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[Shootandrun]

Every time I go on this forum, I see many people talking about tantrum spirals. "I loosed my fortress because of a tantrum spiral" "Population is now down because I got a tantrum spiral" etc. And I find that ridiculous.
So here is a very basic tutorial on ways to keep you dwarves happy.

Let's start with the basics. Dwarves like to sleep, eat and drink. That, is important.
Sleeping: Do not use a dormitory. A dwarf gain an happy thought every time he sleep in a good (a.k.a. not so terrible) bedroom. How to make a good bedroom, you will say? Dig a 3x3 room with walls around. Put a door at the entrance. And then: happy thoughts. BONUS: put the bedrooms in one alone z level. It will help you to manage your space and your dwarves will be less ennoyed by sounds.

Eating: There is two ways to improve this part. The first is the easier, the dining room. A dwarf is happy when he eats in a good place. To make a good place, dig an big room (maybe 15x15, bigger?) in rock. Smooth and engrave this stone, and then put tables and chairs from an average material (any stone with 2 or more of value can do it) in the room. Some people are doing one table/four chairs, but a dorf get bad thoughts  when he dine at a table with some one else. So, be sure to have enought tables and chairs to make every dwarf able to dine alone (30 chairs/tables for 200 dwarves). Place some statues and BOOOOM! Happy thoughts. The second way is to cook food with a skilled cook. Watch out, it will destroy plump helmets spawns, so if it is your main food ressource, you might not want a cook.

Drinking: Every one know that dorfs like booze. But did you know that many kinds boozes is almost as important as having at least one kind of booze? Dorfs like the variety. So, if a dwarf can drink between two kinds of booze at any time, he will be happy. But what if you get three? Four? Happy thoughts. Dorfs generally have one favourite kind of booze, so if you can manage to have a constant supply of every kind of booze disponible (there are always two kinds of booze you can't get. Check the wiki), you will have VERY happy dwarves. Even better: Sunshine. Sunshine is a kind of booze that you get with sun berry, a crop that you grow outside on good biome. Sunshine is 2.5 times better than any booze that you grow inside. Does this mean it could be worth having to make a safe zone to grow it, place mud on it and be sure to keep it rolling? Hell yea.

Now, advanced things:

A dwarf like high value things. He get an happy thought when he see: A good door, a good bed, a good chair, a good table, a good statue, a good floodgate, etc.
What does this means? Design your fortress to place good crafts everywhere. A gold statue in the main traffic areas, galena door in around your meeting area, etc. can be a good way to make dwarves happy. But, you can have more imagination. Lets think about an artifact... Of course, it's bullshit. You remember that legendary wooden door? The legendary gabbro mechanism? Find them a use.
You may of course want to trade them but... Let's think  about it. An dwarf will be happy every time he pass this door or use this lever. Are you sure you dont want them? Really?
I might make more tricks in the future, but if you are intelligent you can have ecstatic dwarvesall the time with this little page.

NOW STOP CRYING ABOUT TANTRUM SPIRAL!

[Blackburn]

Who's crying? Tantrum spirals are Fun for everyone.

Sometimes, the stuff you listed just isn't feasible within the fortress, due to all kinds of reasons: unskilled dwarves, lack of resources, or everyone being dead. Really, this is stuff you do in a finely-crafted, secure fortress. Tantrum spirals occur don't usually occur in those.

[Shootandrun]

I don't think  this is for fine and safe fortresses. It is for nearly dead fortresses. Giving twenty minutes of your time to start this on a terrifying embark can save you later. In fact, your population is sad in general when people die. When there are dead people everywhere, its easy to make four bedrooms for the last survivors and a big dining room with tables.

Urist McMiner as been ecstatic lately. He lost a friend lately. His cat died lately. He slept in a good bedroom lately.

Of course, if you WANT a tantrum spiral, place them in a shithole with miasma, dormitories and one table for 200 dwarfs.

EDIT: I see many people angry because of tantrum spiral. I am sometimes, too. I have fun when there are werewolves rampaging in my fortress. Tantrum spirals are slow and boooooring. Its only !!Fun!! in some cases (I saw a camel kill two elven merchants yesterday because they were trapped inside a depot with miasma ^^)

[AngleWyrm]

Tantrum spirals occur when two or more things go wrong at the same time. For instance an invasion kills a bunch of dwarves AND something is rotting in the hall because all your cats are dead. That's the kind of situation that leads to bad moods that result in a tantrum spiral.

