Module 7-Psychology of happiness

Lecture 19: What is Happiness? What Makes Us Happy?

The Idea of Happiness

Happiness is a universal goal. Happiness is highly valued in present day society. Not only do
people aim at happiness in their own life but also we care for the happiness of other people and
that governments should aim at creating greater happiness for a greater number of citizens
(Bentham 1789).

For most of its history, psychology had concerned focused itself with disorders of human mind
such as anxiety, depression, neurosis, obsessions, paranoia, delusions.The goal of
practitioners was to bring patients from a negative, ailing state to a normal state of
functioning. Over the decades, with the rise of positive psychology, a few psychological
researchers had ventured out of the dark realm of mental illness into the sunny land of the
happiness and well-being.

The study of happiness has long been under the purview of philosophical speculation. There
was no proper empirical measures of happiness which made it an area of speculation and
uncertainties. However, during the last decades, with the development of reliable and valid
measures or questionnaires of happiness helped to made significant evolution of the
knowledge in the field.

Psychology of Happiness
Professor Ed Diener defined subjective well-being (also known as happiness) as-

Subjective well-being=SATISFACTION WITH LIFE + AFFECT

Subjective well-being=High positive emotion+ Low negative emotion+ high life satisfaction

It is measured by self-rating questionnaires

Life satisfaction represents one’s assessment of one’s own life

Affect represents the emotional side of SWB. The notion of affect comprises both positive and
negative moods and emotions that are associated with our everyday experiences.
 Affective Forecasting and Impact Bias

Will you become happier if your wishes become true?

Can you predict what will make you happy in future?

Affective forecasting includes predictions about emotional reactions to future events. Research
on affective forecasting has shown that people generally mispredict how much pleasure or
displeasure a future event will bring (Wilson & Gilbert, 2005). Generally people are good at
predicting whether future events are likely to be pleasant or unpleasant. However, they are not
good at predicting the intensity and duration of their future emotional reactions (Wilson &
Gilbert, 2005). Occasionally people underestimate and more commonly overestimate the
intensity and duration of their emotional reaction to future events.

Impact Bias

Impact bias is the error that people make by overestimating the intensity and duration of their
emotional reactions to future events (Wilson & Gilbert, 2005). This happens for both the
positive and negative emotions. For example, we may overestimate how happy or unhappy we
would become if we get a desirable or undesirable thing respectively in future.

Causes of Impact Bias

Focalism: It is the tendency to overestimate how much we will think about the event in the
future and to underestimate the extent to which other events will influence our thoughts and
feelings (Wilson, et al., 2000; Wilson & Gilbert, 2005).

Making sense of novel/unexpected events: Making sense of an event reduces the intensity
and duration of our emotional reaction. Generally, people make sense of novel and
unexpected events very rapidly which they mispredict during forecasting (Wilson & Gilbert,
2005).

Impact Bias and Decision Making

Affective forecasts and impact bias may influence decisions ranging from the mundane
(Should I take the scenic route home today?) to the profound (Should I marry this person?).
People generally make decisions by projecting their emotional reactions to future events.
Impact bias can lead to mistaken projections and irrational or unbalanced decisions in their
life. People may also show a retrospective impact bias where they overestimate the impact
of past events on their happiness, explaining why they do not learn from experience and
correct their forecasts (Wilson, Myers, & Gilbert, 2003).

It may be difficult to correct impact bias as it is mostly unconscious. However, we reduce such
biases by rational thinking and analyzing other things that may influence us in the future.
References

Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95, 542-575.

Diener, E. (1994). Assessing subjective well-being: Progress and opportunities. Social

Indicators Research, 31, 103-157.
Veenhoven, R. (2000). The four qualities of life. Journal of Happiness Studies, 1, 1-39
Wilson, T & Gilbert, D.T. (2005). Affective forecasting: knowing what to want. Psychological
Science, 14, 131-134.
 Lecture 20: Socio-demographic factors and Happiness

Income and Happiness

Can money buy happiness?

There is extensive literature on the relationship between income and well-being/ happiness
(Howell & Howell, 2008). However, the relationship is very complex and far from clear.
Economists generally view that income is a sufficient indicator of human well-being and
increasing the level of income will upsurge human well-being, life satisfaction or happiness
(Lakshmanasamy, 2010). Empirical studies show that the relationship between subjective
(such as life satisfaction and emotions) and the traditional objective well-being indicators (such
as income, consumption) is weak.

Cross-sectional survey data show significant positive but small coefficient (Blanchflower &
Oswald, 2004). Diener and Oishi (2000) in a cross-sectional survey of a large sample from 19
countries reported a correlation between income and subjective well-being ranging from .02 to
.38. These findings generally indicate that subjective well-being increases with income at a
decreasing marginal rate.

Easterlin’s Paradox
One of the main research paper in the literature on income and happiness has been
Easterlin’s seminal article (1974; updated in 1995). In this paper, Easterlin reported a paradox
of substantial real income growth in Western countries over the last fifty years, but without any
corresponding rise in reported happiness levels (Clark, Frijters, & Shields, 2007).

