Haybron ch3-4, Life Satisfaction & Measuring Happiness
Again, some of these questions will likely turn up (in one form or another) on our first exam at the end of September. (Thanks to Patricia for the quizlet.) Reply to any of the discussion questions you like, in the comments space. OR, come up with your own comments and/or questions. Try to post at least three separate comments/questions/links prior to each class, in the comments space below.1. Is satisfaction with your life the same as thinking it's going well?
2. Does rating your life satisfaction provide reliably objective insight into your degree of happiness?
3. In what sense do "most people actually have good lives"?
4. Can the science of happiness tell us which groups tend to be happier?
5. What (verbally-expressed, non-numerical) ratio of positive over negative emotional states does happiness probably require?
6. What percentage of American college students said they'd considered suicide?
Discussion Questions (please add yours):
- Are you having wonderful life, like Wittgenstein allegedly said he did? 34
- Today, right now, where would you rate your life on a 1-10 scale? What do you think that rating says about your satisfaction and your happiness? How much has it, or will it, fluctuate in the days, weeks, and years to come?
- Do you have a good life? What will they say about you at your funeral? Will you be gratified if your children have a life comparable to yours?
- Could you be happy in Maldonia? 42 In general, are you more or less happy than the people around you?
- Do you agree with Mill's statement? 46
- Which face on the chart is yours today? 47
- Is it "impossible that 94% of Americans are happy"? 50
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Old Podcast
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"Brad's Status" on Fresh Air - a new film on status anxiety and the pursuit of elusive happiness.
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How do you Measure Happiness? The Top Questionnaires
Measuring happiness is at least as difficult as catching rare and elusive butterflies. What kind of net should we use? At the Pursuit of Happiness project, we try to collect and analyze the most scientific studies on happiness and subjective well-being (SWB). The question is, how does one evaluate what the most “scientific” studies are? Naturally, randomized and controlled studies are more reliable. These kinds of studies often require an enormous amount of effort and funding, and many studies that claim to do this are flawed in various ways.
One more major challenge to reliability is how these studies measure the happiness or SWB of their subjects. The following is a list of the most widely used and respected questionnaires. As you can see, we can discover some major differences in how they approach the issue, which reflect different definitions and perceptions of happiness.
Chasing it may not work, but neither does sitting and waiting.
Oxford Happiness Inventory (Argyle and Hill)
Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper)
Satisfaction with Life Scale (Deiner, Emmons, Larsen and Griffin)
Panas Scale (Watson, Clark, Tellegen)
And this is Todd Kashdan’s thoughtful critique of the above scales:
The assessment of subjective well-being (issues raised by the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire)
We should mention a recent measurement of Subjective Well Being created by the OECD, as part of their very sophisticated and broad ranging survey, theBetter Life Initiative. This initiative is fascinating and includes some eye-popping graphics. To see their detailed report on SWB and the questions they used to measure it, please refer to the end note.
The strong point of both the Panas Scale and the OECD Subjective Well Being scale is that they measure both positive and negative affect, which, as one might expect, have a clear inverse correlation.
http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/science-of-happiness/measuring-happiness/
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And speaking of Buddhists, Robert Wright's audacioiusly-titled Why Buddhism is True tackles the western secular version as a philosophy of happiness.
No comments?
ReplyDeleteYou don't have to reply to my questions, but I do hope we'll all make a habit of posting comments on the assigned readings prior to each class... and prior to class DAY, if possible (so we'll all have a chance to see and think about them).
Gary Wedgewood, August 31, 2021: Why is there no mention by Haybron of "purpose" in life as a source of happiness?
ReplyDeleteI agree that purpose is very important. When I think of happiness overall, not just in the present moment, I am thinking "Am I working towards my goals? Am I satisfied with my progress? Do I know what my goals even are/have I set good ones?" I think this is very similar to a self-assessment of life satisfaction. I may have been happy and carefree, but If I let an aspect of life pass me by, I may report unsatisfied. Alternatively, I could have struggled a lot, lost friends, family, and generally live the life of a character in a tragicomic play- but if I came out on the other end with some goal accomplished, I may feel satisfied in my old age.
DeleteBy the way, Vincent S. wrote the Aug. 31st Comment at 11:25AM, "I agree that purpose is..."
DeleteI like the idea of happiness as the fulfillment of directed goals .
