Family, Friendship and Happiness: A Study on the Correlation between Family, Friends and Happiness

This study explores the correlation between family, friends and happiness. It provides a new approach to understanding the role which family and friends can play in attaining lasting effects on happiness. The study uses quantitative data collected through an online survey and analyzed using SPSS. The results show that family and friends are significant determinants of happiness. The study also discusses different theories of happiness and their implications.

Family, Friendship and Happiness 1
FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP AND HAPPINESS
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Family, Friendship and Happiness
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
2.0 Conceptual framework...............................................................................................................4
3.0 Methodology..............................................................................................................................6
4.0 Data analysis/ Results................................................................................................................7
5.0 Descriptive analysis.................................................................................................................12
6.0 Discussion and Conclusion......................................................................................................17
References List..............................................................................................................................19

Family, Friendship and Happiness 1
1.0 Introduction
Happiness is indefinable. Almost each person wants a happy life. However, it over and over
again escapes us as we tussle with burdens of our day-to-day lives. Social researchers and
philosophers have publicized that happiness has a knock on effects and benefits among them
making people to be more compassionate and feeling healthier both emotionally and physically.
Besides, it makes people to become more energetic, witty, creative, and fun to be around and it
can correspondingly lead us to turn out to be more financially successful. Yet between all the
yearning, striving, dreaming, struggling and grumbling, is there a way to attain eternal happiness
or even the short-lived illusion of fleeting happiness? Humans are likely to wrestle with this
notion for centuries with the number of empirical researches on the correlates and causes of
happiness at the personal level being large and still growing.
The domains of family and friendship have been extensively acknowledged as determinants of
happiness. Marital status, the presence of children and employment status are normally included
as control variables in happiness studies. A significant share of prior research into the impact of
friends and family on happiness, yet, is based on cross-sectional data and has concentrated
mostly on redundancy, marriage, divorce and domestic conflicts.
Friends are far more than just somebody just to talk to. Friendship has been contended to be a
significant cause of happiness (Lewis, Al-Shawaf, Russell, & Buss, 2015). Helliwell and Huang,
(2013) explains that having close friends means a person is more likely to be healthier, much
happier, and far less likely to get depressed.
Friends are far more than just somebody just to talk to. Friendship has been contended to be a
significant cause of happiness (Lewis, Al-Shawaf, Russell, & Buss, 2015). Helliwell and Huang,

Family, Friendship and Happiness 4
(2013) explains that having close friends means a person is more likely to be healthier, much
happier, and far less likely to get depressed.
Happiness is a notion that has attracted different definitions and interpretations, according to
various philosophical traditions and the more current changing theoretical perspectives of
psychologists, sociologists and economists. For instance, objective list theory presumes that a
happy being does not perceive happiness based on pleasure vs. pain, or wanting vs. attaining.
Rather, objective list theory pays more attention on things that have more value or meaning
(Sheldon & Lucas, 2014). Things such as wellness and like health, strong faith, altruism and
charity, good relationships, career achievements, and turning personal dreams into the reality.
This papers provides new approach to understanding the role which family and friends can play
in attaining lasting effects on happiness.
2.0 Conceptual framework
The conceptual framework of this study is as shown in the Figure 1. The dependent variable in
this, a variable whose value is dependent on that of other (s), is happiness. The independent
variables, a variable who values is not dependent on the values of the other (s), are family and
friends.
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework
Happiness
Family
Friends

Family, Friendship and Happiness 5
Sociological investigation has revealed that families, and partners in specific, are significant for
different individual positions in life, such as occupational and employment and status, health and
health-related behaviors and careers, as partners may benefit from each other’s behavior and
socio-economic resources (Grover and Helliwell, 2017). As Brizzi and Shugaar (2015) explains,
a connection to family offers a positive type of social support that a person cannot obtain from
other people.
Helliwell and Huang (2013) studied the correlation between support received from a friend,
friendship, and happiness and established that alleged companionship was the ideal predictor of
happiness. Tolstoy (2012) also testified that support from friends was allied to happiness. Chang
(2012), disclosed that satisfaction and closeness with a friend was correlated to happiness. As for
the quality of best friendship, Tolstoy (2012) established that friendship was more interrelated
with happiness among the late adolescents and young adults than the elderly. It is imperative to
emphasize that the literature cited above paid attention either to friends in general or best
friendships.
Happiness is a notion that has attracted different definitions and interpretations, according to
various philosophical traditions and the more current changing theoretical perspectives of
psychologists, sociologists and economists. Invented by Danny Kahneman NoHedonism, Nobel
Prize winning Psychologist, Hedonism theory postulate that a happy individual is one whose life
has less pain than pleasure, and therefore, they are also pleasurable and smiley (Cummins, 2014).
Danny theorizes that happiness is an aspect of feeling that makes a happy person, to be wide-
grinned, to have vibrant personality, with a blissful countenance and pleasant personality, similar

