Why should we expect a close association between autonomy, realism and happiness in a worthwhile life?

Winton's amateurish artwork

Neera Badhwar writes:

“The main argument of my book can be stated in the following five propositions:

(i)    Well-being as the HPG (highest prudential good) consists of happiness in an objectively worthwhile life;

(ii)   Someone who leads such a life must be characteristically autonomous and reality-orientated, that is, disposed to think for herself and seek truth or understanding about important aspects of her own life and human life in general, and disposed to act on her understanding when circumstances permit;

(iii)   To the extent that someone with these traits succeeds in achieving understanding and acting on it when circumstances permit, she is realistic.

(iv)   To the extent that she is realistic, she is virtuous.

(v)     Hence, well-being as the HPG requires virtue”. 

"Wellbeing:Happiness in a Worthwhile Life", 2014.

I don’t have many problems with the first three propositions. Those propositions have been briefly discussed in my last two posts: “Is human well-being subjective or objective?” and “Is there a close relationship between autonomy and realism?” It is important to be clear that a realistic orientation is consistent with optimistic (hopeful) appraisals of future opportunities. Indeed, healthy human functioning seems to be characterized by realistic optimism. I will write something about that in my next post.

Coming back to the line of argument in Neera Badhwar's book, it was not immediately obvious to me why a person who is autonomous and realistic should be expected to be virtuous (point iv). Examples readily come to mind of situations where ‘being realistic’ appears to involve compromises in which virtue is sacrificed for pragmatic reasons. I will try to explain, briefly, how the author reaches the conclusion that virtue is positively related to realism.

The author accepts Aristotle’s view of virtue as an integrated intellectual-emotional disposition to think, feel, and act “at the right times, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right end, and in the right way”, and to take pleasure in so doing. Her focus is on the cardinal virtues of justice, honesty, courage, integrity, kindness, and the virtues that are partly constitutive of these virtues: practical wisdom, and regard for self and others.

In Chapter 4 she suggests:

“To the extent that an autonomous/ reality-oriented person achieves understanding of the true and the good, and acquires the disposition to deliberate, feel, and act accordingly, he is realistic and morally virtuous” (p. 108).

After reading that chapter I was left feeling sceptical about the line of argument developed. That surprised me because I have previously responded positively to other attempts to link well-being with virtues. (For example, see my previous comments on the views of Martin Seligman about cultivation of signature virtues.) As I see it the problem is that it is necessary to have or acquire a disposition to cultivate the virtues - as well as a somewhat optimistic disposition - before it is possible for the chemistry of autonomy and reality-orientation to produce happiness in a worthwhile life.

The problem is resolved in a later chapter. In Chapter 6 Neera Badhwar observes that nature has endowed humans with positive self- and other-regarding natural virtues and that in their early moral development people tend to acquire emotional dispositions to tell the truth, risk danger, help and empathize. She notes that the idea that well-tempered emotions are necessary for characteristically making the right choices is now widely recognized in philosophical literature and supported by psychological and neurological research.

The author argues that virtue and well-being both involve emotional, deliberative and evaluative dispositions. She notes that the cultivations of those dispositions is “to a significant extent up to us”. She adds:

“Furthermore, the integration of emotional dispositions with intellectual (especially deliberative) dispositions that is required by virtue, makes virtue highly conducive to happiness, since a common source of unhappiness is conflict between our emotions and evaluations. Indeed, since the virtuous agent necessarily takes pleasure or joy in acting virtuously, virtuous activity is inherently productive of some happiness. It also promotes happiness insofar as the achievement of worthwhile goals is a source of happiness, and virtuous activity enables the virtuous agent to achieve them” (p 152-3).

The way the author summarised her argument at the beginning of the book seems to me to have been unnecessarily provocative. After reading the book as a whole, however, I doubt whether many people would have fundamental objections to the idea that an objectively worthwhile life requires virtue and that cultivation of virtue requires autonomy and reality orientation. Indeed, if we accept that widespread regard for the traditional virtues must have evolved because practice of those moral intuitions served the individual and collective interests of humans, it would be strange if individuals who endorse and cultivate those virtues in their own lives did not obtain happiness from seeking to make their lives worthwhile.

In my view Neera Badhwar has presented strong reasons in support of the view that the chances for an individual to achieve happiness in an objectively worthwhile life depend heavily on the extent to which her/his life is characterized by autonomy and reality-orientation. 

Is there a close relationship between autonomy and realism?

Is this an empirical question or a conceptual question?

If it is viewed as an empirical question the obvious way to answer it would be to define autonomy, define realism and then test for an empirical relationship. I have made a quick attempt to do that in the chart below, using the excellent data analysis facility of the World Values Survey. The autonomy index used is the sub-index constructed by Christian Welzel for his emancipative values index.  Welzel’s approach is based on survey respondents’ views of desirable child qualities: an emphasis on independence and imagination is considered to be positive in terms of the value placed on autonomy whereas an emphasis on obedience is considered to be negative. The realism indicator I used is based on responses to the statement: “We depend too much on science and not enough on faith”. The data shown are from an Australian survey conducted in 2012.

The chart seems to show that people who place high value on autonomy tend to be more realistic. However, this is a fairly frivolous piece of research. Questions can be raised about the relevance of an Australian survey to people in other countries, the small size of the sample etc. More importantly, for present purposes, the plausibility of the depicted relationship depends on the validity of the indicators of autonomy and realism used in the chart.

The empirical approach to answering the question cannot avoid conceptual issues relating to selection of appropriate indicators. Perhaps the question should be viewed as entirely conceptual.

In Well-being: Happiness in a worthwhile life, Neera Badhwar presents a philosophical argument that autonomy and reality-orientation are two facets of the same character trait. (In my last post I discussed another issue arising from this book, the question of whether human well-being should be viewed as objective or subjective.)

