The presidential election in the United States is November fourth. So we hear a lot of people using expressions about the election. Many opinion studies have asked Americans whom they will vote for. Experts say some states are likely to support John McCain, the Republican Party candidate. Others are likely to support Barack Obama, the Democratic Party's candidate. Experts say there are a few states where the support for the two candidates is almost equal. These are called swing states, because they could go either way. They are also called battleground states. Experts believe the presidential election will be decided by the votes in those few states. Traditionally, expressions used in horse racing are also used in election campaigns.

The running mate is the presidential candidate's choice for vice president. The front-runner is the leading candidate. If both candidates have equal support, they are said to be running neck and neck. And candidates enter the home stretch when the race is near the end. The candidates are now on the campaign trail, traveling around the country. They have favorite subjects that they talk about to different crowds. This is called a stump speech. Writer William Safire says the expression is two hundred years old. He says candidates many years ago spoke while standing on the stump of a tree in front of a crowd. Another expression, on the stump, is to make these speeches to different groups. Some candidates carry out what is called a grassroots campaign. This involves voters at the local community level. The candidate talks to people and accepts financial donations for the campaign. This may involve getting the support of the political party's rank and file members. This expression is also used in the military and in trade unions. It means the members who form the major part of a group, but not its leaders or officers.

From the ancient Greeks and Romans to current day writers and professors, the debate about happiness continues. What makes someone happy? In what parts of the world are people the happiest? Why even study happiness? Today, we explore these questions and learn about several new books on happiness studies.

Happiness is an extremely popular subject for books. If you search for "happiness" on the Web site of the online bookseller, Amazon.com, you will find more than two hundred thousand results. Experts from several areas of study recently published books on the subject. The Greek philosopher (nhà triết học) Aristotle said that a person’s highest happiness comes from the use of his or her intelligence. Religious books such as the Koran and Bible (kinh thánh) discuss faith (niềm tin) as a form of happiness. The British scientist Charles Darwin believed that all species were formed in a way so as to enjoy happiness. And, the United States Declaration of Independence (Tuyên ngôn Độc lập) guarantees “life, liberty and the pursuit (mưu cầu) of happiness” as a basic human right. People throughout history may have had different ideas about happiness. But today, many people are still searching for its meaning. But how do you study something like happiness? You could start with the World Database of Happiness at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. This set of information includes how to define and measure happiness. It also includes happiness averages in countries around the world and compares that information through time.

Some findings (những đều tìm thấy) are not surprising. For example, the database suggests that married people are happier than single people. People who like to be with other people are happier than unsocial people. And people who have sex a lot are happier than people who do not. But other findings are less expected: People with children are equally happy as couples without children. And wealthier people are only a little happier than poorer people. The database suggests that people who live in strongly democratic and wealthy countries are happier than those who do not. This database also shows that studying happiness no longer involves just theories and ideas. Economists, psychiatrists (thầy thuốc tâm thần), doctors and social scientists are finding ways of understanding happiness by examining real sets of information. Positive psychology (tâm lý tích cực) is the new term for a method of scientific study that tries to examine the things that make life worth living instead of life’s problems. Traditional psychology generally studies negative situations like mental suffering and sickness. But positive psychology aims to study the strengths that allow people and communities to do well. Martin Seligman is the director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He says positive psychology has three main concerns: positive emotions (xúc cảm), positive individual qualities and positive organizations and communities.

There is also an increasing amount of medical research on the physical qualities of happiness. Doctors can now look at happiness at work in a person’s brain using a method called magnetic resonance (sự cộng hưởng) imaging, or MRI. For example, an MRI can show how one area of a person’s brain activates when he or she is shown happy pictures. A different area of the brain becomes active when the person sees pictures of terrible subjects. Doctors are studying brain activity to better understand the physical activity behind human emotions. This research may lead to better understanding of depression (sự phiền muộn) and other mental problems. The historian Darrin McMahon examines the development of happiness in “Happiness: A History.” Mister McMahon looks at two thousand years of politics and culture in western countries. He says it is only in recent history that people think of happiness as a natural human right. Darrin McMahon explains how the ancient Greeks thought happiness was linked to luck. He says it was not until the Enlightenment period in eighteenth century Europe that people began to think they had the power to find happiness themselves. He notes that in demanding happiness, people may think something is wrong with them or others if they are not happy. Mister McMahon sees the pressure to be happy as actually creating unhappiness. Darrin McMahon says his book will not make readers happier. But he says that by comparing your situation with people throughout history, you can have a better understanding of the idea of happiness.

The journalist Eric Weiner recently wrote a book called “The Geography of Bliss (hạnh phúc)." Mister Weiner traveled to countries such as Switzerland, Bhutan, Qatar and Thailand to investigate happiness in different parts of the world. He met with experts and talked with local people to try to understand what makes people in different societies happy. For example, Eric Weiner learned that in Bhutan, the government measures “Gross Domestic Happiness” as a way to tell whether its citizens are happy. Mister Weiner also traveled to Moldova, a country he says is one of the least happy countries in the world. And he traveled to Iceland because studies show that it is one of the happiest nations in the world. Mister Weiner at first could not understand why a country with so little sunlight in the winter and so many alcohol drinkers could be so happy. But, he decided that happiness in Iceland is linked to its close community, striking (nổi bật) natural beauty and high levels of creativity (tính sáng tạo).

Denmark, another cold country, also has been listed as one of the happiest countries. Mister Weiner says the United States is the twenty-third happiest country in the world. Dan Gilbert teaches psychology at Harvard University in Massachusetts. He recently published “Stumbling (sai lầm) on Happiness.” Mister Gilbert looks at the way the human mind is different from other animals because we can think about the future and use our imaginations. He also explains how our minds can trick us in a way that creates difficulties in making happy choices for the future. Why is studying happiness important? There are many answers to this question. One has to do with understanding happiness in order to create better public policies. Richard Layard is a British economist and lawmaker who studies this subject. His research is influenced by the eighteenth century thinker (nhà tư tưởng) Jeremy Bentham. Mister Bentham believed that the goal of public policy was to create the “greatest happiness for the greatest number.” For example, a person might think that buying a new car would make him or her happy even though the last car the person bought did not. So, events that we believe will bring us happiness bring us less than we think. And, events we fear will make us unhappy make us less unhappy than we believe. The book provides valuable information on the surprising ways in which our minds work. Here is a recording of Mister Gilbert talking about this “impact bias (đường xiên).” It was taken from the Big Think Web site.

DAN GILBERT: "Most of the time when people are wrong about how they’ll feel about the future, they’re wrong in the direction of thinking that things will matter to them more than they really do. We are remarkable at our ability to adjust and adapt to almost any situation; but we seem not to know this about ourselves. And so we mistakenly predict that good things will make us happy . . . really happy for a really long time . Bad things, why they’ll just slay (giết) us. It turns out neither of these things is by and large true."

Richard Layard has looked at the relation between happiness and a country’s wealth. He questions why people in western countries are no happier than they were fifty years ago although they now earn more money. Mister Layard believes that part of the problem is that economics and public policy tend to measure a country’s success by the amount of money it makes. He notes that happiness depends on more than the purchasing power of a person or a nation. Mister Layard says that public policy should also help people improve the things that lead to happiness such as job security and health. To help improve public health policies in Britain, Mister Layard has pressed (thúc ép) the British government to spend more money on mental health treatment centers. He argues that by helping people recover from mental illness, the government can make a big step in the effort to increase happiness. Many people have also written songs about happiness.