Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Cieslik, M. (2014). “Not Smiling but Frowning”: Sociology and the “Problem of Happiness.” Sociology.

Description: Cieslik describes how researchers in the past have applied structural approaches to understanding what makes people happy.  She contrasts this with her work that identifies more interactive definitions of happiness.

West, E. (2010). A taste for greeting cards: Distinction within a denigrated cultural form. Journal of Consumer Culture, 10(3), 362–382.

Description: West examines how people evaluate and use greeting cards in relation to education, class, and even gender.  West also discusses the ways in which people try to make themselves seem distinct through the ways in which they use greeting cards.