Also, your comment on noise is baseless. As far as I know there is no noise in dwarf fortress.

[Jacob/Lee]

Most tantrum spirals are caused by massive amounts of death, I've had lots of +happiness givers in my fort, but almost all of my fortress knew each other so when 30 or so people died, most of the others had a mental breakdown.

[duckInferno]

Waterfalls: Create a waterfall in a high traffic place or dining room, dwarves love them.  Bonus points if you construct it over a well-travelled coridoor using grates to collect the water; dwarves love being showered in mist and it'll clean them, too.

[Jacob/Lee]

Tantrum spirals occur when two or more things go wrong at the same time. For instance an invasion kills a bunch of dwarves AND something is rotting in the hall because all your cats are dead. That's the kind of situation that leads to bad moods that result in a tantrum spiral.

Also, your comment on noise is baseless. As far as I know there is no noise in dwarf fortress.

Actually, the wiki said that if certain actions are performed near beds (with mining the loudest, maybe 15 tiles) it will give a negative thought because they got disturbed by the noise while they were sleeping.

[Silent_Thunder]

In all honesty, the few times I've done that sort of thing with happiness creation, I've hit that horiffic point in my fortress where despite how bad things get, the place refuses to die. It'll always be one or two dwarves that survive, but because all the nice shit, they stay happy and alive long enough for the next group of idiots to arrive, and the process repeats itself endlessly, until I'm forced to end it by breaching HFS.

[Loyal]

The OP would probably be helpful if not for two things:

• All of the things listed in the first post are incredibly obvious and are mostly only good for preventing dwarves from going insane from mere day-to-day living. Tantrum spirals happen when a cluster-fluffle of misfortune happens at the wrong/right time, to the wrong/right dwarf.
• Damage from tantrum spirals is not a failure of happiness management, it is a failure of fortress management. It is remarkably simple to make a fortress impregnable to attack, and if the player opens up a cavern/hell and let a forgotten beast/demon decimate the population before he's ready to contain it, thereby turning half the military and your legendary armorsmith into furious berserkers, that's his own fault fault.

Also, 3x3 rooms are hilariously overkill. You'll never need more than a 2x2 for your citizens if your engraver is any good. Plus, I think overextravagant citizen rooms still makes nobles unhappy.

[kapusta]

Well, you could do the things suggested in the OP, or you can just have no meeting zones or dining rooms. In my opinion, it's the best solution to the problem of tantrum spirals and dwarf happiness in general.

[schussel]

i learned that 1 square meeting zones .. help breeding dwarfes like rabbits and boost social skills like mad but make dwarfes succeptible to tantrums for a reason .. especially if you like melee soldiers alot waterfall into the  meeting zone  ( i use a variant of the sprayer on statues  allover my dinner rooms including that one meeting zone spot) keeps tantrums away and defeats existing ones ...

i had 3 dwarfes get separated from the rest by a frozen river unfreezing ... almost had them dying before i got a clue and saved them by building a bridge to their isle .. just when they got freed they tantrummed alot  .. until they passed the "shower" located on the way to the booze pile .. instant ecstatic for the win 

[veok]

I think a more interesting thread would dictate how to halt a tantrum spiral currently in progress.

[FuzzyZergling]

I think a more interesting thread would dictate how to halt a tantrum spiral currently in progress.

Magma.

Or, you could wall in some friendless guys and hold out for migrants.
But I still recommend the magma.

[Blackburn]

I think a more interesting thread would dictate how to halt a tantrum spiral currently in progress.

Find the sanest, most badass military dwarf. Give him his favorite weapon. Shove him in the general direction of the chaos. Play Yakety Sax.

[Naros]

Also, 3x3 rooms are hilariously overkill. You'll never need more than a 2x2 for your citizens if your engraver is any good. Plus, I think overextravagant citizen rooms still makes nobles unhappy.

Nobles? Is that a new nickname for geonauts?
I always make my basic dwarf rooms 3x3, though one tile has a door in it.