Weijers, Dan (15 December 2013). "Aversion to Happiness Across Cultures: A Review of Where and Why People are Averse to Happiness". Journal of Happiness Studies. 15 (3): 717–735. doi:10.1007/s10902-013-9489-9. S2CID 144425713.
^Ellwood, Beth (2022-12-20). "People with unhappy childhoods are more likely to exhibit a fear of happiness, multi-national study finds". PsyPost. Retrieved 2022-12-26.
^Joshanloo, Mohsen; Weijers, Dan, "It's time for Western psychology to recognise that many individuals, and even entire cultures, fear happiness", Journal of Happiness Studies, 15 (3): 717–735, doi:10.1007/s10902-013-9489-9, S2CID 144425713, archived from the original on March 13, 2016, retrieved October 4, 2014.
^Stephanie Pappas (20 March 2014), Why Happiness Scares Us, LiveScience, retrieved 4 October 2014.
^Joshanloo, Mohsen; Weijers, Dan; Jiang, Ding-Yu; Han, Gyuseog; Bae, Jaechang; Pang, Joyce S.; Ho, Lok Sang; Ferreira, Maria Cristina; Demir, Melikşah; Rizwan, Muhammad; Khilji, Imran Ahmed; Achoui, Mustapha; Asano, Ryosuke; Igarashi, Tasuku; Tsukamoto, Saori; Lamers, Sanne M. A.; Turan, Yücel; Sundaram, Suresh; Yeung, Victoria Wai Lan; Poon, Wai-Ching; Lepshokova, Zarina Kh; Panyusheva, Tatiana; Natalia, Amerkhanova (1 October 2015). "Fragility of Happiness Beliefs Across 15 National Groups". Journal of Happiness Studies. 16 (5): 1185–1210. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.722.7369. doi:10.1007/s10902-014-9553-0. S2CID 58909959.
^
Joshanloo, Mohsen (2018). "Fear and fragility of happiness as mediators of the relationship between insecure attachment and subjective well-being". Personality and Individual Differences. 123: 115–118. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2017.11.016.
^Joshanloo, Mohsen (2022-05-28). "Predictors of aversion to happiness: New Insights from a multi-national study". Motivation and Emotion. 47 (3): 423–430. doi:10.1007/s11031-022-09954-1. ISSN 1573-6644. S2CID 249166650.
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