Philosophical Challenges to Positive Psychology Dan Weijers March 2017

New kids on the block

What would success look like for positive psychology?

Success for positive psychology? Be able to find out how people are doing Accurate, precise, and broadly applicable well-being assessments And help them do better Interventions or programmes of interventions that bring about sustained improvement in levels of well-being

Is Matthieu Ricard the Happiest Person in the World?

What is well-being?

How are you doing? I walk 3,400 steps per day I sleep 6 hours per night I have $3,500 in the bank I own a sports car I am married I have an alcohol addiction I take risks while driving I took 3 sick days last year

What is well-being? Some things matter more than others What does and what should matter most? Should I focus on environmental mastery or letting go/not sweating the small stuff? Well-being – what ultimately makes a life go well for the one living it? Is there an objective answer?

What do measures of well-being actually measure?

Is happiness real? It seems fluffy Don’t get me started on “flourishing” A convergence of evidence Backed by neuroscience!

Is Happiness Objective? “Sceptics may still question whether happiness is really an objective feeling that can be properly compared between people. To reassure doubters, we can turn to modern brain physiology with its sensational new insights into what is happening when a person feels happy or unhappy.” –Richard Layard in Happiness (2005, p. 17)

Brain Scans Various methods including EEG Left vs. right hemisphere brain activity More left hemisphere brain activity at ‘rest’ = positive affect More right hemisphere brain activity at ‘rest’ = negative affect Significantly correlated with behaviour and self-reports

Cute baby = Left side

Deformed baby = Right side

Brain Scan Test of Happiness

Is Happiness Objective? Significant but low correlations Ryff’s Scales of Psychological Well-Being (0.33**) Diener’s Satisfaction With Life Scale (0.30**) Watson et al.’s Positive and Negative Affect Scale (0.21*) Constructs vs. measures Coherentism In the only comprehensive study of correlations between neuroimaging and measurement of subjective well-being, several prominent subjective well-being measures were compared with electroencephalogram data from 84 right-handed adults aged 57–60. Correlating highest with the neuroimaging results were the results for a measure of psychological flourishing—Carol Ryff’s (1989) Scales of Psychological Well-Being. The correlation was highly significant (p < 0.01) and moderate in size (0.33) (Urry et al. 2004, p. 370). Following close behind was Ed Diener and colleagues’ (1985) Satisfaction With Life Scale, which correlated with the neuroimaging results by 0.30 and was also highly significant (p < 0.01) (Urry et al. 2004, p. 370). A smaller (0.21) and slightly less significant (p < 0.05) correlation was also found with the positive affect component of Watson, Clark, and Tellegen’s (1988) Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Urry et al. 2004, p. 370). It should be noted that, unlike the questions that directly ask about happiness, none of the measures of subjective well-being used in Urry and colleagues’ (2004) study are equivalent to the folk notion of happiness (although the measure of positive affect would come the closest). - First, the neuroimaging results and these measures of subjective well-being are very likely to be tracking phenomena that are related in some positive way. This is shown by the fact that the correlation is positive and highly statistically significant. - Second, the phenomena being tracked are clearly distinct. The high statistical significance of the results should make us confident that the various measures are not measuring exactly the same thing. If the size of the correlations were much higher, at least above 0.60, and the statistical significance remained very high, then we would expect to observe the phenomena measured by the different tests to covariate more closely and, thereby, give the impression of being the same thing. Positive correlations of 0.33 (roughly) mean that we should expect an increase in the results of the neuroimaging measure to be usually accompanied by a relatively smaller increase of the subjective well-being measure. This is the kind of relationship we expect from distinct but positively related variables, not from two different measures of the same phenomenon. 0.60 is the level above which behavioural scientists usually deem results to be ‘highly related’ (Cohen 1988).

Is positive psychology valuable?

Let’s assume it works Will languishing people be further stigmatised? What would the world be like if everyone was really happy or satisfied… or flourishy? What if some people don’t want to be happier (etc)?

Bonus philosophical gripe

How many items should I have in my measure? Economists and philosophers usually use single-item measures Psychologists may use too many E.g. last item on Deiner’s satisfaction with life scale Conceptual clarity should come first Cause and effect Level of analysis