1. Happiness (Subjective Well-being)
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
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.