How happy are you now? How happy were you yesterday? How much do both of these things tell you, if anything? In all areas of public life, from politics to business, there is now widespread recognition that how people feel matters.
But how do we measure and define this? People are notoriously bad at gauging their own moods and, in many cases, what might be best for them. I spoke with Paul Dolan, a behavioural scientist at the LSE and author of the book “Happiness by Design,” about these and other questions.
Why is it important to be happy? I think it's ultimately what matters. If you think about whatever you desire in life... it's ultimately because you want to feel good. It would be pretty masochistic actually, if you were doing something in the knowledge that it was going to make you miserable. Equally for policy makers, it would be pretty sadistic if you were doing something to people that you knew for sure was going to make them feel worse.
But even if you don't believe that, if you care about productivity, if you care about health or social behaviour, then a very important cause of all those consequences is happiness. Happy people are more productive, happy people are more social, happy people are healthier.
What's the problem with the way we measure happiness now? In the book I think I talked about a “film of your life” [versus] a “snap shot picture,” so if I'm following you around with a camera I might get a [genuine] sense of what you do, how you feel, who you're with. But if I say “smile” quickly, I'm going to take a picture, you're going to smile. We all know people look happier in pictures than they do day to day. So I think it's that snapshot that doesn't really capture the richness of your experiences. A one-shot evaluation is a pose almost, a pose for the camera which I don't think gives me sufficient [information] on how happy you are.
We should be paying more attention to [people's] direct assessment of living their experiences of their life moment to moment, day to day.
In your book you discuss what you call the “pleasure-purpose principle,” which measures happiness by balancing more immediate, emotive sensations (pleasure/pain) with a sense of how meaningful the activity is (purposefulness/pointlessness). Where does that fit in? It's rooted in experience. I don't really reflect upon the narrative of my life as a father, but if I help my kids tie their shoelaces or I teach them the times tables, read them stories, they're not the most fun things in the world to do, but they do seem like they're purposeful. That's when the happiness of purpose turns up if you like, it turns up in what we do, who we're with.
The word “happiness” rarely seems to come up in public discussions, it's always “wellbeing.” Do you think there's a difference between the two terms? “Wellbeing” maybe makes it sound more scientific, less trivial. I do think there's a lot to be said for using “misery” language and “suffering” language rather than the language of “happiness.” Making policy on the grounds of “reducing misery,” I can sign up for that. But if you think about using public money to promote happiness, people might say “well, that's a pretty trivial thing.”
Something that's commonly said to make us less happy is excessive social media use. Where do you stand on that? When people [use] Facebook, they think of all these wonderful nights out that people are posting about and you feel like your life is empty in comparison. So there's a misery-making effect of comparison upwards. But at the same time... Facebook manipulate the mood posts of people and [they have found] there is a contagious effect of happiness. So on the one hand you're suffering from the comparison, but on the other hand you're benefitting from the contagion. Happy posts can make people less happy and more happy. There's an interesting unresolved question about the relative effects of both of those things.
All the main parties are preparing their manifestos at the moment. Imagine you get a call from any of them asking how to maximise happiness or minimise suffering, what would you suggest they look at? Why do you ask such difficult questions? Well, what are the most significant determinants of people's pain and pointlessness? Loneliness and social isolation have got to be right up there. so I think we could be doing more to encourage social interaction. If you ask someone the question, “do you have someone you can talk to about stuff?” and the answer to that is no, they're probably doing pretty badly in life by a whole range of wellbeing measures.
Do you think Britons are less happy than people from other countries? What do you think about making that comparison? There's an interesting question about why you would want to do that. On life satisfaction measures the Danes do really well. Are we going to try and become more like Copenhagen? There is also a huge translational problem; the meaning of the terms, the words and the importance that people place on those concepts in different cultures and countries [varies]. Luckily the Brits come out fair to middling. We'd like consider ourselves more miserable than we are.
