Narrator:        This is Science Today. The science of happiness is a scientific study of how to improve people's quality of life and psychological well-being. Psychologist Kaiping Peng of the University of California, Berkeley says when talking about happiness, people tend to think in philosophical or economical terms.

Peng:              Those are the two main definitions that people use, but actually, happiness is individual experience, is a psychological understanding of the meaning of life, how you feel about yourself.

Narrator:        Peng is collaborating with Tsinghua university in China to host the first-ever conference there on positive psychology.

Peng:              China is at this important historical juncture. I think they are making huge social, cultural, economic change from the socialist, communist systems to free-market economical systems. People are making big adjustments in their life - you have to fight for yourself, you have to compete with other people.