In brief, the argument is as follows. An autonomous person is self-governing. When we live autonomously, we “play an active role in shaping our individual selves, instead of slavishly following others, or surrendering direction of our lives to our fantasies, illusions, momentary urges or inertia”. Autonomous individuals have minds of their own – they rely on their own epistemic powers to form judgements about important issues, including the issue of how far they can rely on their own judgement. They are goal-directed and have a reliable self in charge - they not so self-confident as to be self-deluded. In order to have a reliable self in charge a person has to be reality-oriented. Autonomous individuals also accept responsibility for their actions, and in order to do that they must be reality oriented.

The difference between autonomy and reality-orientation lies only in their focus:

“The focus of reality-orientation is gaining the truth about, or understanding of, important things and responding accordingly, while that of autonomy is living by one’s own judgements and decisions”.

Much of Neera Badhwar’s discussion of the relationship between autonomy and realism is taken up with defence of her view against various possible criticisms. I found her discussion of claims that realism is bad for people to be particularly interesting. (The relevant chapter is based on a previously published article.)

The author concedes that when facts are devastating we might be better off remaining ignorant of them – some happiness based on ignorance is better than total misery based on knowledge. However, she is critical of empirical research which purports to show that holding positive illusions about oneself tends to promote happiness. She points to many problems with the research leading to these claims. She also implies that it is not possible to draw useful conclusions from the research findings, even if they are accepted at face value.  People who have positive illusions about their abilities could also be expected to have positive illusions about their happiness:

“the emotions and evaluations that express or constitute their illusions about their abilities, achievements, and future prospects … together entail a sense of meaning and enjoyment of life. … It follows then that insofar as happiness consists of these unwarranted evaluations and emotions, the connection between happiness and illusions is a conceptual, and not a causal, one”.

I have to think more about what means in relation to neural research findings which suggest that it is normal for humans to have an inbuilt optimistic bias. When I look around me most of the people I see seem to have both a realistic orientation and tendency to look on the bright side of life. 

The author makes clear that she is not opposed to optimism. She recognizes that self-fulfilling attitudes, whether positive or negative, are a pervasive aspect of human psychology. The point she is making is that realistic optimism about oneself and one’s future beats unrealistic optimism – and thus recognizes that it is possible to have a realistic basis for optimism (as I have previously argued on this blog).

Neera Badhwar notes that Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, leaders of the human potential movement, viewed realism as central to mental health and well-being. She notes that in Rogers' view the fully functioning individual is open to experience, distorting neither his perceptions of the world to fit his conception of himself, nor his conception of himself to fit his perceptions of the world. I find this particularly interesting in the light of Rogers’ use of Alfred Korzybski’s notion that “the map is not the territory”. Carl Rogers recognized that our maps do not serve us well if they are not realistic.

Is human well-being subjective or objective?

I usually try to begin the discussion of topics on my blog by explaining why the question and my answer might be of interest to potential readers. That is difficult this time because I am attempting to answer the question in the hope that doing so will help me to become less confused about the topic. However, confusion about subjectivity and objectivity seems fairly common - particularly so among economists - so hopefully what I am about to write will have a potential audience of more than one person.

In Free to Flourish I wrote:

“Observers can clearly make judgements about the extent that individual humans are flourishing or languishing in much the same way as they can make such judgements about plants and animals. In the case of humans, however, the subjects are capable of telling an observer how they feel about their own lives and their opinions usually deserve more respect than those observing. For example, it may appear obvious that people with poor physical health or very low income have a low quality of life, but if the individuals concerned feel content, what right has any observer to imply that they do not know how they feel?

As noted previously, individual flourishing involves a variety of factors including emotional wellbeing and life satisfaction, as well as more objective factors such as physical health, education and wealth. The relative weights any individual gives to these factors reflect personal preferences. …

If we were to substitute community values for personal preferences we would be at risk of attempting to measure the extent that an adult is flourishing according to values that he or she does not agree with. That would certainly be inappropriate.” (Chapter 5).

I stand by what I wrote. (At least I did earlier in the day when I wrote the preceding sentence.) 

Does that mean that I believe human well-being is objective or subjective? The first sentence in the quote implies that well-being is objective. Are the sentiments in the final paragraph of the quote consistent with those in the first sentence?

Before reading the first part of Well-Being: Happiness in a worthwhile life, by Neera Badhwar, a philosopher, I believed that well-being is subjective. Now I am fairly sure that there are objective standards of well-being.  (Many of the relevant issues are also discussed by Neera Badhwar in an article published last year.)

The problem is conceptual. My previous view that well-being is subjective was based on the view that it must be because it contains important subjective elements. That seems to have been the view of the welfare economists who declared interpersonal comparisons of utility to be impossible. It is also the view of the philosopher, Wayne Sumner, who suggested that the term ‘objective’ be reserved for the view that well-being is simply a matter of meeting certain objective standards, regardless of the individual’s emotional condition and her evaluation of her life.

At this point I recall a discussion a long time ago with an economist who pointed out to me that people often make interpersonal comparisons of utility - so we can hardly claim that such comparisons are impossible. In our everyday lives we often make judgements about whether other people are happy or sad, satisfied or unsatisfied with their lives, whether they feel that they are achieving anything worthwhile and so forth. Those judgements are based on what people say and do. They are often ill-informed, but that does not necessarily mean they are not objective. 

I suspect that it is only in their professional lives that economists have ever refrained from making interpersonal comparisons of utility. These days, many economists (self included) view the subjective ratings that individuals place on their happiness, satisfaction with life etc. as objective evidence pertaining to important aspects of their well-being relative to other people.

Neera Badhwar suggests that we should view theories of well-being as objective if they make objective worth essential to well-being. She argues that for individuals to be flourishing their lives must be supremely desirable and worthwhile, and therefore eminently worth living. They must not only meet the individual’s own standards of worth but be able to pass muster according to objective standards of worth.

