Is happiness little mor ethan the product of evolution?

Is happiness little more than an evolutionary force that equates to a desire for survival?





For example:





Happy Things:


Eating (promotes survival)


Sex (promotes survival)


Friendship (promotes survival through social interaction)


Art, Science, Enlightenment (promotes survival by increasing intelligence a key factor for humans)


etc.





Sad Things:





Death of loved ones (hurts survival of the social group)


going hungry (danger of starvation)


losing a job, mate, lover or friend (hurts ability to procure food, mates, social interaction etc.)


Pain (duh!)


etc.





Is it a fair assessment to say that happiness is an evolved emotion that has allowed humans to survive by giving them a strong mental desire for things which a pro-survival (happiness) and aversion to things that are not (sad things)?Is happiness little mor ethan the product of evolution?
Happiness a bi-product of evolution? Never looked at it that way and I've never read any empirical research on that before. Happiness research usually involves the study of certain personalities. Or whether particular people are genetically predisposed to be happier than others. Studies I've come across say that if our basic human needs (food, water, air, shelter, safety) then they're a giant leveling off on the levels of happiness. In other words as soon as those needs are met then whatever excess comes after that isnt going to make you very much happier. Like money. As long as you have enough to meet your survival needs then getting a lot more isnt going to make you any happier. Though very few people know this, or chose to believe it. After this, researchers look at personalities that promote higher levels of happiness. Neuroticism vs extroversion gets the attention. Its all correlated data though. But they say that if you score high on neurotic tendencies such as excessive stress, worry, anxiety you ultimate levels of happiness are going to be stunted. That rivals against those high on extroversion, those that are extremely out going. These people tend to be happier. But all of this is mere theory with some supporting data. There is no true way to test happiness levels yet or pinpoint what about humans determines happiness. I hope this makes sense but idk from what ive studied happier people arent necessarily going to be better fit to survive. But could def play a role. Your example of social interaction does hold water on the evolutionary standpoint on survival. Thats how humans survived back in the day. Gained social skills allowed people to work together in hunting and other survival efforts were based on people working together and if you could do that well and help out the group then you were considered a prime candidate to reproduce. Very primal and basic. So if you couldn't work together with people and had poor communication skills youre pretty useless to the group so you dont get to mate. Idk exactly where happiness plays into all of this but im sure it has a role.Is happiness little mor ethan the product of evolution?
Ah, perhaps, but it is a complex. There are a lot of other things that make people happy and have no biological/evolutionary bearing whatsoever. Same with sadness.





And what about the happiness that is derived from schadenfreude, which is actually harmful to evolutionary continuation?