When Happiness Induction Techniques Make Respondents Unhappy: Failing to Induce Happiness During the Russo-Ukrainian War

Abstract

The impact of discrete emotions such as anger, anxiety or happiness is an important and emergingfield of research in political science. For priming happiness, several different techniques (emo-tional recall, visual stimuli, imaginary) have so far shown consistent effects in western countries.In this paper, we examine whether these methods for experimentally inducing happiness canalso be used to induce happiness in an extremely unfavorable context: Ukraine during the Rus-so-Ukrainian War. Our results from four studies conducted in three panel waves in 2022/23 (N =1980), 2023 (N = 1542) and 2024 (N = 1639) show that a) none of these techniques significantlyincreased happiness and that b) some of these techniques actually can have the opposite effecton Ukrainians and reduce happiness in respondents. We discuss possible reasons for this findingand conclude with recommendations for future research.