The Smiley Effect

Happiness being a national goal is no longer a laughing matter....

Derek Boks survey of the research on happiness begins,as you would expect,in Bhutan. Ever since former king Jigme Singye Wangchuk announced that Gross National Happiness,and not Gross National Product,would be Bhutans measure of progress,postcard pictures of tranquility have become a routine counterweight in discussions on economic growth. Bok,a former president of Harvard University,does not unquestioningly buy into notions of the utopian audacity of Bhutan rulers or unquestioningly approve of tradeoffs with individual liberty. But he uses this unambiguous use of happiness as a national goal to consider ways in which governments could and indeed,have begun to frame policy to enhance individual well-being.

Such a project is bound to be touched with paternalism,an assumption that having gained a better understanding of what it is that enhances peoples sense of well-being,governments are entitled perhaps even mandated to proceed to do what they can to enable higher levels of happiness. Its a debate rife in policy-making as behavioural economics and positive psychology become more mainstream. As Bok argues,the idea that elected governments be mindful of happiness levels is gaining currency. And while libertarians may shudder at the idea of policy-makers presuming to know and act upon what is good for us after all,whos to say each one of us even wants to be happy,and Bok cites a rather robust argument about adversity invigorating human ambition! his slim book is so encyclopaedic and he is so gracious in conceding that his recommendations may not all be acceptable,its best to keep ideology aside while gainfully catching up with the research.

Philosophers and talk show hosts could endlessly debate the meaning of happiness,and Bok cuts to the empirical chase by quickly adopting psychologist Ed Dieners definition of happiness: A person is said to have high well-being or happiness if she or he experiences life satisfaction and frequent joy,and only infrequently experiences unpleasant emotions such as sadness or anger. Contrariwise,a person is said to have low well-being or happiness if she or he is dissatisfied with life,experiences little joy and affection,and frequently feels unpleasant emotions such as anger or anxiety.

The work cited is primarily relevant to developed nations,specifically the United States. But inter-nation comparisons are fleetingly made to emphasise the point that humans are by and large a happy species. Barring some countries of the Soviet bloc and those with runaway unrest,like Haiti and Zimbabwe,in most countries the majority of respondents report levels of happiness above a numerical midpoint.

But tabulating and analysing happiness levels is still a work in progress. Take the correlation with income. As youd expect,as groupings,rich people report a level of satisfaction higher than poorer people do. But heres a counter-intuitive finding: A number of studies have found that average levels of satisfaction with life have not risen appreciably in the United States over the past 50 years,even though real per capita incomes have grown a great deal during this period.

Assorted explanations have been put out to account for this: maybe workers who were happier in the first place are more successful,and therefore richer; maybe other factors outbalance the satisfaction gained from higher incomes increased levels of divorce,crime,drug use,unemployment,and the like; maybe the rich have got richer faster; maybe as a rising tide lifts more boats,the happiness drawn from doing better than ones peers remains constant.

The issue Bok controversially raises for a developed country like the US is this: What several investigators have done is to challenge prevailing policies at their core by marshaling evidence to show that constant preoccupation with growth has not helped Americans become any happier over the past 60 years despite the doubling and redoubling of the Gross Domestic Product.

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He does concede,however: Even if it should turn out that growth does not bring added happiness,there is no way at present to stop the economy from growing without creating problems that would outweigh any hoped-for benefits.

Instead,while not giving up the contention that growth is a debatable good,he recommends that governments heed happiness research and promote well-being with programmes to: strengthen marriage and family; encourage active forms of leisure; cushion the shock of unemployment; guarantee universal health care and a more secure retirement; improve child care and pre-school education; treat mental illness,sleep disorders,and chronic pain more effectively; and focus education policy on a broader set of goals. People also derive a strong degree of satisfaction from the quality of government they have,especially from living in a democracy,and from doing good.

There is,at the end,a feeling of incompleteness. There are too many qualifications in analysing the data; and blanket recommendations are made without an adequate overview of the administrative mechanisms to do so. But thats perhaps the point. The nature of government worldwide is changing,and happiness research is an interesting,if debatable,patch on the policy field to occupy to consider how the coordinates may be reset.