The Social Fabric of Happiness: Relational Bonds, Material Aspirations, and Everyday Well-being among Undergraduates

Qualitative accounts of happiness can illuminate everyday priorities that standardised well-being measures do not directly elicit. This qualitative descriptive study examined responses to the open-ended question “What makes you happy?” from undergraduate students at one arts and science college in Chennai, India. An online survey yielded 270 submissions, of which 260 (96.3%) were included in semantic coding and descriptive thematic grouping. Nine non-exclusive themes were reported: relational and social connectedness; pleasure, recreation and leisure; solitude, inner peace and autonomy; material and financial aspirations; achievement, aspirations and personal growth; spirituality, faith and meaning; physical well-being and self-care; prosocial and other-oriented happiness; and nature and everyday sensory experiences. Relational connectedness appeared in 104 responses (40.0%) and recreation and leisure in 88 (33.8%); the other themes were identified in between 5 (1.9%) and 28 (10.8%) responses. The nine counts totalled 312 theme assignments across 260 analysed responses. These non-exclusive frequencies indicate mentions, not population prevalence, individual happiness levels or causal effects. Some responses combined social ties, aspirations and everyday experiences. The expression “social fabric of happiness” is used as an interpretative metaphor, not as a validated model. The findings provide a context-specific account of students’ expressed sources of happiness and suggest questions for further qualitative enquiry and institutional consultation.