Sometimes, the things we can do for our happiness are small and easy: getting a little sun, saying thank you, lending a hand.
Other times, they take a little more practice and work. That’s the case with many of this year’s top scientific insights, which deal with big topics like forgiveness, trust, morality, meaning, and purpose. While we probably can’t cultivate these overnight, they are no less important to living a good and happy life—and especially important for thriving societies.
The final insights were selected by experts on our staff, after soliciting nominations from our network of nearly 400 researchers. We hope they help you consider what you’d like to invite into your life and your community as we head into 2026.
1. Feeling hopeful—even more so than just feeling good—may bring us a sense of meaning
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Some of us may struggle to find a sense of meaning in life, especially when times are tough. But according to a new set of studies published this year in the journal Emotion, one important pathway to a meaningful life is by cultivating hope.
Over the course of a college semester, students who felt more hopeful at one moment in time reported higher levels of meaning later in the semester. The researchers found unique effects for hope—general positive emotions didn’t have the same effect. In other words, among all the good feelings we can have, hope may play a particularly important role in a meaningful life.
Moreover, just feeling hopeful—even if we don’t necessarily think it’s realistic—seems to be beneficial. In one survey, the emotion of hope had a stronger link to meaning than did people’s beliefs about whether they could attain a good outcome.
In another study, researchers asked some participants to read an optimistic news story, while other participants read a pessimistic story. Those who read the optimistic article tended to report feeling more hope, and, in turn, readers who felt more hopeful reported a greater overall sense of meaning in life. This tells us that our feelings of hope and meaning can shift moment to moment, and they are influenced by the things we encounter in daily life.
When we’re facing tough times, taking time to cultivate hope—for example, by seeking out positive news or reminding ourselves that tough circumstances can improve—can help us to see the world around us as more meaningful.
2. A strong sense of right and wrong makes for a happier, more meaningful life
Does striving to be a good person feel good? Or does making ethical choices entail a certain amount of self-sacrifice?
Philosophical debates about the relationship between morality and happiness are longstanding, but this year a paper published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology weighed in with evidence that doing good and feeling good go hand in hand.
Across three different studies, researchers asked groups of adults, from undergraduate students in the U.S. to engineers in China, about how happy they were, including how often they felt positive and negative emotions, and how satisfied they were with life. The researchers also asked how much they had a sense of meaning and purpose. Finally, participants nominated people they knew (like friends, partners, family members, teachers, and coworkers) who could weigh in on how moral the participants were. While there are many ways to think about morality, for the purpose of this paper it included traits like being compassionate, respectful, fair, loyal, dependable, and honest.
The result? In general, they found, people who were seen as more moral by family and friends themselves reported being happier and having a greater sense of meaning in life.
Why would being moral make us happier? “Highly moral individuals might be happier in part because they have better relationships with other people,” the researchers found in some initial analyses. But because these are correlational studies, it could also be that being happy promotes more upstanding behavior. What’s clear, at least, is that being moral and being happy don’t seem to be in conflict.
In other words, treating people well doesn’t have to come at your own expense—which is perhaps more evidence that everyone’s well-being is interconnected.
3. Your well-being influences your mitochondrial health
Centuries of thought have been dedicated to the mind-body connection: the idea that mental states like contentment or distress directly influence the body in ways that shape physical health.
In a paper published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, researchers identify one new pathway through which this may be occurring: our mitochondria.
Mitochondria, the tiny organelles in our cells that convert energy from nutrients in the blood into currency that the body can use, are sensitive to what is going on in our mental lives. They ramp up production to strengthen defense to threats; they trigger inflammatory responses to help the body fight off pathogens. Subjected to intense or long-term stress, they weaken and toss DNA debris into the bloodstream.
In the paper, the researchers highlight evidence that our psychological and social experiences affect our mitochondria in important ways. For example, they share the finding that people with a greater sense of purpose and more social support in life have higher levels of mitochondrial proteins in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of the brain, a region that supports paying attention as well as reinterpreting and expressing emotions in agile and constructive ways. Other research finds that factors like how big our social networks are, our social activity later in life, personal growth, and self-acceptance may make a difference to our mitochondrial health, too.
