Happiness and Human Relations: The Role of Materialistic Values. An ABM Illustration

Abstract

This paper argues that a person’s happiness must be understood as a phenomenon that emerges not only from her individual condition but also from her place in society. Understanding that a person is socially immersed implies giving a greater role to social interactions and social structure. The paper presents a simple model to take into consideration the role of human relations. An agent-based model (ABM) is used to illustrate the implementation of the model in understanding people’s happiness.