Social Happiness and Social Participation

Introduction Social happiness is part of the social welfare component and depends more on social and economic determinants than on psychological and medical interventions. Meanwhile , it is one of the core concepts of sustainable development. Being happy is just one of the desirable wishes of life in every society . A nation is fresher and certainly wealthier when its citizens are happy. In this type of society , citizens have optimistic attitudes towards life and things around them. From 2000 onwards, variables such as happiness, hope in future , pleasure and satisfaction have been included as key variables in UN debates to determine level of development s in countries . This phenomenon is measured by the density of social networks and relationships , in many studies is associated with social health and happiness (Kawachi, 2008). Durkheim showed that suicide rates in populations with low levels of participation and social cohesion were more than cohesive communities (Halpern, 2005). Theorists argue that when people reach to a desired location or target , they become happy . According to Lerner, new communities are participatory societies in which modernization process is advanced , a move from traditional society to participatory society is inevitable. In t his view, economic participation means increased activity in the market and an increase in income, political participation means participation in elections , cultural participation means utilization of mass media and emotional involvement means empathy and psychological mobility (Lerner 1969: 86) .   Materials & Methods This is quantitative study based on survey. We used Descriptive statistics and indicators such as dispersion and mean , standard deviation , minimum and maximum scores. For inferential statistics and to test the hypotheses, we used Pearson 's correlation coefficient and analysis of variance . A lso for explaining the social happiness variable , a stepwise multiple regression equation was used. Research population include all students of Azad University, branch of Ardebil, whose total number was 10223 at the year 2012-1213, of whom a sample of 370 individuals was selected using stratified random sampling method.   Discussion of Results & Conclusions The results of the research show that there is a significant relationship between participation and happiness , which is in line with the results of other empirical investigations by Akbarpour beny and colleagues (2011 ), Eliasi (2002 ) and Neshatdoost et al. (2009 ) and Haller and Hadlr (2006 ). Similar to Hezarjarib and Astinfeshan research ( 2010), social happiness in our study was in a moderate level. At the same time , this research is in line with safari's research (2010 ) regarding lack of a significant relationship between discipline and marital status with social happiness . Likewise, the results emphasize the lack of a significant difference between males and females in social participation and happiness . But Similar to Eddington and Showmen 's research (2004 ), female subjects seem to be happier than male ones . In this study , the three dimensions of participation , and collaborative spirit have a greater impact on social happiness , which is in line with the results of Larson (2000 ) and Peterson ( 2000 ). By looking at different aspects of happiness, it becomes clear that respondents obtain high scores in personal dimension, but in social dimension this score is lower . This is consistent with Lyubomirsky and colleagues’ research (2005)