Family, Friendship and Happiness 6
to that of a Hollywood movie star or a playful puppy. Naturally, Danny holds that pleasure is
recognized by not only the ones whose lives are in question, but all those that are watching.
Desire theory deduces that a happy being is one who acquires what they want. In other words, if
individuals’ desires are gratified, they will be happy and so is their lives (So, 2015). This theory
places the conclusion of happiness on the one doing the wanting, since while an individual’s
neighbor may want a better car or new girlfriend/ boyfriend and interpretation those things as a
path to happiness, another person may be desiring anything from a chocolate and a day off, a
better job and a new girlfriend/ boyfriend (So, 2015). To desire theory, it does not matter what it
is that is wanted; provided it is attained by a person doing the wanting, happiness can then be
realized.
To conduct this study, the following predictions were made:
Hypothesis 1
Null hypothesis (H0): Family experiences are not significantly associated with individual
happiness.
Alternate hypothesis (HA): Family experiences are significantly associated with individual
happiness.
Hypothesis 2
Null hypothesis (H0): Friendship is not significantly associated with individual happiness.
Alternate hypothesis (HA): Friendship is significantly associated with individual happiness.
3.0 Methodology
Research methodologies play a central role in gathering the apposite data and information. It aids
to gather, analyze, publicize and utilize research findings for the purposes of enhancing the
satisfaction of the customers of the case study hospitality company, Accor hotel groups (Patton,

Family, Friendship and Happiness 7
2015).The research method that was used in this study was the administration of online to collect
quantitative data of survey. This was done using a questionnaire as the key research instrument.
As said by Patton (2015), a research instrument is a tool that is used to collect data.The data that
was used in this thesis was obtained by conducting an online survey with the help of World
Values Survey platform. This technique of data collection was favored in this study as it is low-
priced in terms of cost of survey administration and time (Patton, 2015). The target population
for this study of this study consisted of persons who were working and families. A prudently
sample was chosen for this survey. Bors (2018) elucidates that a sample is expected to provide a
data representative of the population from which it has been drawn. The sample of this study was
judiciously drawn from the group of folks using random sampling technique. On the word of
Wigmans (2018), in non-probability sampling researchers make use of their verdict to pick the
subjects to be involved in the survey based on their cognizance of the phenomenon. Purposive
sampling was applied in this study. Patton (2015) describe random sampling as a technique of
sampling in which each sample has an equal probability of being selected. According to Salkind
(2018), random sampling is one of the simplest methods of collecting data from the total
population The obtained responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics analysis with the
help of SPSS (version 22) and the outcomes of the survey presented using frequency tables,
charts and bars for reporting.
4.0 Data analysis/ Results
Before conducting data analysis, statistical assumptions were conducted. Normality according to
Salkind (2010) assumes that the continuous variables to be applied in the analysis are normally
distributed. To test, the normality of the obtained data from this research, histogram were used.

Family, Friendship and Happiness 8
Figure 2: Histogram 1

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Figure 3: Histogram 2

Family, Friendship and Happiness 10
Figure 4: Histogram 3
As shown by the three charts, all the three variables are normally distributed; all follow a bell-
shaped distribution and are symmetric around the center (also known as mean).
Glazer (2016) describe linearity refers as a straight, or linear line, relationship between the
dependent variable and the independent variable(s). . For this study, linearity was assessed
using Pearson Correlation.

