Preconceptions of Happiness and Satisfaction: The Perspective of Children from Czech Primary Schools

Abstract

The aim of this research was to determine what children aged 10–15 associate with happiness/satisfaction as well as to analyse which factors are related to their feelings of happiness and their evaluation of life satisfaction. A total of 954 children attending Czech primary schools from various socio-cultural backgrounds were surveyed using the incomplete sentence method. The levels of both their happiness and satisfaction were measured using the Subjective Happiness Scale and Students’ Life Satisfaction Scale. The results indicate that the children considered themselves relatively happy and satisfied, and they understood happiness/satisfaction in terms of the concept of eudaimonia (personal growth, achievement of school goals, etc.). Happiness/satisfaction were indicated at a significantly lower level if the children did not feel accepted by their caregivers, described themselves as ‘melancholic’, were raised in a single-parent family, or spent their childhood in institutional care. Further, as the children grew older, their happiness/satisfaction levels declined. Neither gender nor spirituality were found to predict happiness/satisfaction.