DeleteHowever, does purpose require a moral aim? Must it take into account the well being of others? And is meaning a necessary component for it to be considered purpose? Also Since serial killers have a deep sense of purpose or even duty to kill does this mean purpose requires a morality? Just food for thought.
In my experience, being content with what you have, where you are, in the current moment is the greatest predicter of happiness.
ReplyDeleteVery true. I wonder where, however, the happiness "comes from," however. I and my friend could be in the exact same present, worried about the same worries, and glad about the same good things, and yet I am happy and my friend is not. Our only differences (that matter here) are our physical/mental disposition and our pasts (which are also two inextricably linked factors). Indeed it seems to me that the disposition of some is such that their "scale is tipped" towards sadness/gloom, and that if happiness can even be achieved in their present moment, it must be a much more significant form of happiness that reaches them from the outside to balance out the inner sadness... or perhaps it isn't a matter of degree but that the sadness of the past cannot be washed away be an ephemeral present happiness, and some people therefore carry around heavy locks on their ankles which weigh down their happiness, unlikely to encounter the right key with which they can unshackle themselves.
DeleteKind of goes along with Maslow's hierarchy of needs in my opinion. He believes that if you believe your all needs have been met, then you will achieve your highest potential and it will result in happiness. The way you perceive the world and everything around you influences whether you are content/happy or not.
DeleteMaslow kept coming to mind for me as well.
DeleteInteresting defintion of happiness, typical of a psychologist haha.
I always found Maslow's hierarchy of needs reductive and even degrading to humans. In his hierarchy we are almost given the amount of consideration as a well liked pet. Thinking mostly in terms of needs, as if we are all fulfilled by the mere meeting of needs and fulfilling of desires. If only we as humans were that simple. I agree the way you see the world and your environment are influences on happiness.
As I wake up on this gloomy Tuesday morning, it is not hard to say that my placement on the "Smiley-Face Chart" would be lower than the average day. This is especially true after being forced to trudge my way to Peck Hall from the gravel lot due to the lack of available parking. However, when reading this question, it was as if my spirits were lifted simply from the question itself.
ReplyDeleteI must admit that this is a rather strange phenomenon. After all, I was just griping with my father about the misfortunes of my life no less that half an hour ago as I made my dampened trek. So, what could prompt such a change in emotion from such a simple question? Perhaps, and I must admit that this explanation is thrown from the cuff, it allowed me to self reflect on all that I do have and come to a state of satisfaction that produced the all too familiar phrase "It could be worse."
Of course, such a proposition circles us back around into emotional state theory vs. life satisfaction theory. Can you really be happy on such a day as I have described? Maybe not in the moment, but your life is not so easily defined as what is currently happening. The present is all too real, but it does not negate all that you have experienced and felt in the past. Can we not be happily satisfied with the whole of our life while we cry to ourselves in the evening or barrage our father with our misfortunes?
To put more simply, it is not how one feels in the current moment or even in a series of recurrent moments that defines a person's life and experiences. It is the complete experience that should be object of an individual's inquiry on happiness. So, to wrap back around and answer the the question on where I am today on the Smiley-Face Chart, I would place myself somewhere between the second and third face, comfortably satisfied.
1. No, although both terms are subjective, "going well" signifies a positive trajectory in life, whereas "life satisfaction" takes the present and past of one's life and evaluates it in summary. Their biggest difference is where in time you are looking.
ReplyDelete2. As certain cases show, an affirmative or negative life satisfaction does not correlate to any reliable metric of happiness across persons, because the phrase 'life satisfaction' can mean lots of different things depending on who you ask. As long as someone can say, "it could be worse," they could consider themself "satisfied with life" despite experiencing very low instances of happiness.
3. Most people have 'good lives' because when asked to self-report, an overwhelming majority claim that they are happy and say similar positive things about their life. In reality, many people are dealing with serious problems which negatively affect happiness.
4. Yes, statistics can tell us which groups of people (sharing an important aspect of life) tend to be happier, though one important factor when making a 'happiness study' is the power of comparison. As long as someone feels happier than some other person, they may be liable to say they are happy, despite realistically having a lower than average collection of happy moments.
