It occurred to me today that often the real goal of questions asked on sites such as this one (where the questions tend to be more open-ended than say, SO) is for the OP to become happier upon achieving the result. We often excuse this by saying our desire is to be more productive or release a better product, but if you continue to look down this path you can determine that the OP seeks greater productivity or product-quality because those are important to his/her 'happiness'.

With that in-mind I ask this: Have their been efforts to study software development from this perspective? In other words, what practises increase happiness in those who develop software as a career, and who, if anyone, has researched this specifically?

As I mentioned above, they may include strategies that increase productivity or improve product quality, but by no means should they be limited to just those.