On the Nature of Happiness
July 6
How Happy is Happy?
My wife Eunice sometimes likes to ask "How nice is nice?" I think we may ask the same thing of happiness. The World Values Survey results were released on July 1. These researchers do a survey on happiness in 96 countries, which comprise 90 percent of the world's population. Denmark had the highest average happiness rating, as it has for several years. The United States, on the other hand, came in 16th place. Puerto Rico and Columbia came in second and third place, respectively, with Canada and several European nations ahead of the United States. On the other hand, Zimbabwe, and its pseudo-democracy, with Mugabe brutally holding onto power despite losing an election, came in last place.Three general factors which help happiness levels are democracy, prosperity, social tolerance, and a sense of freedom (i.e. making one's own choices). A sense of personal freedom had the largest affect on happiness of these variables.
All of this seems straightforward and makes sense, but even though happiness seems straightforward and relatively simple, it is a subjective variable. Any measure of happiness involves asking people to define happiness for themselves, a highly subjective task. Obviously, people who are utterly miserable are not likely to decide that they are actually elated, but as with any subjective measure in psychology, there are likely to be definite biases which affect happiness ratings. Perhaps the most important bias concerns the expectations of the person. Those who expect more out of life, are more likely to be disappointed, and therefore rate themselves less happy. Perhaps Danes, Puerto Ricans, and Columbians do not tend to expect as much from life as Americans, for example, so their expectations are more likely to be met. Another variable is how realistic people are being. People who tend to self-delusionally see things as they want to see them, tend to think everything is fine, even when it is not, and thus feel happier about life. This is a form of "seeing things through rose-colored glasses." On the other hand people who are being more realistic, are not likely to be completely satisfied with the state of their lives, or the state of the world, for that matter. In fact, there is some research which indicates that depressed people, or at least those who are not especially elated with life, actually are more accurate in their attributions of causes of events and in their worldview. Perhaps someday, we will be able to make this world the wonderful world that so many of us envision for our future, when this will no longer be true, but for now, having some misgivings, with a postive balance overall, about our personal lives and the world is more accurate.
Given these problems in measuring happiness, it is not surprising that some odd and confusing results have been found in relevant research. For example, depression rates have been increasing worldwide (perhaps due to rising expectations), but according the te World Values Survey, so has happiness. Other strange findings include: Married people are happier than non-married people, and conservatives in the U.S. tend to be happier than liberals, but the divorce rates are higher in conservative-dominated areas; Also, people who get divorced presumably do so by choice, in order to be happier, but they are actually less happy; Furthermore, Denmark is a very liberal society, and very happy, so why are conservatives in teh U.S. so happy? Perhaps it is because they have had their people in power here in the U.S. practically since the World Values Survey began in 1981. Another consistent finding which contradicts the idea of conservative happiness is that whenever conservatives are in power (worldwide), suicide rates go up. Some odd findings regarding other variables include: Prison inmates have some of the highest self-esteem ratings, and; Children in nations which have high math achievement scores among children, rate themselves less competent in math. In fact, a few years ago, South Korean children had the best math achivement scores, but the worst self-ratings on math competency. Many of these findings can be explained by the two previously mentioned factors biasing happiness ratings, firstly, that happiness ratings represent a comparison of perceptions of reality with expectations, and secondly, that perceptions of reality itself may be sytematically distorted in some populations (e.g, conservatives in the United States who insist that everything is fine).
Taking a look at what Psychology researcher have to say about having too much of a good thing is revealing, as well. Regarding the self-esteem finding, a Social Psychologist named Baumeister has gone so far as to suggest that self-esteem can be and often is too high, leading to Narcissistic Personality Disorder and related problems.University of Illinois Psychologist Ed Diener, similarly, found that people who were moderately happy, but not extremely happy, according to the World Values Survey, had better education, income, and political participation. In a related study, Diener found that among college students, those who were moderately happy, but not very happy, had the best grades, attendance, and conscientiousness. Thus, being overly happy has a number of drawbacks. To summarize, in my own words, what counts is true happiness, not happiness which is based on unrealistic desires or self-delusional thinking. Truely happy people are realistic enough to see the world more or less as it is, and themselves more or less as they are, and take steps as necessary and able to improve both.
Given all of the above, perhaps it is also a good thing that Americans, as a whole, are not the happiest people in the world, although fairly happy. Perhaps we are, once again as a whole, realistic enough to see our faults and our nation's faults, and as a people, motivated and consicentious enough to take steps to correct these faults.