Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, David Lykken was the youngest of seven children born to Henry G. Lykken and his wife Frances. He joined the United States Navy at 17 and then attended University of Minnesota on the G.I. Bill, earning his Bachelor of Arts (psychology, philosophy and mathematics) 1949, his master's degree in psychology and statistics in 1952, and his doctorate in clinical psychology and neuropsychiatry in 1955. He remained on Minnesota's permanent faculty for his entire career and taught as a visiting professor at Deep Springs College. He was an emeritus professor from 1998 until his death. Lykken's wife, wildlife advocate Harriet (Betts) Lykken, died in 2005. Lykken was survived by three sons: attorney Matthew Lykken, physicist Joseph Lykken, and criminologist Jesse Lykken, as well as ten grandchildren.[1]
Lykken was the proponent of a set-point theory of happiness, which argues that variation in sense of well-being is half determined by genetics and half determined by circumstances, and has been the subject of international media attention.[3] His research findings suggest that variation in baseline levels of cheerfulness, contentment, and psychological satisfaction is largely a matter of heredity.
Some of Lykken's work was funded by the Pioneer fund. An organization founded by Americans sympathetic to Nazi policy on eugenics [6][7] which openly modelled its support of eugenics on the Nazi Lebensborn breeding program,[8] and has often explicitly promoted scientific racism at numerous points in its history up to and including the present.[9][10] Lykken defended his acceptance of money from the fund, writing "If you can find me some rich villains that want to contribute to my research—Qaddafi, the Mafia, whoever—the worse they are, the better I'll like it. I'm doing a social good by taking their money... Any money of theirs that I spend in a legitimate and honorable way, they can't spend in a dishonorable way".[11] Nevertheless, he has praised the theories of eugenic academics associated with or on the board of the pioneer fund, such as Richard Lynn.[12]