The author argues that objective well-being requires self-direction:

“the idea of objective well-being is perfectly compatible with the idea that objectively worthy lives can take many different shapes depending on the interests, opportunities and abilities of the individual and, in fact, must take a shape that both suits the individual’s own psychological nature and meets her standards to count as a life of well-being”. (p 8)

Neera Badhwar answers those who argue that objective theories of well-being are paternalistic by pointing out that theories of well-being in themselves do not tell us to promote other people’s well-being, let alone to promote our conception of their well-being.

That is consistent with the position that I have previously taken that “the case for individuals to be responsible for their own lives does not necessarily rest on each individual being the best judge of what is good for himself or herself”. In my view it rests on the proposition that adult humans cannot fully flourish unless they accept responsibility for their own lives. (Free to Flourish, Chapter 3.)

Coming back now to the last paragraph of the quote at the beginning of this post, if I now accept that a flourishing life must pass muster in terms of objective standards of worth, can I still maintain that it is inappropriate to measure the extent that an adult is flourishing according to values that he or she does not agree with? 

I don’t think so. I can acknowledge that objective standards of worth are relevant, whilst also urging researchers to accept the implications of the fact that “community standards” can be controversial. But that does not mean that it is never appropriate "to measure the extent that an adult is flourishing according to values that he or she does not agree with". For example, it is appropriate to assert that it is not possible for slaves to flourish, even though it is possible that an individual slave might claim that freedom has no value to her.

How close is the relationship between freedom and life satisfaction?

I would be happy to declare myself a fan of the OECD’s Better Life index if it included an appropriate indicator of freedom. Perhaps the authors might argue that freedom is adequately covered by “civic engagement”. However, that seems like arguing that it is not possible for people to suffer persecution from government when they have the right to vote. I don’t think J S Mill would have been impressed:

“The limitation … of the power of government over individuals, loses none of its importance when the holders of power are regularly accountable to the community, that is, to the strongest party therein” (On Liberty, Chapter I).

Perhaps the authors of the index see freedom as a characteristic of the social environment that people desire because it enables them to have greater life satisfaction, rather than as one that contributes directly to the quality of life. I don’t buy that argument. Humans have a passion to control their own lives (even though many have no qualms in voting to have governments restrict the freedom of others). I predict that many users of the Better Life index would give a higher weight to individual freedom than to many of the other items included in the index, if they were given the opportunity to do so. (One of the features of the Better Life index is the ability of users to assign whatever weights they choose to the variables that are included in the index.)

It is possible, however, that freedom makes little difference to country rankings. That might happen if freedom indexes are highly correlated with life satisfaction. I am focusing attention here on the relationship between freedom and life satisfaction because most of the 11 components of the OECD’s Better Life Index are correlated with life satisfaction. Civic engagement is one of the exceptions. The others are education, safety and work-life balance.

The freedom indexes I have chosen to consider are the Fraser Institute’s economic freedom and personal freedom indexes. Both of those indexes are highly correlated with life satisfaction (r = 0.73 for personal freedom and r = 0.61) in OECD countries. A regression analysis shows both variables to have a positive (significantly greater than zero) influence on life satisfaction, together explaining 68% of the variation in life satisfaction among OECD countries. (The data and results are available from the author.)

The relationships between life satisfaction and the two freedom indexes are shown in the charts below.

There seems to have been a fairly strong tendency for people who argue that government policies should be directed toward raising average life satisfaction to advocate policies involving restrictions on freedom. Such people have been barking up the wrong tree. The countries with highest average life satisfaction are those with the least restrictions on economic and personal freedom.

Postscript: 
 I neglected to refer to a recent article by Boris Nikolaev entitled "Economic Freedom and the Quality of Life". This article provides a fairly extensive discussion of the relationship between economic freedom and the quality of life at a national level. 

  

Does nature show us the way to flourish?

There are good reasons to look to nature for an understanding of what it means for a human to flourish. By looking at nature we know that in many respects humans are similar to other animals. We consider some aspects of human flourishing in same way as we might consider whether animals in a zoo have adequate opportunities to flourish. For example, we consider whether humans have the food, shelter, companionship, and environmental interactions that are necessary for their physical and mental health.

However, when we look at human nature we also see potentialities that differ from those of other animals. We see greater cognitive capabilities, and greater potential for choice and self-direction. That suggests that human flourishing must involve development and exercise of cognitive abilities and skills in self-direction. When humans are flourishing they make fewer bad choices and are better at learning from their mistakes than when they are languishing.

The view just expressed is, of course, a Western libertarian view that owes much to Aristotle’s naturalistic perceptions of human flourishing. Contrary views are often heard, some of which also claim links to Aristotle. It is often argued that even adult humans are so prone to making bad choices – despite the help of family, friends and professional advisors - that they are unlikely to have happy lives unless they are subjected to a lot of paternalistic intervention by governments. Those who hold that view seem to think that governments are capable of designing and implementing regulatory systems that will enable people to have happier lives than under a spontaneous order relying on individual autonomy and mutually beneficial interactions with others. Such paternalists encourage people to become dependent on government like animals in a zoo become dependent on their keepers. 

 

The seemingly endless dispute over the relative merits of spontaneous orders and paternalistic governance has parallels in the disputes between Daoism and Confucianism in ancient China. That became evident to me while I was reading An Introduction to Daoist Philosophies by Steve Coutinho. The book also provides people in the West with a different way of considering what nature shows us about human flourishing.

I first encountered Daoist philosophy a few years ago when I stumbled across a quote from Laozi (also referred to as Lao-tzu or Lao-tze). I then read the Laozi (also referred to simply as the Tao Te Ching) and posted to my blog asking: Was Lao-Tzu a libertarian? When I wrote that post I had the impression Laozi was a person who lived in the 6^th century BCE, but there is actually no indisputable historical evidence of his existence. The Laozi may be a collection of the works of several authors.

In the early Daoist texts nature is perceived as the context in which humans finds their place, nurtured and sustained along with all other things. Nature is perceived as untamed, but it is not viewed through the frame of the predatory survivalism often seen in wildlife documentaries. Nor is nature viewed through the frame of Rousseau’s ideal of harmony and perfection. The Daoists saw nature as a source of inspiration about how we should live.

