How much of happiness is in your genes?
Happiness, or subjective well-being, was measured on a birth-record-based sample of several thousand middle-aged twins using the Well-Being (WB) scale of the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire Neither socioeconomic status, educational attainment, family income, marital status, nor an indicant of religious commitment could account for more than about 3% of the variance in WB From 44% to 52% of the variance in WB, however, is associated with genetic variation Based on the retest of smaller samples of twins after intervals of 4 5 and 10 years, we estimate that the heriability of the stable component of subjective well-being approaches 80%
Source: "Happiness Is a Stochastic Phenomenon" from Psychological Science
Recommended books on happiness are here and here. Unfortunately I don't know of any books on changing your genetics... yet.
Related posts:
Things you didn't know about happiness
How to make yourself happier in just a few seconds
The influence of genes on exceptional mental ability
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