Family, Friendship and Happiness 11
Table 1: Correlations
Correlations Family
important
Friends
important
Feeling of
happiness
Family important
Pearson
Correlation
1 .151** .129**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
N 1038 1038 1036
Friends important
Pearson
Correlation
.151** 1 .172**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
N 1038 1041 1039
Feeling of
happiness
Pearson
Correlation
.129** .172** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
N 1036 1039 1039
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
From table 2 above, all the three study variables i.e. family, friends and feeling of happiness are
linear since their significance level is less than p-value i.e. 0.05 at 90% confidence level.
Multicollinearity is described by Wigmans (2018) as a state of very high inter-associations or
intercorrelation, among the independent variables. To test multicollinearity, the VIF values is
normally used.
Table 2: Multicollinearity Test
Model Tolerance VIF
1
(Constant)
Family important .977 1.023
Friends important .977 1.023

Family, Friendship and Happiness 12
Homoscedasticity according to Bors (2018), denotes whether these residuals are evenly
distributed, or whether they tend to spread far apart at some values, and at other values, bunch
together. For this study, the P-P scatterplot below was plotted.
Figure 5: Homoscedasticity Test
As observed from Figure 5, the new residual trend is not only centered on zero but also that the
variance around zero is scattered randomly and uniformly. We thus conclude that the linearity
the heteroscedasticity assumption is satisfied.
5.0 Descriptive analysis
The researcher conducted descriptive statistics analysis. The results are presented in the
subsequent sections using frequency tables, graphs and pie charts.

Family, Friendship and Happiness 13
The frequencies of the three study variables are presented in the subsequent tables.
Table 3: Importance of Family in regards to Happiness
Frequenc
y
Percent Valid
Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid
Very important 981 94.2 94.5 94.5
Rather important 44 4.2 4.2 98.7
Not very important 10 1.0 1.0 99.7
Not at all important 3 .3 .3 100.0
Total 1038 99.7 100.0
Missing
Missing; Not asked by
the interviewer
2 .2
No answer 1 .1
Total 3 .3
Total 1041 100.0
According to the table 3, the highest fraction of the respondent recognized family as an important
factor towards achieving individual happiness. This was reflected by over 94% of sampled
respondents alluding to this.
Accordingly, the participants were asked to indicate how important they perceived friendships in
regards to attaining individual happiness and they responded as shown in Table 4.
Table 4: Importance of Friends in regards to Happiness
Frequenc
y
Percent Valid
Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid
Very important 721 69.3 69.3 69.3
Rather important 282 27.1 27.1 96.3
Not very
important
32 3.1 3.1 99.4
Not at all
important
6 .6 .6 100.0
Total 1041 100.0 100.0

Family, Friendship and Happiness 14
From Table 4 above, most participants felt that friendship was an important element in realizing
individual happiness with 69.0 of the respondents confirming this.
About how happy they were during the time of survey, the respondents responded as shown in
Table 5 below.
Table 5: Importance of Feeling Happy
Frequenc
y
Percent Valid
Percent
Cumulative
Percent
Valid
Very happy 525 50.4 50.5 50.5
Quite happy 445 42.7 42.8 93.4
Not very
happy
69 6.6 5.3 100.0
Total 1039 99.8 100.0
Missing
No answer 1 .1
Don´t know 1 .1
Total 2 .2
Total 1041 100.0
From Table 5 above, over 93% of the respondents were feeling more than just happy. However
about 6.6% of the respondents were not happy with life during the time of conducting this
survey.
The researcher recorded mean, median and mode of the three variables as shown in Table 6.
Table 6:Mean, Median, Mode
Family important Friends important Feeling of happiness
N Valid 1038 1041 1039
Missing 3 0 2
Mean 1.07 1.35 1.57
Median 1.00 1.00 1.00
Mode 1 1 1
Std. Deviation .320 .569 .657

Family, Friendship and Happiness 15
From Table 6, the mean, median and mode of the three study variables ranged between 1 and
5.57.
Standard deviation of the descriptive analysis model was recorded as shown below.
Table 7: Standard Deviation
Family
important
Friends
important
Feeling of
happiness
N Valid 1038 1041 1039
Missing 3 0 2
Std. Deviation .320 .569 .657
The standard deviation of family-variable was 0.320 meaning that it deviated 32% from the
actual mean of the variable.
The standard deviation of friend-variable was 0.569 meaning that it deviated 56.9 % from the
actual mean of the variable.
The standard deviation of the importance of feeling happy-variable was 0.657 meaning that it
deviated 65.7% % from the actual mean of the variable.