5. Our Happiness Introduction book suggests a 1/3 ratio of unhappy to happy states of mind.
Discussion Question 1)
Mostly yes. I think Wittgenstein had a disposition for unhappy present states of mind, but in his having a wonderful life, perhaps he thinks of his accomplishments, adventures, and interactions as worthwhile components of life, and was therefore satisfied to perform them. I would say similarly, that by the time my life has came to an end I can hopefully feel satisfied/accomplished/etc. so that even if I was mostly unhappy, I can still have had a wonderful life.
Discussion #2)
My gut says 7, though I believe that as the book clearly demonstrates, the numbers our brain associates with a happiness scale may as well be pulled out of thin air. If I can say one good thing about me, its that I can usually feel happier than what I have seen as the average person in a hard time if I have something to look forward to.
"Is it impossible that 94% of Americans are happy?"
At this moment, I would guess more than 6% of Americans are desperately struggling. With the end of the Eviction Moratorium, hundreds of thousands of Americans and their families are now out of a house and many will struggle to ever find housing again outside of something similar to a government housing project. So, there is clearly a bias towards self-inflating happiness assessments when presented the question by a surveyor.
Rereading my last paragraph, I guestimated the "Hundreds of thousands of Americans" who will be out of a house.
DeleteAccording to a 10-second google search, 3.5 millins USA-ians will be at risk of eviction with the end of the ban, so my hundreds of thousands evicted seems a very conservative estimate
High satisfaction of life does not necessarily mean that there is a higher degree in happiness. You can be dissatisfied with aspects of your life but be inherently happy at the same time.
ReplyDeleteVery true, important point and distinction.
DeleteHaha I more or less fall under this: devoid of meaning, but in good mood.
Waking up at 4:00 for an opening shift would usually have me in a slightly grumpy mood, but to wake up and look out and see the rain, it actually was a great start to my morning. I would even say my placement on the smiley chart was higher than it typically would be. Haybron mentioned in the book that on rainy days peoples' answers were a little lower or "less happy", but I think it is the exact opposite for me.
ReplyDeleteIt's strange honestly, recently no matter the circumstance, I have found myself being more content. Even more than content, comfortable. I am working more hours than I ever have, just moved into a new house, just picked up a second minor, and somehow I have been reasonably content and satisfied. I don't know if I necessarily think this means I am happier per say (obviously that's the whole debate of the class), typically I would be on face 3, but today I am peacefully on face 2.
To piggyback on the discussion question concerning Mill's quote on page 46, if happiness, or joy, is essentially escaping difficult times, is it possible to be joyful in sorrow? If not, why does it appear that many people find hope in despair?
ReplyDeleteI would say not, you cannot be happy and in sorrow. Unless you are Nietzsche haha. Despair is the absence of hope, by defintion you cannot hope in despair. You can strive for meaning in despair, this is something I myself do.
DeleteI think it would be extremely hard for me to be genuinely happy if I lived in Maldonia. I, even most times being surrounded by relatively “happy” people, am a fixer ad love to take on other people’s problems. It would quiet literally be my own personal hell to be constantly surrounded, day-in day-out, by people who were unhappy and discontent with life. Even aside from the fact that I feel the need to fix other peoples’ problems, I don’t see how anyone could be genuinely happy surrounded by people who are in pain and suffering. Farther than that, I think it would be borderline unhealthy for a person to be able to ignore the emotional/mental state of their entire surround population. Now, obviously, I believe there is a healthy level of balance of being involved and engaged in your community as well as maintaining a healthy level of separation in order to keep your emotional and mental needs taken care of first and foremost.
ReplyDeleteI would say generally I am around the same level of happy as the people I surround myself with. As I previously stated, I am a fixer and somewhat of an emotional sponge, so I try to surround myself with pretty optimistic, “happy” people. I think you also share a lot of emotional energy with the people you’re surrounded with, so the happier I am, the happier they are and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteDo I have a good life? Yes, without a doubt yes. When assessing the “rank” (for lack of a better phrase) of my life, I have to ask myself what standards I need to meet for myself to consider this life good. Are all my basic needs met? Yes. Do I have a loving and caring support system? Yes. Am I pursuing something (personal, professional, academic) that is engaging and satisfying? Yes. Now obviously I do have things in my life that I am dissatisfied with and wish I could change or improve, but even those things, as many as there are, don’t have really any significant impact on my overall outlook on my life or my happiness or my level of life satisfaction.
