Ten things that made them happy in the last ten days were asked by researchers to 10,000 participants. HappyDB was created, which is a compilation of 100,000 happy moments. To better understand what makes people happy, I looked at each moment and sorted the subject, verb and object.One example is that someone might say, "I watched a great movie yesterday."Then, I counted the dots and connected them.My previous analysis revealed that the subject of the moments was divided between me and everything else. So it seemed sensible to examine happiness that began with the self and happiness that came about from others. There is a difference between eating good pizza. and my parents coming home.These are the top five combinations of subject-verb and object from each group.Subject / Verb/Object with I I/ had/dinner I/ watched/movie I/ got/job I/ spent/time I/ had/lunch With Others Team/won /game Husband/surprised/me Son/gave /hugs Friend/told /me Husband/came /homeI was surprised at first by the team-winning-game, but it is mostly people who were happy for their favorite team. Parents were happy for their children's win in some moments.There is overlap among the categories so it was worth examining the distributions with others only for a moment.Mechanical Turk collected the data, but it is not representative of the entire population. The majority of participants were between 20-40 years old, which makes it easier to count children and spouses. I would expect to see more boyfriend and girlfriend responses if the sample was smaller. Although I would expect to see more people related to work, those who use Mechanical Turk may be less likely to have a full time boss, manager, or colleague.This seems to be a more interesting way of distributing verbs (action) as well as objects (what). It is generally about making time for someone else, which could be in the form of a meal, a gift or a hug.The breakdown of pet actions becomes more precise: cuddled, jumped and curled. Expect cats and dogs to be at the top.In a nutshell happiness can come in many forms and from many places. It can also be found through many different paths. Sometimes, you need to shift your focus to see the moment more clearly.Notes
