by Tony Beatton (Queensland University of Technology), Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell (IAE-CSIC and BSE), Paul Frijters (LSE), and Arthur Grimes (Victoria University of Wellington)
On April 27, we lost Ed Diener, one of the most well-known scholars of happiness. In his honor, we asked the members of the World Wellbeing Panel to agree or disagree with two statements that reflected his two most famous theories:
Only very rare individuals have high levels of wellbeing without having strong and emotionally warm social relationships.
Most individuals can choose a happy way of life, though many do not realize they truly have such a choice.