2014
Livability theory
Publication
Publication
Assumptions
Livability theory involves the following six key assumptions:
1. Like all animals, humans have innate needs, such as for food, safety, and companionship.
2. Gratification of needs manifests in hedonic experience.
3. Hedonic experience determines how much we like the life we live (happiness). Hence, happiness depends on need gratification.
4.Need gratification depends on both external living conditions and inner abilities to use these. Hence, bad living conditions will reduce happiness, in particular when its demands exceed human capabilities.
5. Societies are systems for meeting human needs, but not all societies do that job equally well. Consequently, people are not equally happy in all societies.
6. Improvement of the fit between social institutions and human needs will result in greater happiness.
A first formulation of this theory is found in Veenhoven (1993), and later elaborations can be found in Veenhoven and Erhardt (1995), Veenhoven and Ouweneel (1995), and Veenhoven (2000, 2010a).
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| doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_1669, hdl.handle.net/1765/77262 | |
| Organisation | Department of Sociology |
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Veenhoven, R. (2014). Livability theory. In Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research (pp. 3645–3647). doi:10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_1669 |
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