I find it extremely interesting (well, sad, actually) that the author takes the finding that the highest happiness is correlated with slightly less success in school, work and political participation, to mean that "there are apparently circumstances in which one can be too happy." WHAT? What is the point of success unless it is to make you happy? So should we limit our happiness in order to be more successful -- to what end? To me, this underscores the inane presumption in our culture that success is unquestionably the greatest good. Perhaps truly happy people have their priorities in a different (in my view, superior) order and realize that worldly success just isn't that important and they aren't willing to make the tradeoffs necessary to attain it. I hardly think their lesser success means they are "too happy."

Is the point of success always to be happy? Might the point of success, for at least some people, be to improve the world, to take care of a family, and so on? I know plenty of people who very hard so that they can send their children to college. Are they happy working so much? Probably not. But their children are happier than they might otherwise be.

Mood and attention have always been correlated. Who hasn't been in love and been very un-focused because of it? I doubt anyone would trade in that love so they could be more focused at thier work. Over-all happiness is, in my opinion the highest achievement. Those who make sacrifices for thier children may not be happy day in and day out as they toil away for thier childrens's futures, but my guess is doing well by thier children does make them happy in a broader sense. I'm sure children who have had things given to them by a resentful parent would rather have had nothing and a parent who seemed happy.

The studies did not examine happiness or dispositional happiness, they examined life-satisfaction.

Life-satisfaction is a global evaluation of one's life, which includes preferences about achievements and others.

If somebody is truly a 10 out of 10 on life-satisfaction, it makes little sense to say that this can create costs for him or her. He or she just informed us that everything is perfect.

Costs can only occur for (a) others or (b) his or her own well-being in the future.

In contrast, a happy/cheerful disposition can create costs. Thus, it is important to distinguish between happpy feelings or dispositions and wellbeing.

Few people are 10 out of 10 all the time. The longitudinal Socio Economic Panel in Germany includes virtually nobody who reports 10 all the time. Thus, 10 out of 10 is a state not a trait.

Studies of which I am aware find that ratings of one's own 'happiness' often correlate substantially with ratings of one's own 'life satisfaction' but not perfectly, Accordingly, they are different notions, and one (meaning me) should be careful when describing studies to be clear what was measured. Chris Peterson