​What happiness means to children
From research by Professor Fan Yang, University of Chicago
Happiness is one of the most important parenting goals in today's modern society. To promote a happy childhood, we need to understand what happiness means to children. Contrary to the view that young children may equate happiness with satisfying material desires and experiencing simple pleasures, Professor Fan Yang reviewed recent developmental research and found that:
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Even young children have a sophisticated understanding about the role of material desire satisfaction in happiness.
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They perceive happiness as contingent on moral goodness.
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They experience happiness from performing morally good behaviours.
Together, the findings suggest that for children, happiness means more than feeling good about satisfying material desires and experiencing simple pleasures; it also means being good to oneself and others.
Professor Fan goes on to write:
“I just want my kids to be happy.” This sentiment strikes a chord in modern societies, reflecting the unwavering childrearing value placed on prioritizing children's happiness. Adults across 48 countries express a universal aspiration for their children to experience high levels of happiness. It is therefore reasonable to prioritize happiness as one of the most important parenting goals.
Evidence has also demonstrated that positive emotions predict success and greater kindness, while negative emotions such as anxiety and depression often predict maladaptive social and school functioning. The question is: What makes children happy?
Popular recommendations stem primarily from what lay adults believe would make children happy, and we lack research-based answers to the essential question of what happiness means to children. A review of developmental research on children's sense of happiness, focusing primarily on 3- to 10-year-olds from diverse demographic backgrounds shows:
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How children understand and think about happiness.
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How children derive and experience happiness.
Looking at adults, research indicates that although adults recognize the importance of hedonic states and material desire satisfaction in happiness, they do not consider these factors sufficient for happiness. Instead, when thinking about happiness, they also evaluate the moral value of individuals' actions. Additionally, adults derive happiness from performing prosocial actions to benefit others, sometimes above and beyond receiving benefits themselves.
Do these tendencies emerge relatively late in life, based on extensive experience and advanced cognitive abilities, or are they deeply rooted tendencies that are present from early in life? Answering these questions can help us understand how children think about and experience happiness.
Much research has shown that children under age 7 often prioritize material desires and simple pleasures over moral rules or higher values, despite the fact that young children understand and expect others to follow moral and normative rules. Children under age 12 tended to perceive happiness as stemming from engaging in enjoyable activities; only upon reaching adolescence did they appreciate happiness as being influenced by factors such as social relationships and personal growth.
Do most children simply think that greater material desire satisfaction equals greater happiness? Recent research suggests that children intuitively understand the diminishing utility of material desire satisfaction for happiness. From age 5, children anticipate both material desires and happiness as short-lived mental states.
Consistent with the philosophical perspective that moral goodness plays an important role in happiness, the impact of moral judgments on perceived happiness manifests early in life and persists into adulthood. For example, in one study, 4- to 9-year-olds and adults consistently perceived mean individuals as less happy than nice and neutral individuals, even if both could get everything they wanted.
Moreover, the connection between moral judgments and children's attributions of happiness is relatively distinct. For instance, children favoured nice individuals over mean individuals only when attributing happiness, not when attributing other positive characteristics such as speed. Furthermore, not all positive attributes affected children's perceptions of happiness in the way moral character did. When a very smart individual who found everything boring was contrasted with a less smart individual who found everything interesting, children viewed the less smart individual with more positive feelings as being happier. Children's perception of happiness is interwoven with their value judgments and sense of morality, beyond obtaining material rewards and experiencing simple pleasures.
Often, morally good behaviours, such as sharing with others, involve personal costs and may not be as immediately gratifying as receiving personal benefits. Nevertheless, children do derive happiness from engaging in prosocial behaviours, even when those behaviours come at a personal cost. In fact, young children exhibited greater happiness even when giving resources to others (compared to receiving resources themselves), especially when they shared autonomously and could witness the recipient's positive reactions. And studies suggest that morally good behaviours such as prosocial actions play a significant role in children's happiness in both the short and the long run.
Studies on children's sense of happiness reveal a deep connection among children's emotional concepts, moral judgment, and behaviours. These insights into children's happiness also may prompt us to re-evaluate our understanding of children. From an early age, children's sense of happiness is driven not solely by immediate desires and hedonic pursuits, but also by a deep concern for goodness and engaging in actions that benefit themselves and others constructively.
This perspective emerges as one of the most significant contributions of this research, carrying far-reaching implications for parenting and educational practices. Perceiving children's happiness as rooted primarily in immediate desires and pleasures might tempt parents, teachers, and other adults to indulge them with material possessions, potentially hindering encouragement of morally good behaviours.
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From research by Professor Fan Yang, University of, 16/04/2025