Happiness (Subjective Well-being)

1. Michael Hoerger Happiness(Subjective Well-being)

2. Introduction • What is happiness? • Subjective well-being: • Participants report on own positive and negative feelings • High positive affect: happiness, pleasure, excitement, contentment, meaning • Low negative affect: anxiety, sadness, worthlessness, restlessness, dejection • Compare ourselves to our reference group

3. Culture • Average personal income matters up to $10,000, but not much after that • Egalitarianism = more happiness • Freedom to choose = more happiness • Instability = unhappiness • In the U.S.: lower happiness for African Americans than whites

4. Northern Europe U.S.A. Russia

5. Personality • Happiness is relatively consistent across lifespan • Temperament + Socialization • Low neuroticism, high extraversion • Assertiveness • Self-regulation • Personal Control • Psychopathology

6. Gender • Women: ↑ ↑ anxiety, depression, and mood disorders • Men: ↑ anger and aggression • Smaller differences for… • American minorities • Developing countries • Amish

7. Age • Correlates r = .10 with happiness • Larger for males • Smaller or negative for females! • Retrospective accounts show college years to be the happiest • Happier people live longer

8. Pursuit of Happiness • What choices can we make to maximize happiness? • “Whether it's the thing that matters or the thing that doesn't, both of them matter less than you think they will” – Gilbert • Reference points and coping • Many factors NOT important for happiness, but a few are…

9. Health • Correlates r = .30 with happiness • Health causes happiness and vice versa • Mild long-term impact for stable disabilities • Harder to adapt to progressive diseases • Mild benefits of attractiveness and cosmetic surgery for women; height for men

10. Work • People who work are happier • Happier people work more effectively • Unemployed are much less happy • Boredom, worse physical and psychological health, lower income, lower education • Worse impact among high SES • Reverse finding for retired people

11. Income • Matters more to poor countries/people • Income correlates r = .17 with happiness in the U.S. • After about $10,000 / year, personal income does little to affect happiness • “Comparison income” more important than “actual income”

12. No r Little r Big r

13. Education • Greater effects in less-educated countries • Correlates r = .10 with happiness, mainly by increasing income and job opportunities • r = .10 between IQ and happiness • Socioeconomic status (combination of education, income, and occupation) correlates r = .30 with happiness in the U.S.

14. Relationships • Ranked most to least happy: Married, single, widowed, divorced/separated • Children? • Provides social support • Difficulty of bereavement

15. Love Money Importance Happiness

16. Leisure Activities • Participating in valued activities • Working toward personal goals • “Happy people know what they want to do and are doing it” – Brickman and Coates • Csikszentmihalyi’s (chick-sent-me-high) idea of “flow” • Behavioral activation • Social benefits

17. Religion • Religiousness correlates r = .10 with happiness • Mainly due to third variables, such as social support, marriage, class, personality • “Does religion cause happiness or vice versa? There is little clear evidence on this point”

18. Social Policy • National happiness registry? • Promote psychological and physical health, and leisure activities • Focus on extremes: • Progressive diseases, low income, unemployed, bereavement and divorce

19. Quotes • Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.... They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we shall think. --Jeremy Bentham • Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day. --Benjamin Franklin

20. When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. --Helen Keller • That is happiness; to be dissolved in something complete and great. --Willa Cather • Happiness is a habit--cultivate it. --Elbert Hubbard • How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure. --William James

21. Puritanism--the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. --H.L. Mencken • Modern Americans travel light, with little philosophical baggage other than a fervent belief in their right to the pursuit of happiness. --George Will • To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others. --Albert Camus • Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold, the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul. --Democritus

22. Michael Hoerger To cite this lecture: • Hoerger, M. (2007, April 23). Happiness and Subjective Well-Being. Presented at a PSY 220 lecture at Central Michigan University.