Currently, we tend to evaluate and treat mental and physical health independently, as separate conditions, rather than considering them as integrated or interdependent. While it may seem obvious that how we think and feel would impact how our bodies work, there is still some mystery around exactly how mental and social factors translate into physical processes that affect health. Looking more closely at mitochondrial function could help us better understand the mind-body connection and come up with better practices to support holistic well-being.
4. Just about every activity is more enjoyable in the company of others
Students use body doubling (online or in-person) to power through final exam studying. Reading and knitting groups congregate in coffee shops and on porches to engage in hobbies together—often in silence. Why this impulse to be together?
A study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science found that almost anything we do is more enjoyable with other people. Researchers at the University of British Columbia looked at surveys from 41,094 participants over four years, who rated 105,766 activities they engaged in. These fell into more than 80 categories of daily activities, from eating to yard work to crafting. For every single activity, participants consistently rated it as more enjoyable when engaged in alongside another person.
“Whether we are eating, reading, or even cleaning up around the house, happiness thrives in the company of others,” the authors conclude.
Not only does happiness thrive in the company of others, but another study this year suggests that happiness experienced together may be even better for our health than happiness experienced alone.
A study led by researchers at the University of California, Davis, analyzed interactions between couples in Germany and Canada (642 people total, all 56 to 89 years old). Multiple times a day, participants rated their mood, froze a sample of their saliva to be tested for cortisol, and noted whether they were with their partner.
The results were striking. Couples who experienced emotional resonance, meaning they were together and experiencing higher than usual connection, also measured lower cortisol levels as compared with their personal norm for that time of day—and lower than when they experienced positive emotions by themselves. Persistent high levels of cortisol can cause high blood pressure, high blood sugar, weakened immunity, and other harms to our health.
“Sharing in positive emotions with your relationship partner is really meaningful,” says the lead author of the study, Tomiko Yoneda of the University of California, Davis. “Even those small moments of joy or social connection can have a supportive effect on your physiology and, basically, support better health as we age.”
5. When you forgive, your memories don’t fade, but your misery does
When we’ve been wronged, it can be hard to forgive. Perhaps we worry that forgiveness means forgetting what happened to us, letting other people off the hook somehow.
But a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that this isn’t the way forgiveness works. Rather than helping us forget, forgiveness seems to keep our memories intact while lessening the suffering we feel recalling them.
In the study, participants recalled and wrote about a time when they were harmed by another person, noting how severe the transgression was and whether or not they’d forgiven the person. Then, they filled out questionnaires on the specifics of the harm (such as where it took place, how vivid it was in their minds, and sensory details) and its emotional characteristics (such as the intensity of the feelings they had at the time and how they felt now recalling the event).
By running analyses, the researchers found that people who had forgiven recalled just as much detail as those who hadn’t, but also felt less emotionally burdened thinking about the event. This implies that forgiveness does not equal forgetting.
“One possibility is to think that when we forgive, we change our judgment of what happened during the wrongdoing. But I think that’s just wrong,” says De Brigard, one of the study coauthors. “We still consider the people that wronged us as being culpable and morally responsible for what happened to us.”
This suggests that forgiving someone can protect our well-being without impacting our pursuit of justice or amends for the harm we’ve suffered.
6. Trusting in other people and institutions can improve our well-being across our lives
Trust is paramount to a functioning society, where we depend on each other to make things work. Yet a recent Pew Research Center poll suggests social trust may be eroding in many places.
A new paper published in Psychological Bulletin shows us how problematic this is. In an analysis of over 500 studies involving over 2.5 million participants around the world, researchers found that people who tended to trust others more at any level (i.e., within their relationships, institutions, or government) were happier and more satisfied with life than those who trusted less—and experiencing greater well-being fostered more trust down the road, too.
