Happiness and Culture

By Sandra Chang-Kredl

Abstract

This paper addresses play through the lens of critical happiness studies, exploring intersections between theories of play and happiness, and the often-overlooked tensions and ‘shadows’ they entail. Developmental psychology often instrumentalizes play as a technique for children’s learning and growth, framing it as a means of maximizing their potential to become ‘successful’ adults. Similarly, positive psychology instrumentalizes happiness as both the means and goal of adult life, what Ahmed (2005) critiques as the tautological pursuit of happiness. We draw on psychoanalytic frameworks derived from Freud and Winnicott to examine the fantasies articulated in the discourses of happiness and play. For instance, we draw parallels between Cederström’s (2020) critique of happiness as a “moralistic fantasy” entangled in the “doctrine of positivity” and the fantasy-driven nature of children’s play (p. 33). And yet, both happiness and play have dark sides: the punitive demands of enforced happiness, the opposition of happiness and darkness, and the expressions of fear, anxiety, and exhilaration found in children’s dark play (Chang-Kredl et al., 2023). This paper examines the binary constructions of happiness and darkness in the lives of adults and children, interrogating the tensions between positivity and its shadow in positive psychology and developmental play theories. Ultimately, we argue for a more nuanced understanding of play and happiness as sites of both light and shadow, where fantasy becomes a vehicle for negotiating complex human experiences.