Ruut Veenhoven

Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus Happiness Economics research Organization (EHERO), Emeritus

University of North West, South Africa, Optentia TResearch Program, special professor

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Ruut Veenhoven (1942) studied sociology. He is also accredited in social psychology and social-sexology. Veenhoven is emeritus professor of ‘social conditions for human happiness’ at Erasmus University Rotter¬dam in the Netherlands, where he is currently involved in the Erasmus Happiness Economics Research Organization. Veenhoven is also a special professor at North-West University in South Africa, where he is involved in the Optentia research program. He is director of the World Database of Happiness and founding editor of the Journal of Happiness Studies.

E-mail: [email protected]
Home page: https://www.eur.nl/personal/veenhoven
Phone: 0630833465
Address: Erasmus University Rotterdam, POB 1738 3000DR Rotterdam, Netherlands

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Papers by Ruut Veenhoven

Which patient will feel down, which will be happy? The need to study the genetic disposition of emotional states Mirjam A. G. SprangersMeike BartelsRuut VeenhovenFrank Baas • Nicholas G. MartinMiriam MosingBenjamin MovsasMary E. Ropka • Gen ShinozakiDick SwaabThe GENEQOL Consortium

Plan of the data-collection

Conceptions about happiness

Keynote address at the 2nd European conference

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Quality of Life and Happiness in Japan and The Netherlands

The term 'quality of life' is used to denote that life is good, but it does not specify what is g... more The term 'quality of life' is used to denote that life is good, but it does not specify what is good about life. The term is also used in more specific ways, and these can be clarified with the help of the classification of qualities of life presented in Scheme 1. 1.1 Four qualities of life This classification of meanings depends on two distinctions. Vertically, there is a difference between chances for a good life and actual outcomes of life. Chances and outcomes are related, but are certainly not the same. Chances can fail to be realized due to stupidity or bad luck. Conversely, people sometimes make much of their life in spite of poor opportunities. This distinction is quite common in the field of public-health research. Preconditions for good health, such as adequate nutrition and professional care, are seldom confused with health itself. Yet means and ends are less well distinguished in the discussion on happiness. Horizontally, there is a distinction between 'external' and 'internal' qualities. External quality refers to the environment; internal qualities are part of the individual. This distinction is also quite commonly made in public health. External pathogens are distinguished from inner afflictions, and researchers try ro identify the mechanisms by which the former produce the latter and the conditions in which this is more or less likely. Again, these basic insights are lacking in many discussions about happiness. Livability of the environment The left top quadrant denotes the meaning of good living conditions. Often the terms 'quality-of-life' and 'well-being' are used in this particular meaning, especially in the writings of ecologists and sociologists. Economists sometimes use the term 'welfare for this meaning. 'Livability' is a better word because it refers explicitly to a characteristic of the environment and does not carry the connotation of Paradise. Politicians and social reformers typically stress this quality of life. Life-ability of the person The right top quadrant denotes inner life-chances, i.e. how well we are equipped to cope with the problems of life. This aspect of the good life is also known by different names. Doctors and psychologists often use the terms 'quality of life' and 'well-being' to denote this specific meaning, whereas biologists refer to this phenomenon as

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Health-related-quality-of-life and happiness

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Data-book of Happiness: A Complementary Reference Work to'Conditions of Happiness' by the Same Author

DATABOOK OF HAPPINESS Complementary reference work to 'Conditions of happiness' Ruut Veenhoven ... more DATABOOK OF HAPPINESS
Complementary reference work to 'Conditions of happiness'
Ruut Veenhoven
Reidel Publishing, Dordrecht/Boston Lancaster, 1984, ISBN 90-237-2279 5, 580 pages

This work gathers together empirical findings on happiness published up to 1975, and presents thern in a manner facilitating easy survey. The primary aim is to enable scierltists and policy makers to profit more from the abundant data actually available; in particular to make the comparison of findings across time, national, and social categories possible. Happiness is defined as the~overall appreciation of life. Some 2000 investigations were screened to see whether they measured the phenomenon in a valid way. Only 245 passed the test. The oldest of these stems from about 1911. More than half of the investigations were carried out in the U.S.A. and about a quarter in Western Europe. The selection procedure is summarized in Part I and the design of investigations is dealt with through standard excerpts in Part ll. Next, the correlational findings are ordered by subject and presented with information about measurement, population, and method of data gathering. This constitutes the main section of the book which closes with an enumeration of distributions of happiness in national samples in Part IV.