This suggests that fostering greater trust would be a worthy goal for bettering our lives. But how to do that? One simple way might be to realize that our distrust of others is sometimes misguided, as another 2025 study published in Nature Human Behaviour found.
In the study, students living in some freshman dorms saw a series of posters providing accurate messages about their classmates’ willingness to engage in positive social behavior (e.g., “95% of undergraduate students are likely to help others who are feeling down”). These students also attended a one-hour freshman workshop where, in addition to the regular curriculum, they were educated about their peers’ empathy and social goals. Some dorms had the campaign posters and added lessons, while others didn’t.
All first-year dorm residents took surveys later in the semester, reporting on how empathic their peers seemed, how much they themselves took social risks, and how much time they spent socializing. Those whose misconceptions had been corrected estimated their peers’ empathy levels more accurately and were more likely to take risks and socialize—a sign of social trust.
This finding tracks well with past studies finding that correcting wrong assumptions can improve trust and social interactions. For example, research has found that people generally share a desire to protect democracy, are more ethical, and want to connect across difference more than we think, and correcting those misperceptions has positive consequences. Perhaps, understanding that people are more trustworthy than we give them credit for might help build bridges between people, making us all better off.
7. Where purpose comes from and how it benefits us may be similar across cultures
Research finds that people with a sense of purpose in life tend to enjoy greater health, happiness, and economic success, among other benefits. Yet much research on purpose has been conducted in Western cultures using general surveys of purpose, making it unclear if cultural influences affect these claims.
But a study published this year in The Journal of Positive Psychology offers new insights, suggesting that people prioritize similar sources of purpose across very different cultural backgrounds, and benefit in much the same way from having a sense of purpose.
In the study, over 1,000 people from Japan, India, Poland, and the United States reported how happy, meaningful, and psychologically rich their lives were—all aspects of “the good life.” They also rated how 16 different sources of purpose guided their behavior and decision making, considering both self-focused sources of purpose (like health, wealth, and inner peace) and more outward-focused sources of purpose (like caring for family, having a positive impact, and serving your country and community).
In analyses, researchers found that happiness, self-sufficiency, and family were in the top five sources of purpose for each country, while religion and recognition were in the bottom five. There was also large agreement on which sources of purpose went along with elements of “the good life.” For example, people who said their purpose came from mattering were the most likely to have a more meaningful life, while people pursuing inner peace, positive impact, and physical health felt happier. Those pursuing service to others had the strongest sense of psychological richness (a form of well-being involving diverse, challenging, and interesting activities that evoke complex emotions and change your perspective).
While there were variations, too, the most striking parts of the study were the unexpected similarities.
“What stands out from our finding is just how much agreement there was within these four quite different countries about what kinds of purposes are associated with a good life,” says coauthor Stephen Heine. “Though the goal of our paper was to highlight many sources of purpose, our take-home message is that having any kind of purpose is key to having a good life.”
8. Children as young as five prefer adults who express doubt to those who are overly confident
Intellectual humility involves recognizing the limits of our own knowledge and staying open to changing our minds in light of new information. It helps us get along better with others and bridge differences, making it a virtue worth cultivating in our children.
While it may seem like intellectual humility is beyond the understanding of young children, a study published this year in Developmental Psychology found that even five and a half years olds already recognize the value of humility and prefer humbler adults to more arrogant adults.
In the study, 111 children were presented with an ambiguous object (e.g., something that could be a sponge or a rock) or an ambiguous word (e.g., “bat,” which could be an animal or sports equipment). Then, they watched two adults identify the object or word and express doubt (or not) about it.
Each adult presented themselves as amiable and initially identified the object or word in the same way. But the humbler person modeled more uncertainty, saying their identification could be wrong, while the more arrogant person said they were sure they were right.
Afterward, the children rated who they thought was smarter and nicer, and whom they liked more and would rather learn from. In analyses, the researchers found that children five and a half years and older, no matter their gender, preferred humbler people to arrogant people in every way, with that preference growing stronger with every additional year of age.
