Recipes for happiness: a proposal for the analysis of the moral orientation of actions and emotions

Abstract

This article elaborates a proposal for the analysis of the discourses on the paths to achieve happiness. Recipes for happiness are studied as a moral orientation of social action: imperative messages disseminated through the Internet that seek to guide its recipients towards the attainment of happiness. In a field dominated by psychological research on subjective experiences, happiness is approached as an institutionalized social discourse from a sociological perspective: it is analysed as a social production and as a socially framed emotion. Research is based on a systematic observation of the web and on quantitative and qualitative procedures of textual analysis. We present the channels of digital dissemination that promote recipes, their scientific legitimation, and the focus on a generic individual as the recipient of the messages and responsible for the action. A typology is proposed based on the meaning, nature and purpose of the actions that lead to happiness. The results show how recipes involve normative and moral orientations of actions and emotions: they indicate what to do and how to think and feel to be happy. Happiness as a moral obligation involves most concerns shaping the agenda of contemporary societies, with a marked emphasis on individualism and on a utilitarian understanding of social relations and the social environment.