The Personal Prosperiscope offers an easy-to-understand introduction to a fascinating new area of research popularly known as the ‘science of happiness’.

Researchers in this field use statistical analysis of survey results to link individuals’ subjective wellbeing, or happiness, with their demographic characteristics, place of residence, personal beliefs, work history, relationship status, and other factors.

The Personal Prosperiscope identifies the factors that may be increasing or reducing your happiness based on your responses to approximately 40 survey questions.

We chose these particular questions because they’ve been the subject of academic research. For instance, the effect of commuting time on life satisfaction has been the topic of several studies by two professors recognised for their work on the ‘economics of happiness’. Their research looks at the statistical relationship between how many minutes people spend each day commuting to work, and how satisfied people are with their lives. Based on that investigation, they predict how much unhappier, on average, people are when they spend a lot of time commuting -- taking into account how much they earn, how old they are, whether they are female or male, and so on and so forth.

The Personal Prosperiscope calculates your predicted happiness (or ‘life satisfaction’) on the basis of such findings, and the findings of many other studies on the particular survey questions posed.