I hope they will say I was passionate at my funeral. That I was so dedicated to the things I loved that it almost drove me crazy at times. I would hope that they would say they felt comfortable with me, that they were able to let their guard down with me. I hope my mother isn’t alive to be at my funeral, but if she were, I could only hope that she would say raising me was blissfully chaotic. That it was hard work, but she believed it paid off.
No, I am neither as ravaged by demons as Wittgenstein, nor am I directly apprehensive of the deep sense of meaning, drive, direction and purpose as Wittgenstein. My life has direction, and aim, or to quote Nietzsche "a why can bare any how, or in this sense a why to bare my how. But as much pleasure and as good of mood and spirits as I am in as of late, I do not apprehend a tenth the meaning that I figure Wittgenstein did. More or less I have felt for all intents and purposes my life to be entirely without meaning, since I feel entirely disassociated from all aimed actions and goals, from any overarching meaning. No action feels anymore meaningful than any other action, to put more simply. Or put another way I have a meaning relativism in my own life. I honestly derive zero meaning from life as a whole, it does not appear any more meaningful than death, non existence, un-being. And I feel so distant from humanity as a whole I um unable to comprehend such care and duty for the well being of people as an organism or the humanist obsessions with humans. Humans are no more or less interesting than any other creature on earth, and no more or less important, we are just one being among many. I feel as much kinship with the average person I have met throughout my life as I would an ameba. Too quote Cioran the great existentialist philosopher: “As far as I am concerned, I resign from humanity. I no longer want to be, nor can still be, a man. What should I do? Work for a social and political system, make a girl miserable? Hunt for weaknesses in philosophical systems, fight for moral and esthetic ideals? It’s all too little. I renounce my humanity even though I may find myself alone. But am I not already alone in this world from which I no longer expect anything?” The tortures we will experience in life will not outweigh the short term satisfaction and pleasure from successfully attained aims, is another way of saying this.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing is despite having above average mood levels, laughing and smiling more than the norm, I will still be considered a pessimist. The reason for this: the immense suffering I have experienced in my life has blunted any perception of meaning.
Calm, peaceful, meaningless would be my description of my current internal state.
ReplyDeleteI think it says nothing, since it is impossible to understand yourself objectively.
It will fluctuate like crazy since nothing is less dependable than my mood.
I have a good life. Unless good is meant in a moral sense, since I am averse to all moral aims and moral life. Hopefully nothing, the idea of people thinking about me disturbs me. However if some of my crazier dreams came true before death that would be immensely satisfying for me. Also who cares, I am dead it makes no difference. However I would prefer my body was thrown into Olympia National Forest, so I could be fertilizer for something I like, instead of just rotting in a coffin. I have no intents on having children, I no longer even feel the desire to date. I am a celibate. This question is not applicable to me. If I were to pretend I had children I would say my sole goal would be to help them learn the tools for maximal meaning in life.
No, I will not be happy anywhere, especially not in Maldonia. At least not by other peoples standard. But by my low standard to not be in continual pain is close enough.
I can never know anyone else's internal state, however I seem to laugh and smile a lot, as well as experience plenty of excitement and elevated mood more so than what appears normal. I cannot state with certainty if I am more or less happy, I show outer signs of not being as miserable as some. But the problem of my lack of experience of meaning probably factors into the question. I experience plenty of positivity that is totally removed from meaning. Whether that is happiness I do not know.
No I do not, universal value claims require a binding absolute moral standard, and I do not believe in or take seriously morality/absolute standards so no. I do not strive for a life filled with pain, and enjoy pleasure same as anyone. But neither of these: avoidance of pain, striving for pleasure, are my drive, nor is it a value of mine, nor are either of these valid values in my opinion. They are simply aspects of life.
It is impossible to even measure pleasure or pain, some people are effectively dying of pain, and yet are in fine physical health. The opioid crisis is more or less driven by this problem, which has no observable or measurable basis. The interior state of many people is rife with agonizing pain for no discernable reason. Same goes for a now common problem in high tech societies like Japan where healthy middle aged men die suddenly of heart failure. The stress killed them, yet they reported no complaints and were in fine condition by all observable signs. Yet we cannot observe or measure this internal state of theirs's.
27%, I am not actively miserable.
Yes it is impossible. Most Americans are crumbling, the health of the people of this nation is terrifyingly bad, stress is high, depression rates are ballooning, and life expectancy is on the decline. This is a country of unhappy people, it could be said.