The British Academy and Prospect are holding a series of events on Well-being, to register or join in online please click here
But how do we measure and define this? People are notoriously bad at gauging their own moods and, in many cases, what might be best for them. I spoke with Paul Dolan, a behavioural scientist at the LSE and author of the book “Happiness by Design,” about these and other questions.
Why is it important to be happy? I think it's ultimately what matters. If you think about whatever you desire in life... it's ultimately because you want to feel good. It would be pretty masochistic actually, if you were doing something in the knowledge that it was going to make you miserable. Equally for policy makers, it would be pretty sadistic if you were doing something to people that you knew for sure was going to make them feel worse.
But even if you don't believe that, if you care about productivity, if you care about health or social behaviour, then a very important cause of all those consequences is happiness. Happy people are more productive, happy people are more social, happy people are healthier.
What's the problem with the way we measure happiness now? In the book I think I talked about a “film of your life” [versus] a “snap shot picture,” so if I'm following you around with a camera I might get a [genuine] sense of what you do, how you feel, who you're with. But if I say “smile” quickly, I'm going to take a picture, you're going to smile. We all know people look happier in pictures than they do day to day. So I think it's that snapshot that doesn't really capture the richness of your experiences. A one-shot evaluation is a pose almost, a pose for the camera which I don't think gives me sufficient [information] on how happy you are.
We should be paying more attention to [people's] direct assessment of living their experiences of their life moment to moment, day to day.
In your book you discuss what you call the “pleasure-purpose principle,” which measures happiness by balancing more immediate, emotive sensations (pleasure/pain) with a sense of how meaningful the activity is (purposefulness/pointlessness). Where does that fit in? It's rooted in experience. I don't really reflect upon the narrative of my life as a father, but if I help my kids tie their shoelaces or I teach them the times tables, read them stories, they're not the most fun things in the world to do, but they do seem like they're purposeful. That's when the happiness of purpose turns up if you like, it turns up in what we do, who we're with.
The word “happiness” rarely seems to come up in public discussions, it's always “wellbeing.” Do you think there's a difference between the two terms? “Wellbeing” maybe makes it sound more scientific, less trivial. I do think there's a lot to be said for using “misery” language and “suffering” language rather than the language of “happiness.” Making policy on the grounds of “reducing misery,” I can sign up for that. But if you think about using public money to promote happiness, people might say “well, that's a pretty trivial thing.”
Something that's commonly said to make us less happy is excessive social media use. Where do you stand on that? When people [use] Facebook, they think of all these wonderful nights out that people are posting about and you feel like your life is empty in comparison. So there's a misery-making effect of comparison upwards. But at the same time... Facebook manipulate the mood posts of people and [they have found] there is a contagious effect of happiness. So on the one hand you're suffering from the comparison, but on the other hand you're benefitting from the contagion. Happy posts can make people less happy and more happy. There's an interesting unresolved question about the relative effects of both of those things.
All the main parties are preparing their manifestos at the moment. Imagine you get a call from any of them asking how to maximise happiness or minimise suffering, what would you suggest they look at? Why do you ask such difficult questions? Well, what are the most significant determinants of people's pain and pointlessness? Loneliness and social isolation have got to be right up there. so I think we could be doing more to encourage social interaction. If you ask someone the question, “do you have someone you can talk to about stuff?” and the answer to that is no, they're probably doing pretty badly in life by a whole range of wellbeing measures.
Do you think Britons are less happy than people from other countries? What do you think about making that comparison? There's an interesting question about why you would want to do that. On life satisfaction measures the Danes do really well. Are we going to try and become more like Copenhagen? There is also a huge translational problem; the meaning of the terms, the words and the importance that people place on those concepts in different cultures and countries [varies]. Luckily the Brits come out fair to middling. We'd like consider ourselves more miserable than we are.
The British Academy and Prospect are holding a series of events on Well-being, to register or join in online please click here