Family, Friendship and Happiness 16
Correlation of the study variables was done and recorded as shown below.
Table 8: Correlation of Study Variables
Family
important
Friends
important
Feeling of
happiness
Family important
Pearson
Correlation
1 .151** .129**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
N 1038 1038 1036
Friends important
Pearson
Correlation
.151** 1 .172**
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
N 1038 1041 1039
Feeling of
happiness
Pearson
Correlation
.129** .172** 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000
N 1036 1039 1039
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
From Table 8, all variables have correlations that are significant at 90% confidence level as their
sig. level is 0.000 which is less than the p-value which is usually taken to be 0.005
For the regression model of this study, the following statistics were recorded.
Table 9: Model Summaryb
Mode
l
R R Square Adjusted R
Square
Std. Error of
the Estimate
Durbin-
Watson
1 .201a .040 .038 .645 1.975
a. Predictors: (Constant), Friends important, Family important
b. Dependent Variable: Feeling of happiness
Table 10:ANOVAa
Model Sum of
Squares
df Mean
Square
F Sig.
1
Regression 18.038 2 9.019 21.713 .000b
Residual 429.089 1033 .415
Total 447.127 1035
a. Dependent Variable: Feeling of happiness
b. Predictors: (Constant), Friends important, Family important

Family, Friendship and Happiness 17
Table 11: Coefficients
Model Unstandardized
Coefficients
Standardize
d
Coefficients
t Sig. Collinearity
Statistics
B Std. Error Beta Tolerance VIF
1
(Constant) 1.101 .080 13.833 .000
Family
important
.216 .063 .105 3.415 .001 .977 1.023
Friends
important
.180 .036 .156 5.059 .000 .977 1.023
a. Dependent Variable: Feeling of happiness
From the table of coefficients, it can be deduced that holding all other factors constant, a unit
change in Family factor indicator of happiness would subsequently lead to 0.216 units change in
the level of happiness. Notably, a unit change in friend factor indicator of happiness would
subsequently lead to 0.180 units change in the level of happiness. The constant of the model (Y-
axis) of this model is 1.101 which implies that if all factors were held constant (Family, friends
and others), the level of happiness would be at 1.101 units.
For this model, the R-squared is 40% implying that family and friends contribute 40% to
individual level of happiness. It can also be observed that the model is significant (refer to table
10) as the sig. value is 0.000 which is less than p-value of 0.005 at 90% confidence level.
6.0 Discussion and Conclusion
The findings discussed above reveals that happiness is significantly determined by friends and family.
These findings echoes the findings of Tolstoy (2014) who stated that then applied in a general sense, the
word happiness according to is identical with well-being or quality of life. In this connotation, Lewis, et
al. (2015) means that life is good, on the other hand does not point out what is good about life. To suffice
the finding of this study, the obtained data matches the findings of Dawson (2016) in his survey on the
impact of family on happiness. According to Dawson (2016) happiness results to individual subjective

Family, Friendship and Happiness 18
well-being or can operate to control and restrain people within social structures. The domains of
friendship have also been extensively acknowledged as determinants of happiness. Dawson (2016) further
elaborate that provided the family members are not rigorously emotionally toxic, individuals may
generally depend on their families during calamities for practical and emotional support, and from time
to time even financial provision when one is desperately in need. As stated by Lewis, et al. (2015), our
families take our past with them, and they typically share our prospect as well. Tolstoy (2012) goes
further to ask, “Who better than parents, siblings, and other close kinsfolks can reminisce with us about
our past experiences?” This link to fond memories, care in times of need and near-unconditional love is
an exceptional way that family contributes to happiness in addition to relief from stress.
Helliwell and Huang, (2013) explains that having close friends means a person is more likely to be
healthier, much happier, and far less likely to get depressed. Various researches have supported Chang
(2012) argument about friendship by concentrating on features, number and overall quality of friendship
(e.g., supportiveness). Lewis, et al. (2015) postulate that self-validation and companionship features of
friendship are the most significant predictors of happiness.
Over and above these findings of this survey it is more than important to be open and willing to accept
that the facts and the concept of lasting happiness can only be realized by having family members and
good friends to support a person. However, for one to do this, they should get rid of the negative energies
that come from negative family members and/or friends and which cause a person to feel unhappy or at
best, make a person feel as though he/she is merely existing or drifting through life.

Family, Friendship and Happiness 19
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