7. Partying and clubbing
Perhaps surprisingly amongst university students this was relatively unpopular as a happiness-enhancing activity. It's just as well since those who partied more weren't any happier, once their extraversion was taken into account.

8. Mental control
This is the second bad boy. It centres around thinking bad thoughts: both contemplating them and trying to suppress them. This category was significantly associated with being unhappy. Indeed, previous research has found that both ruminating on negative thoughts and trying to suppress negative thoughts leads to unhappiness.

A (mostly) positive message

This last category of mental control really stands out: what on earth is it doing on a list of strategies to increase happiness? Statistically it was the strongest predictor of unhappiness. This suggests that a significant minority of people have exactly the wrong idea about what strategies increase happiness.

Passive leisure pursuits is the other category that stands out. All the other categories in the top 6 have at least some connection with happiness. This one has none and yet there it is at number 4 in the list.

The positive message is that generally the strategies that people use to increase their happiness do actually work. We're relying on self-reports here, so people could well be misrepresenting what they actually do - but at least they mostly know what they're supposed to be doing.

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