Internal and External Causal Explanations of Happiness

The present study extends previous research on the folk concept of happiness by investigating people's causal attributions toward the things that make them happy. Six hundred ten Italian adults (18–55 years old) took part in a questionnaire study. Respondents were asked to report five happiness sources and to provide ratings for both the attainment of these sources and the internal and external factors potentially causing them (self, other people, luck, chance). We also measured the participants’ levels of psychological well-being. Results showed that the participants’ happiness conceptions incorporated 27 categories of happiness sources referring to four semantic domains: relational life, personal life, hedonic psychological sources, and eudaimonic psychological sources. Multilevel analyses showed that internal attributions exceeded external attributions across all these domains; moreover, internal attributions positively predicted happiness attainment, whereas the latter was negatively associated with attributions to other people. Findings were interpreted in the Italian cultural and linguistic context.