The Laozi does not view nature as some kind of entity which micromanages natural phenomena. It recognizes that the complex natural world could not exist if it had to be controlled or manipulated deliberately. The natural world allows living things to grow and flourish according to their natures.

The point of observing and understanding natural functioning is to provide a model of how we ourselves should behave. Steve Coutinho suggests that the inspiration that we can take from the Laozi is that we should refrain from imposing artificial structures in an attempt to control and manipulate things:

“We must first appreciate the natural tendencies of the circumstances, of our surroundings, of other people, and of ourselves. We should then explore the most efficient way of dealing with things, one that accords closely with their immediate tendencies. Rather than planning for all contingencies in advance, we should wait to observe how things develop, sense how they tend to move themselves, and then move with them, redirecting them with minimal effort”.

The somewhat anarchistic approach of Daoist philosophy stands in contrast to the Confucians, who sought to maintain social order through social hierarchies and ethical cultivation, and other branches of Chinese philosophy which advocated clear laws, regulations and standards, and emphasized language and linguistic distinctions.

Steve Coutinho’s book contains a chapter discussing the Daoist philosophy of skill, which is directly relevant to question of what nature tells us about how we can flourish. The chapter is based on the Zhuangzi and Liezi, which were written after the Laozi, but share some broad themes with it.

As Coutinho explains it, the path of cultivation of natural tendencies involves more than just going with the flow and following your desires - the interpretation of Daoist philosophy that is often implied by popularizations in the West.  Most of us no longer know instinctively how to live naturally because our thoughts and actions have become shaped by excessive artifice – unnatural complexity - which is a by-product of thousands of years of cultural development. The degree of artifice in our lives has divorced us from an intuitive understanding of the nature of things and of ourselves. The cultivation of natural tendencies and recovery of spontaneity require the undoing of some of this artifice.

What nature shows us is that natural creatures have a natural capacity to flourish without written instructions. Even when they know what they do, they do not necessarily know how or why they do what they do. It is the nature of humans to use their cognitive abilities to design and produce things and to enjoy cultural activities. What we can learn from nature is how to do these things in a simple way that is intuitive, natural, fluid and responsive to the natural tendencies of the phenomena one is engaged with.

An understanding of the Daoist message can be gained most readily by considering acquisition of physical skills. For example, in order to become skilled at archery a focus on scientific knowledge about how eyes and muscles work would be an unhelpful distraction. The skill can only be acquired through experiments in actual movement, which the teacher then attempts to correct and adjust. There are good reasons why this reminds me of the lessons I had in the Alexander Technique to help rectify stress-related back and neck problems.

The path to skill lies in nurturing the natural abilities we are born with. Many years of training are often required to develop increased sensitivity to the “innermost subtle tendencies” of the phenomena we are dealing with. Skilful performance requires awareness to be focused on the task so that potential distractions do not interfere.

The Daoist texts point toward the acquisition of the meta-level skill of being able to acquire new skills as well as the acquisition of specific skills. This “skill of skilfulness” can be applied more broadly to the art of living. As Steve Coutinho puts it:

“A flourishing life, a life lived well, for a Daoist, is one performed with consummate artistry”.

It seems to me that if more people in the West could think about that for a while it might help them to see the merits of spontaneous orders and to reject the artifices of paternalistic government. 

How does nature connectedness affect happiness?

White sands walk: Jervis Bay, NSW, Australia

How important is a constant intercourse with nature and the contemplation of natural phenomena to the preservation of moral and intellectual health!   Henry David Thoreau, Journal, 6 May 1851.

Thoreau still speaks eloquently for everyone who feels a need to spend time in the natural environment in order to re-charge their emotional batteries. Recognition of the importance of the natural environment to human happiness now seems to be supported by the findings of social research which show that nature connectedness - identifying with and feeling connected to the natural world – is correlated with happiness. The strength of this relationship is similar to that between happiness and personal income, marital status, volunteering, and personality traits such as conscientiousness and agreeableness.

Formal evidence on links between nature connectedness and happiness has only emerged during the last few years. What I write below is based mainly on a meta-analysis by Colin Capaldi, Raelyne Dopko and John Zelenski published in September last year. In order to be included in the meta-analysis, studies had to include at least one explicit, self-report measure of nature connectedness and at least one measure of happiness and report on their relationship. The meta-analysis covered 30 samples, giving a total sample size of 8523. Most samples came from Canada, the U.S. and Europe.

The meta-analysis showed that the strength of the measured relationship between nature connectedness and happiness was influenced by the way these variables were defined and measured. A measure of inclusion of nature in self had a stronger relationship than other measures of connectedness. Vitality was the happiness concept with the strongest relationship to nature connectedness.

The authors note that correlation between nature connectedness and happiness does not necessarily indicate that nature connectedness causes people to be happier. It is possible that causation might run from happiness to nature connectedness or that some third variable might be responsible for the observed correlation.

However, there is fairly clear evidence from another meta-study (by  Diana Bowler et al) that exercise in natural environments promotes greater emotional health benefits – in terms of feelings of energy, and less anxiety, anger, fatigue and sadness - than exercise in an artificial environment. There is also evidence that nature connectedness is positively related with time spend outdoors in contact with nature.

It is possible that some part of the correlation between nature connectedness and happiness is associated with feeling connected. Feeling connected to nature might be similar in that respect to feeling connected with the community. The relationship between nature connectedness and happiness is still evident, however, when other connections (e.g. family and culture) are controlled for.

The authors note that the relationship between nature connectedness and some forms of happiness may be adversely affected, to some extent, by a tendency of people who feel connected to nature to be worried about the future of the environment. Such concerns are more likely to dampen positive emotions than eudaimonic measures of happiness because such people are likely to become engaged in pro-environmental behaviours that make their lives seem more meaningful.

There is evidence that feelings of nature connectedness are stronger in some cultures than others and are influenced by early childhood experiences. That suggests to me that causation runs from nature connectedness to happiness, rather than vice versa.