More specifically, Easterlin paradox states that “at a point in time both among and within
nations, happiness varies directly with income, but over time (in the long term such as 10
years), happiness does not increase when a country’s income increases” (Easterlin et al.,
2010, p. 22463). In cross sectional data, happiness seems to increase with income (though at
a decreasing rate), within and across nations. However, in a time series data (such as 10
years) happiness does not increase when a country’s income increases. However, some
recent research indicates that the Easterlin Paradox does not hold under all circumstances
(Slag and Veenhoven 2018).

Possible Explanation of Easterlin’s Paradox

Two theories are put forth to explain this paradox-

-Social comparison
-Adaptation

Together these theories are called as “relative income theory” and they nullify the effect of
income gains (Slag, Burger, & Veenhoven, 2019).
 Age and Happiness

There seems to be no clear cut consensus on the relationship between age and happiness
due to differences in data and method applied. Some early psychological studies suggested
no age-happiness relationship (Cantril, 1965). Some studies reported that life satisfaction
increases with age (Argyle, 1999; Diener, 1999). A growing body of evidence suggests that the
relationship between age and happiness seems to be U-shaped curve.

Age and Happiness: Happiness U Curve

Many large scale surveys on age and happiness has reported U-shaped curve in the
relationship between age and happiness. This is also referred to as the happiness U curve. U-
shaped curve basically reflects that the average happiness or life satisfaction is lowest in
middle age (between 40-50 years of age) and then begins to recover and move up after that.
One of the most comprehensive study in this direction was conducted by Blanchflower and
Oswald (2008), who combined cross-sectional data over 60 countries and reported a U-
shaped relationship between happiness and age. Many other studies also supported this result
(Clark and Oswald,1994; Gerdtham and Johannesson, 2001). All these studies controlled for
potentially confounding factors such as income, health, employment, and gender.

Gender and Happiness

Some research indicates (mostly in the western context) a possible gender difference in ill-
being and misery. For example, Women are twice more vulnerable and likely to be diagnosed
with depression and anxiety as compared to men, and men are much more (five times)
vulnerable to alcoholism and antisocial personality disorder as compared to women (Robins &
Regier, 1991). It is still not very clear why gender difference exists in depression and anxiety.
Some experts believe that there may not be any actual gender difference. But, women are
more likely to be diagnosed as they talk about their feelings and seek more help as compared
to men. However, there is not much evidence of gender difference in reports of happiness and
well-being. Most of the large scale studies and meta-analysis showed a little or no gender
difference in happiness and well-being.

In a meta-analysis of 146 studies, gender accounted for less than 1% of people's global well-
being (Haring, Stock, & Okun, 1984). The finding seems to be generalize worldwide (reported
in Myers & Diener, 1995). In another study on samples of 16 nations indicated equal number
of male and female i.e. 80% of men and 80% of women said that they were at least "fairly
satisfied" with life (Inglehart, 1990). A similar findings were reported in a study on university
students from 39 countries (N=18032) (Michalos, 1991)

References

Howell, Ryan & Howell, Colleen. (2008). The Relation of Economic Status to Subjective
Well-Being in Developing Countries: A Meta-Analysis. Psychological bulletin. 134. 536-
60. 10.1037/0033-2909.134.4.536.
 Blanchflower, D.G., & Oswald, A.J. (2004). Well-being over time in Britain and the
USA. Journal of Public Economics, 88, 1359-1386.

Diener, E., & Oishi, S. (2000). Money and happiness: Income and subjective well-being
across nations. In E. Diener & E. M. Suh (Eds.), Culture and subjective well-being (p.
185–218). The MIT Press.

Easterlin, R.A. (1974). Does Economic Growth Improve the Human Lot? In P.A. David,
M.S. Reder, Essays in Honour of Moses Abramovitz (pp. 89-125). Massachusetts:
Academic Press

Clark, Andrew & Frijters, Paul & Shields, Michael. (2008). Relative Income, Happiness
and Utility: An Explanation for the Easterlin Paradox and Other Puzzles. Journal of
Economic Literature. 46. 95-144. 10.1257/jel.46.1.95.

Blanchflower, David & Oswald, Andrew. (2007). Is Well-being U-Shaped over the Life
Cycle?. Social Science and Medicine. 66.

Robins, L., & Regier, D. (Eds.). (1991). Psychiatric disorders in America. New York:
Free Press

David G. Myers and Ed Diener (1995). Who Is Happy? Psychological Science, Vol. 6,
No. 1 (Jan., 1995), pp. 10-19.

Dolan, Paul & Peasgood, T. & White, Mathew. (2008). Do We Really Know What
Makes Us Happy? A Review of the Economic Literature on the Factors Associated With
Subjective Well-Being. Journal of Economic Psychology. 29. 94-122.
10.1016/j.joep.2007.09.001.