Abstract
This introductory chapter leads the reader gently into the world of happiness and wellbeing, first defining and differentiating these two terms, and then providing a review of many other basic concepts and ideas. The reader is introduced to the four founding disciplines, and their roles in the development of the happiness movement. The requirements of a measurement protocol for happiness and wellbeing are outlined: the definition of indicator variables, the differentiation between subjective and objective measures, and the integration of multiple indicators into meaningful indexes. In this opening chapter the treatment is introductory; all of the concepts and ideas raised here receive more detailed coverage in later chapters.
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Freeze, R.A. (2022). An Introduction to the Concepts and Ideas. In: The Metrics of Happiness. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 86. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-10913-3_1
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