Why are old Americans more satisfied with their lives than are old Europeans?

The latest WorldHappiness Report (2015) contains an interesting chapter examining how happiness varies around the world by gender and age. The chapter was written by Nicole Fortin, John Helliwell and Shun Wang.

What would you expect those comparisons to show? I guess many people would expect that, on average, women would be less happy than men because in most of the world the opportunities available to females are still less favourable than those available to males.

The data doesn’t actually show that. When people are asked to rate their lives relative to the best possible and worst possible life (i.e. using the so called Cantril ladder) the world averages show that until they are about 50, women tend to rate their lives more highly than men. Perhaps women are more inclined to look on the bright side of life.

In any event, differences between the happiness of women and men are much less marked than differences between young and old people. On average, happiness tends to decline to about age 40 - a few years later for men than women - and then to stay relatively flat.

That finding was a surprise to me. I was given the impression from research I had read about that happiness was U-shaped over the life cycle. When I looked for more recent literature, just now, I found an article by Paul Frijters and TonyBeatton, published in 2012, based on panel data for Germany, Britain and Australia, which suggests the dominant age-effect is a strong happiness increase around the age of 60, followed by a major decline after 75. So I should have had an open mind about what to expect.

The data in the World Happiness Report shows a great deal of variation in the relationship between age and happiness in different parts of the world. Happiness does not vary much with age in South-East Asia, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Happiness declines sharply with age in CEE&CIS region (former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Central Europe) and less sharply with age in Latin America, Middle East and North Africa and Western Europe. The only regions with the U-shape are East Asia and NA&ANZ (North America, Australia and New Zealand).

It does not surprise me that there is a different relationship between happiness and age in high and low income countries, but I did not expect to see the different patterns in Western Europe and NA&ANZ which are shown below (based on Figure 3.2 of the World Happiness Report 2015).The NA&ANZ data are dominated by America (regional averages are calculated using population weights) so I am seeking an explanation of why old Americans are relatively more satisfied with their lives than old Europeans.

The different pattern between America and Europe also showed up in survey respondents’ reports of some positive emotions experienced the preceding day: smiling and laughing a lot; enjoyment; and learning or doing something interesting. The survey data also shows that older women in Western Europe report experiencing greater sadness, physical pain and depression than do men of comparable age in that part of the world, or people of either gender in America.

A hint about the possible causes of the difference in patterns between America and Europe is given by looking at the determinants of life satisfaction, as indicated in the regression analyses undertaken for the report. Those determinants are income, health, generosity, corruption, freedom of choice and social report.

An inspection of the graphs showing how those variables differ according to the age of respondent suggests that the main area of difference is in respect of perceptions of social support. What this means is that, on average, older people in Western Europe perceive that they are less able to count on relatives and friends for support when they need it than are older people in North America.

It is interesting to speculate about the reasons why old people in Western Europe are less likely to feel that they can count on relatives and friends in times of need. The thought that passes my mind is that the reasons might have something to do with the nature of the welfare states of Western Europe, but that might just reflect my prejudices. 

Is there reliable evidence that people can learn to be happier?

There is plenty of evidence that people who use cognitive reappraisal strategies -  for example, changing the way they think about situations in order to reduce negative emotion – tend to have higher life satisfaction than those who try to suppress negative emotion. There is also a growing body of research findings that such skills can be learned and that some reappraisal strategies are more effective than others.

A recent study by Bryan Denny and Kevin Ochsner compared the effects of training using two common variants of reappraisal: distancing and reinterpretation. Distancing involves reappraisal of an emotional event by viewing it from the perspective of a third person observer or an objective, impartial observer. Reinterpretation involves reappraisal by changing the meaning of actions, context or outcomes e.g. by inventing a more positive story to interpret the event.

The 103 participants in the study were divided into three groups: on receiving training only in distancing; one receiving training only in reinterpretation and a third group that was asked to respond naturally to stimuli, but not trained in any form of reappraisal. The training was provided in four sessions separated by 2-5 days. Participants were presented with images and asked to let themselves respond naturally. Those who had been given reappraisal training were also asked to reappraise images.

Both distancing and reinterpretation led to drops in self-reported negative emotional responses over the four sessions. Participants in the distancing group also experienced drops in negative emotional response when they were asked to respond naturally. The results suggest that people can learn to make distancing a habitual response to emotional stimuli during a relatively short training course.

In another recent study Rachel Ranney, Emma Bruehlman-Senecal and Ozlem Ayduk compared the impact of three brief online cognitive reappraisal interventions: self-distancing (watching a personal negative experience as a fly on the wall); temporal distancing (considering the event from the perspective of their future selves); and positive reframing (identifying positive aspects of the experience). The results showed training in temporal distancing to be effective in raising well-being and positive reframing to be effective in reducing ill-being.

I went looking for evidence that people can learn to be happier to follow-up my preceding post about regret. I concluded that post by resisting the temptation to suggest that people who suffer from regrets that do not serve a useful purpose should learn cognitive retraining. At that stage I was not able to cite reliable evidence that such training was effective. Having found some evidence, however, I am not still not sure how effective it would be in dealing with regrets.

If someone regrets a bad choice made a long time ago, temporal distancing is unlikely to work. Viewing the choice as an impartial observer might not help either if it was a really bad choice. Positive reframing could help the person concerned to see something positive in the experience – for example, it could be seen as a learning experience, inducing positive changes in personality. Such reframing is likely to be difficult, however, if the person concerned believes that personality is fixed for life.

There is evidence that the implicit theories that people have about the extent to which attributes such as personality can change has important implications for their mental health. A recent study by Hans Schroder, Sindes Dawood, Matthew Yalch, Brent Donnellan and Jason Moser has shown that people who believe that their attributes can change report greater use of cognitive reappraisal and fewer mental health symptoms. This raises the question of whether people who currently believe that their attributes are set in stone are capable of learning to adopt a mind-set more conducive to improvement.