This suggests that young children recognize the benefits of humility and that adults can model uncertainty for children. Learning it’s OK to admit you don’t know something could help children in their future relationships, including across group differences.
“There is power in saying, ‘I’m not entirely sure and my knowledge is fallible and so is yours; maybe we can come together and talk,’” says coauthor Shauna Bowes of Vanderbilt University. “I think the earlier in life kids learn to do this, the better.”
9. People are forming relationships with robots—whether we like the trend or not
Artificial intelligence has invaded almost every aspect of human life, from media creation to food systems to transportation. Personal relationships are no exception.
AI companies such as Xiaoice and Replika explicitly market their chatbots as companions, boyfriends, and girlfriends. That label rings true for tens of millions of users who are developing bonds with these robots, whose algorithms are built to validate our feelings and respond to our bids for attention instantly.
About 20% of high school students have formed a romantic relationship with a chatbot, or know someone who has, according to a survey from the Center for Democracy and Technology. Among U.S. adults, about the same percentage have chatted with an AI simulating a romantic partner, with usage higher among young adults aged 18 to 30, about 31% of men and 23% of women, according to a study by the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University.
Users describe daily lives intertwined with AI romantic partners, from watching television together to relying on them for nonjudgmental emotional support, according to a systematic review in Computers in Human Behavior Reports that examined 23 studies on romantic AI. While these interactions can foster self-reflection and personal growth, they also raise dangers such as emotional manipulation and erosion of real-life, human relationships.
An article in Perspectives on Psychological Science assessed the degree to which AI chatbot relationships mimic the functions of human relationships, and explored the risks. The authors, psychologists at the University of California, Los Angeles, concluded that humans and their chatbot partners can influence each other, generate feelings of closeness, and facilitate growth.
However, they identified areas of concern, including the risk of chatbots responding inappropriately in moments of crisis, normalizing problematic behavior, and creating dependency.
“Because chatbots make only superficial requests of their users, relationships with them cannot provide the benefits of negotiating with and sacrificing for a partner and may reinforce undesirable behaviors,” they wrote.
These developments “expose gaps in human connection and show how intimacy can be shaped by technology,” Sahar Habib Ghazi writes in Greater Good. “Understanding AI love may help us better understand ourselves, and the human bonds we continue to seek.”
10. If we put a country’s wealth aside, we can see what other factors bolster happiness
Every year, the World Happiness Report ignites conversations about which countries are thriving and which ones seem to be struggling—and why that might be. While in general wealthier countries tend to be happier, some nations do far better than their economic resources would predict, while others underperform despite relative affluence.
In a paper published in May by the European Journal of Social Psychology, psychologist Mohsen Joshanloo took the conversation to a new level with an idea called wealth-adjusted life satisfaction (WALS). Instead of asking simply “how happy is this country?,” WALS asks “how happy given its wealth?” By statistically isolating the portion of life satisfaction explained by a country’s GDP per capita, this measure reveals how effective each society seems to be in converting material resources into well-being.
The results are revealing. Countries like Nicaragua, Nepal, and Kyrgyzstan far outperform expectations, reporting levels of life satisfaction that rival or exceed those of much wealthier nations. Conversely, places such as South Korea, Hong Kong, and Bahrain score lower than their GDP might suggest, indicating that wealth alone isn’t enough.
What distinguishes the happiness “over-achievers”? The study highlights several non-economic forces that seem to matter: job quality and meaningful work, a sense of autonomy and freedom, social connections and community engagement, and everyday enjoyment. These factors help explain why some societies—despite material limitations—are still able to sustain high levels of life satisfaction.
This study suggests that instead of focusing narrowly on economic growth as a key to human flourishing, governments and corporations might make targeted investments in community, meaningful work, personal freedom, and livable, lively cities and towns.
As Joshanloo concludes in a Greater Good essay, “Ultimately, building societies that prioritize the wise use of resources for human well-being may be the clearest path toward a more hopeful and humane future.”