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Freedom and happiness in nations: why the Finns are happier than the French

Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice, 2014

Cross-national studies on happiness have revealed large differences, not only is average happines... more Cross-national studies on happiness have revealed large differences, not only is average happiness higher in rich nations than in poor ones, but there are also sizable differences in happiness among rich nations. For instance, the Finns are happier than the French, while GDP per capita is similar in France and Finland. In this paper we discuss whether freedom can explain that difference. The Finns feel more free than the French do. Does this discrepancy in perceived freedom correspond to a difference in actual freedom? Following Bay, we distinguished three kinds of actual freedom: social freedom, potential freedom and psychological freedom. In a comparative analysis of 49 nations we find that actual freedom reflects only partially in perceived freedom and that all kinds of freedom have some independent relation with average happiness. Psychological freedom is most strongly related to happiness in rich nations. The Finns are happier than the French because they dare more to be free.

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Difference in mood at work and home. An additional indicator of job satisfaction

by renaud gaucher and Ruut Veenhoven

Journal of Well-Being Assessment, 2021

New techniques for multiple moment assessment allow us to assess how people feel at different tim... more New techniques for multiple moment assessment allow us to assess how people feel at different times of the day. These techniques are mostly used to assess how well people feel during particular activities, such as during work or childcare. In this paper we focus on the difference in how well people feel at work and at home. The following questions are addressed: 1) How large is the difference in mood at work and at home? 2) How much does the difference in mood at work and at home vary across kinds of people and occupations? 3) Is the difference in mood at work and at home associated with job satisfaction as measured using common general retrospective ratings or does it tap another aspect of job satisfaction? We explore answers to these questions, using data from a diary study in the Netherlands, done using an e-application of the Day Reconstruction Method (DRM) in which 1,410 people provided information about mood experienced in 32,000 episodes. We found that the average difference ...

What is in the name? Content analysis of questionnaires on perceived quality of one’s work life

by renaud gaucher and Ruut Veenhoven

Quality & Quantity, 2021

There is a great demand for information on how workers evaluate the quality of their jobs. In res... more There is a great demand for information on how workers evaluate the quality of their jobs. In response to this demand, a multitude of questionnaires has been developed, which are presented under different names and stress different aspects of work life. It is therefore difficult to see what questionnaire is best suited to one’s information demand. This problem can be solved by considering the content of the different questionnaires through the same conceptual lens, focussing on the meaning of each of the constituting questions separately. In this paper, we adapted Veenhoven’s conceptualization of qualities of life in general to the work setting, which gave us a matrix of 9 nested notions of perceived quality of a worker’s work life, and then used this matrix to classify the meaning addressed in 12 questionnaires. Some of these questionnaires appear to address a clear meaning, while others cover a mix of meanings. These contents are presented in a tabular overview here to allow users...

Index of Authors Volume 43, 1998

Social Indicators Research Series

by Ruut Veenhoven, Joachim Vogel, and Wolfgang Glatzer

This series aims to provide a public forum for single treatises and collections of papers on soci... more This series aims to provide a public forum for single treatises and collections of papers on social indicators research that are too long to be published in our journal Social Indicators Research. Like the journal, the book series deals with statistical assessments of the quality of life from a broad perspective. It welcomes research on a wide variety of substantive areas, including health, crime, housing, education, family life, leisure activities, transportation, mobility, economics, work, religion and environmental issues. These areas of research will focus on the impact of key issues such as health on the overall quality of life and vice versa.An international review board, consisting of Ruut Veenhoven, Joachim Vogel, Ed Diener, Torbjorn Moum and Wolfgang Glatzer, will ensure the high quality of the series as a whole.Available at 25% discount for International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (ISQOLS). For membership details please contact: ISQOLS; e-mail: [email protected] ...

Gene–QOL consortium

Chapter 1 - RePub

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Findings on Happiness & Nation: Livability of one’s Nation

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Findings on Happiness & Life-Goals

Retrospective selfrating of ambitions-between age 30-40-since age 40-Excellence in work a. age 30... more

format_quoteStudy followed gifted women over 50 years, examining change in life-goals and its effects on satisfaction.format_quote

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Catalog of Happiness in Nations: Introductory Texts

Bevrijde seks Tijd, cultuur en geluk

PSYCHOLOOG-AMSTERDAM-, 2002

Uit de Afdeling Sociologie van de Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen van de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam in Rotterdam. veenhoven@ fsw. eur. nl

Nederlands Tijdschrift Voor Tandheelkunde, 2011

The phrase'quality of life'is actually misleading. The designation suggests that the is... more