If your satisfaction with life is adversely affected by regret, what should you do about it?

The purpose of feelings of regret is presumably to help us to make better choices. That suggests that the best way to deal with regret is to make sure we make better choices in future. But regret can also put people into a frame of mind where they make poor choices and find it difficult to enjoy of life.

Regret does not feature prominently in conventional economic theory, even though everyone knows that sensible people take into account the potential for regret when they make decisions.  I suppose that is because Max U, the rational economic man of economic theory, does not let potential for regret prevent him from seeking to maximize utility. Even when economists allow for the possibility that Max might feel losses from the status quo to a greater extent than gains (as in prospect theory), the potential for disappointment and regret still does not come into consideration in the choices he makes.

It is normal for humans to feel disappointment when outcomes are worse than expected – for example when an investment fails even though we have good reasons to expect it to succeed. We feel regret about the opportunities we have foregone in making such investments. Regret is likely to be particularly intense if you mortgage your home to fund an unsuccessful investment.

It usually makes sense for people to take account of the potential for regret in making choices. It is also possible, however, for regret to lead people to make poor choices – choices they later regret. For example, when share prices slump, people who are unduly influenced by regret about the losses they have experienced may decide precipitously to reallocate funds to less risky investments, and later regret that they have sold at the bottom of the market. Alternatively, they may gamble to recover past losses (for example, by buying more shares) and come to regret that choice if the market falls even further. Some economic studies, for example theoretical and experimental work by Philip Strack and Paul Viefers, illustrates the potential for regret to influence decisions in this way.

There is some evidence that regret can have a large impact on life satisfaction. The results of a recent study by Olivia Pethel and Yiewei Chen seem particularly interesting, since these authors use a measure of the intensity of regret, in addition to indicators of negative decision outcomes and the tendency of people to feel regret. The study focuses on mature adults, people over age 35, who are old enough to have had opportunities to make decisions which they might regret. The findings of the study should probably be viewed with caution because of the small size of the sample (119 adults) sex composition (71% female) and the potential for bias in the informal sample selection process that was used.

The regret intensity variable used in the study was constructed by asking people how much they regretted having made wrong choices in various aspects of their life on a 5 point scale (1 = no regret; 5 = very strongly regret) and averaging across the scores. The results of the regression analysis suggest that “very strongly regretting” a wide range of choices in life would be likely to have a large impact on life satisfaction – reducing it by about 1.6 points on the 7 point scale used in the study.

The authors suggest that people who have lower levels of regret intensity may have developed effective emotional regulation strategies in dealing with life regrets. Unfortunately the study does not directly test the use of regulation strategies.  However, the regression results support previous findings that cognitive reappraisal - use of emotion regulation strategies that change the way situations that elicit negative emotions are viewed - has a positive impact on life satisfaction.

I will resist the temptation to conclude that everyone should be taught the bygones principle - much loved by economists - that decisions should focus only on future costs and benefits, leaving aside regrets about the past. In my experience, the bygones principle is much easier to apply to public policy than to one's private life. 

I will also resist the temptation to conclude that people who are allowing regrets to interfere with their enjoyment of life should learn cognitive reappraisal skills. It would be easy to draw upon my own personal experience to suggest ways people might be able to acquire such skills, but at this stage I can't cite reliable studies testing what works and what doesn't work.

Does it make sense to think of trade-offs between life satisfaction and wealth?

Before you answer the question, I would like you to conduct a couple of thought experiments.

The first step is to answer the following question:

All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life these days? Please give your answer as a number between 1 and 10, with a rating of 1 is you are dissatisfied and 10 if you are satisfied.

That is a standard question that has been asked by happiness researchers. Now we come to the thought experiments.

Thought experiment 1:

Imagine that your circumstances suddenly change so that it becomes possible for you to increase your peronal life satisfaction rating by 25% if you are prepared to sacrifice some wealth. What is the maximum amount of wealth that you would be prepared to sacrifice in order to achieve an improvement of 25% in your life satisfaction rating?

Don’t worry if the 25% improvement would take you beyond the top of the rating scale. For the purpose of this exercise it is deemed to be possible to increase your life satisfaction beyond the end of the scale e.g. from 10 to 12.5. That makes sense because people who are completely satisfied with their lives sometimes find that their lives get even better.

Thought experiment 2:

Now imagine a different scenario. Your circumstances change so that it becomes possible for you to increase you wealth by 25% if you are prepared to sacrifice some personal life satisfaction. How much life satisfaction would you be prepared to sacrifice in order to achieve a 25% increase in wealth?

My guess is that in answering the first question there are not many people who would be prepared to sacrifice all their wealth to obtain a 25% increase in life satisfaction. In relation to the second question I don’t think there would be many people who would be unwilling to sacrifice any life satisfaction (if only for a limited period) in order to obtain a 25% increase in wealth. Those are just my guesses. If large numbers of people tell me that I am wrong, I will have to admit that I have made a mistake.

What is the point of this exercise?  Some economists have been prepared to assume that the sole aim of individuals is to maximize life satisfaction as measured in social surveys. That might seem to be a reasonable assumption until you think of the implications. If your sole aim is to maximize personal life satisfaction it would be irrational not to sacrifice all your wealth in order to obtain greater life satisfaction, if that possibility became available. Similarly, it would be irrational to sacrifice any life satisfaction under any circumstances to obtain greater wealth.

If the choices that people make imply that they do not aim to maximize life satisfaction, that doesn’t mean that they are irrational. It just means that there are some things more important to them than life satisfaction, including some things that money can buy.

What could be more important to people than life satisfaction? Some clues are offered by research, discussed here a couple ofmonths ago, which asks people to choose between hypothetical situations with different ratings of life satisfaction and other well-being indicators. 

The people surveyed indicated a stronger preference for options offering high overall well-being to you and your family than for life satisfaction. Other well-being indicators ranked above life satisfaction included personal health, being a good, moral person and living according to personal values, the quality of family relationships, financial security, your mental health and emotional stability, a sense of security about life and the future, having many options and possibilities in life and freedom to choose among them and a sense that your life is meaningful and has value.

