A dark side of happiness? How, when and why happiness is not always good

Happiness is generally considered a source of good outcomes. Research has highlighted the ways in which happiness facilitates the pursuit of important goals, contributes to vital social bonds, broadens people’s scope of attention, and increases well-being and psychological health. However, is happiness always a good thing? This review suggests that the pursuit and experience of happiness might sometimes lead to negative outcomes. We focus on four questions regarding this purported ‘‘dark side’ ’ of happiness. First, is there a wrong degree of happiness? Second, is there a wrong time for happiness? Third, are there wrong ways to pursue happi-ness? Fourth, are there wrong types of happiness? Cumulatively, these lines of research suggest that although happiness is often highly beneficial, it may not be beneficial at every level, in every context, for every reason, and in every variety. Keywords happiness, emotion, well-being, mania Getting angry... is easy and everyone can do it; but doing it... in the right amount, at the right time, and for the right end, and in the right way is no longer easy, nor can everyone do it. —Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (II.9, 1109a27) The idea that unhappiness can be dysfunctional is widel