Flawed inference

Still on the topic of happiness, here is a news article that I saw today:


Wed, sleep to live happily ever after
1/10/2007 4:01:00 PM

New Delhi: So, finally someone seems to have figured out the key to happiness. And believe it or not, it’s something so ridiculously simple that it wouldn’t have occurred to most.
Well, the secret to happiness seems to be marriage and a good night’s sleep – whether or not in the same order is well, debatable.
A study conducted by the UK government shows that sufficient sleep and a healthy matrimony gave the maximum people a reason to feel a ‘state of well-being’.
The study – conducted by researches of the Whitehall Wellbeing Working Group - also found people who spend more time socialising, chatting with a neighbour over the fence, having plenty of sex in a steady relationship and caring about endangered species also tend to be happier than others.
“It's shown that married people are happier - so what does that mean for politics? Does it follow that we should be encouraging people to marry? Is that the realm of politics...or something that should be left to individual choice?” the Daily Mail quoted professor of economics at Imperial College in London, Paul Dolan, as saying.
So much for happiness. What makes people unhappy? The reasons again are aplenty. Researchers found that extreme weather, being dumped, getting sacked or having to live in a heavily polluted area makes people gloomy.

Source: CNN-IBN

Now I think this inference is completely flawed. What if cause and effect are inverted? It is quite possible that a happy person would enjoy a good night's sleep and therefore do more of it, would want to get married in the optimistic hope that this would increase happiness, would socialize more, would speak to neighbours over the fence, would want to have plenty of sex and would care about endangered species (since the person wont have to spend time worrying about his / her lack of happiness)!! This is quite conceiveable.
So maybe happiness is just something you have (or lack) inherently - and all these are just effects of the inherent cause. Or maybe happiness is just caused by the feeling of being better off than your fellow men, as this earlier post suggests. Or maybe its something else altogehter. Who knows? But this kind of research is certainly not of too much help!!!