Are Fijians really happier about their lives than Australians?

This might be an appropriate question to consider on Australia Day.

My attention was aroused when I saw the headline “Global happiness survey shows Fijians are the world’s most content”, because I hadn’t previously seen any happiness data for Fiji. The headline refers to a survey of 65 countries recently conducted by WIN/Gallup. (The Gallup organisation involved is not the one that conducts the Gallup World Poll.)

When I looked further I found that the survey also has happiness data for Papua New Guinea, which shows that people in that country also tend to be relatively happy. By contrast, Australians appear to be relatively unhappy.

The question asked in the survey was: “In general, do you personally feel very happy, happy, neither happy nor unhappy, unhappy or very unhappy about your life?” I have constructed the average happiness ratings in the accompanying Figure by assigning a score of 5 to “very happy”, 4 to “happy”, 3 to “neither happy of unhappy”, 2 to “unhappy” and 1 to “very unhappy”.

I am not sure what to make of the rankings shown in the Figure because they seem to be difficult to square with the findings of other happiness surveys. This may be because the survey question is interpreted differently in different parts of the world.

A central issue, it seems to me, is whether the question is more likely to evoke emotional responses or responses that involve some cognitive input. John Hall and John Helliwell, who have expertise in happiness research, leave no doubt that they believe survey participants respond differently when asked how happy they are than when asked how happy they are with their lives:

“As has been shown in the first and second World Happiness Reports, respondents to surveys recognize the difference between happiness as an emotion and happiness as a judgment about the quality of life as a whole. The responses of individuals to these different questions are highly distinct. A very poor person might report himself to be happy emotionally at a specific time, while also reporting a much lower sense of happiness with life as a whole; and indeed, as we show later, people living in extreme poverty, whether in terms of income or social support, do report low levels of happiness with life as a whole”.

The WIN/Gallup survey appears to be asking people how happy they are with their lives, but it doesn’t seem to be interpreted that way. I used regression analysis in an attempt to explain the findings in terms of Gallup World Poll data on “life evaluation” (relative to the best and worst possible life) and “happiness yesterday”. The analysis was conducted for 60 countries for which some matching data was available. The analysis was not very successful in explaining the WIN/Gallup data: it suggested a positive relationship with the happiness variable and no relationship with the life evaluation variable.

Further analysis suggests that the WIN/Gallup question elicits a particularly positive response in African, South Asian, CIS and Latin American countries.

On Australia Day it might be worth thinking for a moment about the kind of response you are likely to get from an Australian if you ask: “In general, do you personally feel very happy, happy, neither happy nor unhappy, unhappy or very unhappy about your life?”. I expect it would be common to get a response something like: “I’m happy enough about my life, I suppose”. The surveyor interprets that to mean that the respondent is “happy”, whereas the respondent might actually feel very happy about his or her life, but reluctant to appear exuberant unless intoxicated.

Do people value the happiness of their families above their own personal happiness?

One way to answer this kind of question is to ask people to choose between hypothetical situations with different ratings of family well-being and variables such as life satisfaction, ratings of life relative to best and worst possible, appreciation of life and absence of negative emotion. That is the approach taken in an exploratory study by Daniel Benjamin, Ori Heffetz, Miles Kimball and Nichole Szembrot entitled, “Beyond Happiness and Satisfaction: Toward well-being indices based on stated preferences.

The people surveyed tended to indicate a stronger preference for options offering high “overall well-being to you and your family” than for any options regarding the 135 other aspects of well-being covered in the survey. The findings were based on an internet survey of 4,600 Americans.

The results help to explain why previous studies have shown that many people are prepared to sacrifice life satisfaction in order to obtain higher incomes.

Some of the other findings of the study are interesting:

• Life satisfaction is ranked more highly than positive emotion (e.g. “how happy you feel”).
• The absence of negative emotion, such as anger, stress, pain and worry tends to rank around the middle of aspects of well-being covered.
• Eudaimonic dimensions of well-being, such as being a moral person and living according to personal values tend to rank highly.
• Other aspects of personal well-being to be given a high ranking include health, the quality of family relationships, mental health and emotional stability, financial security and “having many options and possibilities in your life and the freedom to choose among them”.
• Men tended to give higher ranking to “your sense that your life is meaningful and has value”, whereas women tend to rank more highly “your mental health and emotional stability”.
• As regards policy options, greatest importance was attached to “freedom from corruption, injustice and abuse of power in your nation”, “the morality, ethics and goodness of other people in your nation” and “freedom of speech and people’s ability to take part in the political process and community life”.

The authors are at pains to point out the exploratory nature of their study and the many problems yet to be resolved in developing well-being indexes based on stated preferences. That might explain why some results that seem anomalous. For example, it is difficult to understand why “your rating on a ladder where the lowest rung is ‘worst possible life for you’ and the highest rung is ‘best possible life for you” is ranked far below “how satisfied you are with your life”( 103 versus 13). Previous research suggests that survey respondents view high ratings on those well-being indicators as close substitutes. Again, the ranking of “your material standard of living” (98) is much lower than the ranking of “your financial security” (6) and “your feeling that you have enough time and money for the things that are most important to you” (12).

My final comment on the study is that I was left wondering whether it might be possible to use a simpler approach to obtain useful indicators of well-being based on stated preferences. What I have in mind is to use each respondent’s current income and ratings of various other aspects of well-being as the initial basis for comparison and then asking them to choose between options involving various combinations of changes in income and other aspects of well-being. That might enable researchers to compare the marginal utility of different aspects of well-being in dollar terms and to map how preferences for different aspects of well-being tend to differ for people at different income levels.

What makes people grumpy about life in Australia?

Most people who live in Australia seem to be highly satisfied with life in this country. Data from the 2013 AQOL Australian Unity wellbeing survey suggests that 75 percent of people give life in Australia a grade of 8/10 or above. Less than 4 percent of people give life in Australia a grade of less than 5/10.

