The Construction Of Happiness Psychology Structural Model And Its Cross Group Study

Happiness is a complex whole which is a unity of subjective and objective,experiential and conceptual,formal and content and has a cultural attribute,which will influence individual understanding and perception to happiness.Happiness is a dynamic change which changes with the development of individual growth.However,through reviewing the previous literature,the studies about happiness in western psychology from the western culture,which have been influenced by the limitations of research method from positivism,can not explore the specific content of happiness in different cultures and lack the researches on the dynamic process of happiness.At the same time,most of the domestic researches on happiness were based on the theories and concepts of western psychology or the integration of existing studies,and lacked the studies based on Chinese culture.On the basis of the previous studies,this study attempted to construct a psychological model of happiness from bottom to up,and analyze the contents,the characteristics and the process of growth and change in psychological structure of happiness from different groups by the combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods.There were three studies in this paper.We considered age,gender,occupation,education level and some other variables,and interviewed 60 people as subjects in in-depth interviews with a convenience sample selection,then transcripted,encoded and indued the dimensions and characteristics of the happiness,and constructed the psychological model of happiness based on the the grounded theory which was a a qualitative research method in study 1.We investigated the state and characteristics of happiness experience of different age groups by quantitative research method in study 2.We investigated,analyzed,and descripted the specific content,the characteristics and the changes of growth in the 3 dimensions which included the resources,the experience and the the concepts of happiness in different age groups by open questionnaire in study 3.There were 2000 questionnaires distributed,1719 valid which included 433 from primary school students,362 from junior high school students,292 from high school students,333 from college students,and 299 from adults in the course of the study.We collected and analyzed the effective data by SPSS19.0,and analyzed the happiness index and difference of each group with t-test and one-way ANOVA.At the same time,we coded and classificated the frequency by Excel and Nvivo8.0 software.The main conclusions of this study were as follows.(1)The psychological structure of happiness included the resources,the experience and the concept of happiness.The psychological structure of happiness was holistic and dynamically changed with the growth of individual.(2)In the degree of happiness experience,there were significant gender differences on the happiness index between the primary and middle school students in which the happiness index of boys was lower than girls significantly;there were significant differences on the happiness index among different grades in primary and middle school students which was decreased gradually with the increase of grades.The college students’ happiness index had significant grade differences in which the Junior students’ happiness index was the lowest and the adult happiness index were not significantly different in age,gender,education level and occupation.(3)The psychological content of happiness in each group.(1)In the resources of happiness,the happiness of pupils whose unhappiness were from the parents’ abuse,the learning pressure,and the family problems was from the parental care mostly;the middle school students’ happiness focused on being loved,the family harmony,the friendship and the unhappiness were from the family problems,the learning pressure,the lacking of care and the growing pains;the source of happiness in high school students gradually extended to love and dreams;the happiness of college students whose unhappiness were concentrated on the academic problems,the interpersonal communication,the emptiness,the self problem,and the confusion about the future were from the family,the self growth,the full of life;the main source of happiness in adults whose unhappiness were from the family problems,the health problems,the children’s problems,and the life stress were mostly from the family harmony,the family health and the children growth.(2)In the experience of happiness,the primary students mainly focused on pleasure;the groups from middle school students to adults basically concentrated on the sense of pleasure,belonging,being loved,and satisfaction firstly,followed by value,balance,autonomy,fulfillment and hope secondly.The autonomy of college students increased gradually.Male adult experienced happiness more from the target achievement,and female adult experienced happiness more from the details of life.(3)In the concept of happiness,the primary students thought the happiness were the love from parents and family members and happy feelings which was gradually abstract in junior high school students.The measure standard of happiness was the harmony in family.There were diligence,workinghard,contentment,beginning of love,and obedience in primary students,and contentment,optimism,struggle,interpersonal harmony firstly,followed by the discovery,cherish,sincere kindness,love,self growth and so on from junior high school students to adults about how to get happiness.(4)The happiness psychology changed with the age characteristics.There was experience in primary school mostly that the happiness concept came from the sense of specific events which was more profound in the secondary stage and gradually changed from the experience into the cognition that would form the concepts of happiness.The students from university stage had more profound experience,more rational understanding of happiness and their concept of happiness has been formed.The adults had a stable view of happiness that they had more stable experience and comprehence to happiness.The resources,the experience and the concept of happiness complement each other.(5)Each group has the same psychological content of happiness that family was the the core resources of happiness in Chinese experience and understanding,harmonious relationship was an important content of happiness;the contentment,optimistic attitude,good quality of benevolence and the diligence were the main way to get happiness.