How's that whole pursuit of happiness thing working out for you? Are you happy? How do you know you're happy? Just how happy are you?
Recently, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that we must look beyond economic indicators because economics isn't just about money, it's about promoting "the enhancement of well-being."
Welcome to the world of Happiness Studies, and Happiness Economics, a concept also known as "Hedonomics". Bernanke explained what many academics have known for years, that once basic material needs are met, more wealth isn't shown to make people happier. This is known as the Easterlin Paradox. Recent studies have shown that any income above about $75k does not make a person happier (Ok, I'm sure that depends on where you live, but you get the point). Americans are wealthier than they were 60 years ago, but apparently no happier. There is what's called the “hedonic treadmill” hypothesis, holding that we quickly adjust to improved situations, or nicer things, and no longer delight in them, and also that happiness is relative (the point I was raising last week). A Harvard professor wrote a book talking about how people constantly misjudge what will make them happy. He says we believe things like variety and more choices will make us happier, but that usually they don't, and we are then disappointed by what we thought would make us happy.
So if more wealth doesn't make you happier, what does? Surveys have consistently shown that physical and mental health, the strength of family and community ties, a sense of control over one's life, and opportunities for leisure activity trump having more money when it comes to happiness. It also turns out work is an important factor in happiness, and interestingly, so are relationships with women, for both sexes.
So how do you know how happy you are? I mean can happiness be measured and compared? Apparently, yes! One measure of happiness is this Micro-econometric happiness equation: Micro-econometric happiness equations have the standard form: Wit = α + βxit + εit , where W is the reported well-being of individual i at time t, and X is a vector of 3 known variables including socio-demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.
Did you get all that?
Don't laugh! You would be amazed to know how much serious scholarly work is being done in the field of happiness. The Stanford Business Journal recently included an article showing how happiness correlated strongly to the use of time. Feeling like we have control over the use of our time is big. While some findings on the subject of how we spend our time were intuitive (like spending time with people being something that makes us happy), I particularly liked the advice that one could enjoy experiences without actually spending time doing them. "Research in the field of neuroscience has shown that the part of the brain responsible for feeling pleasure - the mesolimbic dopamine system - can be activated when merely thinking about something pleasurable, such as drinking a favorite brand of beer or driving a favorite type of sports car. In fact, this research shows that people sometimes enjoys anticipating an activity more than actually doing it." This is obviously consistent with the finding that the actual experience is often a disappointment. Also, "To increase happiness, it can make sense to focus on the here and now -because thinking about the present moment (vs. the future) has been found to slow down the perceived passage of time. Simply breathing more deeply can have similar effects." While we can always make more money, we can't make more time.
So how do you know how happy you are? I mean can happiness be measured and compared? Apparently, yes! One measure of happiness is this Micro-econometric happiness equation: Micro-econometric happiness equations have the standard form: Wit = α + βxit + εit , where W is the reported well-being of individual i at time t, and X is a vector of 3 known variables including socio-demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.
Did you get all that?
Don't laugh! You would be amazed to know how much serious scholarly work is being done in the field of happiness. The Stanford Business Journal recently included an article showing how happiness correlated strongly to the use of time. Feeling like we have control over the use of our time is big. While some findings on the subject of how we spend our time were intuitive (like spending time with people being something that makes us happy), I particularly liked the advice that one could enjoy experiences without actually spending time doing them. "Research in the field of neuroscience has shown that the part of the brain responsible for feeling pleasure - the mesolimbic dopamine system - can be activated when merely thinking about something pleasurable, such as drinking a favorite brand of beer or driving a favorite type of sports car. In fact, this research shows that people sometimes enjoys anticipating an activity more than actually doing it." This is obviously consistent with the finding that the actual experience is often a disappointment. Also, "To increase happiness, it can make sense to focus on the here and now -because thinking about the present moment (vs. the future) has been found to slow down the perceived passage of time. Simply breathing more deeply can have similar effects." While we can always make more money, we can't make more time.
Some have suggested that happiness is a genetic thing. You're either wired for it, or you're not. Researchers at the University of South Florida have uncovered a connection between low expression of a gene called monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) and self-reported "happiness" among women. But not among men. And this is self-reported happiness, or "subjective well-being", rather than the measured kind, I guess.
So if you're not happy can you get happy? Maybe hang some inspirational posters around the office? Or maybe you need to be nicer to your customers and employees. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, wrote a book called “Delivering Happiness”, and built his company’s culture around "using happiness as a framework [to] produce profits, passion, and purpose both in business and in life". The company has grown it's business by “wowing” customers with great service and lots of surprise freebees to make them feel special, and to prove that maximizing well being is good for profits. Like many companies, Zappos has discovered that there's a quantifiable correlation between keeping their employees happy and an improved bottom line.
In 1972, the King of Bhutan proposed we measure a country's success by measuring it's Gross National Happiness (GNH), rather than it's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Right now, America is looking at some pretty paltry GDP predictions, so maybe we too need to seriously consider trying to grow our GNH score instead.
And your personal happiness quotient? Did you apply the equation above and determine you're just not as happy as you thought? I say don't work an extra shift so you can buy a new pair of shoes, but instead, imagine what it would be like to hold the shoes, maybe while laying on a warm, sandy beach, on your own private island, sipping a margarita, with a woman, one with the happiness gene, while breathing very slowly…..
For what it's worth, there's also a study that came out this year showing that too much happiness can make you unhappy.
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