Most of the people who give Australia a rating of less than 8/10 are not particularly grumpy, but there are some questions worth trying to answer about what makes them less satisfied than the rest. Are they particularly grumpy about some aspects of life in Australia, or are they less than satisfied with several different aspects? Are they grumpy because they enjoy grumping, or are they unhappy people? If they are unhappy, is this related to their personal circumstances?

In this post I use the survey data to compare the characteristics of the lower quartile – the 25 percent who gave life in Australia a grade of 7/10 or less - with the remaining 75 percent of the population.

I was pleased to discover that the lower quartile is not comprised disproportionately of grumpy old men. On average, the  age and sex of those who gave a relatively low rating to life in Australia was much the same as for the remainder of the population.

 Figure 1 suggests that those who are grumpy with life in Australia are somewhat more inclined to give any aspect of life in this country a failing grade (less than 5/10) than are the remainder of the population. They were most grumpy about government, but they shared that attitude with many people who were satisfied with life in Australia. (The survey was conducted in August 2013, not long before a Federal election which resulted in a change of government.) In proportionate terms, people in the bottom quartile were most grumpy about social conditions, the economy and national security.

As might be expected, Figure 2 suggests those in the lower quartile are more likely than the remainder to be grumpy with more than one aspect of life in Australia. Nevertheless, multiple grumpiness is not particularly common, even among people in the lower quartile. Only a tiny percentage of the population are grumpy about all aspects of life in this country.

Figure 3 suggests that people who are relatively dissatisfied with life in Australia tend to have lower satisfaction with their own lives. There do not seem to be many people who get a lot of personal satisfaction from being grumpy about life in Australia.

The people who are relatively dissatisfied with life in Australia cannot generally be characterized as being grumpy because they are particularly dissatisfied with personal relationships or health. Figure 4 suggests that they are more likely to be particularly dissatisfied with their future security and standard of living. They are also more likely to feel unsatisfied with the community in which they live. (The relevant question is: “How satisfied are you with feeling part of your community?”)

The general picture that emerges is that the people who are less satisfied with life in Australia tend to be particularly grumpy about the way social and economic conditions are impacting on their personal lives. Perhaps many of them are disappointed because their expectations of economic security and community support are not being met.

Why am I interested in happiness research?

“THOMAS GRADGRIND, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts and calculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing for anything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir - peremptorily Thomas - Thomas Gradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to get some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (all supposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of Thomas Gradgrind - no, sir!

In such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whether to his private circle of acquaintance, or to the public in general.” Charles Dickens, Hard Times, Chapter2.

I'm not like that. However, an interest in happiness research may seem to many people to imply an obsession with measuring, calculating and attempting to understand things that are not meant to be understood. 

Perhaps trying to understand what makes people happy is a bit like trying to understand why jokes are funny. It isn’t obvious that an understanding of what makes jokes funny would be much help to anyone in telling jokes, or how an understanding of what makes people happy would help anyone to become happier.

It is fairly easy to explain how I came to be interested in happiness research, so I will begin by writing about that. In my work as an economist I spent more than a few decades considering what government policies were likely to advance the well-being of the people in the countries where I have lived and worked (mainly Australia and New Zealand. It seemed fairly obvious that the vast majority of Australians and New Zealanders wanted higher incomes, so it was reasonable to assume that would improve their well-being. If someone questioned whether higher incomes would make people any happier, my defence was that economists should be in the business of making it possible for people to have happier lives rather than advising them how to spend their money.

At the same time, I could not help becoming interested in the puzzle of why happiness surveys showed little or no increase in average happiness ratings in high income countries over several decades while average income levels rose substantially. This is of course Easterlin’s puzzle - named after the economist Richard Easterlin.

I stopped being puzzled once I understood that happiness surveys measure emotional well-being - a component of well-being rather than the whole package. There is no reason to expect the value that people place on physical health, education, housing and safety, among other things, to be fully reflected in measures of emotional well-being. 

Emotional well-being is strongly related to self-esteem, optimism and the feeling of being in control of one’s life – none of which would be expected to be strongly influenced by further increases in incomes in high-income countries.

It is true, of course, that when people see higher incomes as the pathway to emotional bliss they are unlikely to be satisfied with one pot of gold - even if they find the end of a rainbow. But most people seem to make sensible choices. They might seek a higher income if that is necessary to pursue objectives that they consider to be worthwhile. For many people, higher incomes are incidental to career objectives. There is no reason to expect people to stop trying to achieve more in life just because they are satisfied with their current standard of living.

It seems to me that if we are interested in measuring well-being, then the survey measures of happiness are just one of the items we should look at. I favour the approach taken by the OECD in its Better Life Index.

However, an indicator approach doesn’t give economists a value-free measure of well-being. It leaves open the question of what weights should be given to the various component indexes. The OECD leaves the value judgement in the hands of the users of its index. That is more appropriate than having researchers assign weights, but it would be good to see how weights might need to differ to reflects the different values of people in different parts of the world. In my view the Better Life Index should be accompanied by illustrative weights derived from a values survey.

So, one of the reasons why I am interested in happiness research is apparent from what I have written. Happiness research is relevant to measurement of human well-being and that is relevant to economic policy.

I am particularly interested in the relationship between freedom and flourishing. Do government restrictions on individual freedom – in the wars against drug taking, smoking, alcohol, obesity, overwork etc. - actually have the desired effect of enabling people to have happier lives? I don’t think so. The policies adopted by governments seem designed to make people less happy in an attempt to get them to adopt healthier lifestyles, but I don’t know where to find the evidence to prove it.

In any case, that is only part of the story. My interest in happiness research is not always closely related to government policy. Some of my recent posts have taken me into the relationship between life satisfaction and the incidence of negative emotional experience. I am not sure why I am interested in such matters. Nevertheless, it seems more satisfying than spending my time trying to understand what makes jokes funny.