Well Being Science
WBS
Ulrich
Schimmack
University of Toronto, Mississauga
Since
May 30, 2008
Last update: September 25, 2008
Purpose
of This Website
This website
aims to summarize the main findings in wellbeing science, the empirical study
of wellbeing, following a set of criteria:
1. An empirical finding has to be well established by standard criteria of
empirical science. Groundbreaking novel findings will not be included until they
have been replicated across laboratories and populations with multiple methods.
Whenever possible, findings of numerous studies are integrated quantitatively
to obtain the most objective and robust estimate of empirical relationships
between wellbeing and other variables.
2. Empirical findings are presented separately from the theoretical
implications. For example, it is an empirical fact that, on average, divorced
respondents report lower wellbeing than married respondents. However, the
theoretical implications of this finding are not clear. Does divorce actually
make people unhappier? Longitudinal studies suggest that unhappiness precedes
divorce and that individuals who divorce are, on average, happier after divorce
than in the years before the divorce.
3. The website will allow readers and scientists to post dissenting comments
and contradictory research findings. This new information will be used when
information is updated. The aim is to
provide the most accurate representation of the facts, but it is likely that
the facts will change either because the methods are improving or because the
facts themselves are changing. For example, the consequences of widowhood have
changed over time with changing gender roles.
4. The website is strictly limited to positive wellbeing science, in the
original sense of the word (positive economics)
as the value-free empirical study of wellbeing. Wellbeing science is not a
normative science that tells individuals how to live their lives or makes
prescriptive recommendations how to change the word to create everlasting,
sustainable happiness, peace, or prosperity. This does not mean that wellbeing
science is useless. Indeed, many wellbeing scientists, like myself, hope that
their research will help to increase individuals' and societies' wellbeing.
However, to achieve this goal it is important to limit the science of wellbeing
to the objective observation of wellbeing and its relation to potential causal
factors that influence it, and to keep it separate from normative goals and
policy recommendations.
What is wellbeing?
Well
Being as Preference Realization
I
define wellbeing as preference-realization (Schimmack,
2008). Wellbeing represents the degree of realization of all preferences,
weighted by the importance of each preference. Preferences are evaluations, and
most people have preferences about aspects of their lives. Maybe you want to
life in a big city, and you would hate to live in a small village. Maybe you
love living in a small town, and hate Big Cities. Your evaluation of small
towns and Big Cities indicates a preference about the place where you would
like to life. Your wellbeing depends on the realization of this preference.
Wellbeing is maximized if you have a preference for Big Cities and live in a
Big City or if you have a preference for small cities and live in a small city.
Wellbeing is reduced if your actual life does not match your preferences. For
example, you live in a big city, but have a preference for living in a small
town or vice versa.
People
have thousands of preferences. It is virtually impossible to live a life that
is perfectly consistent with one's preferences. Fortunately, some preferences
are more important than others, and many unrealized preferences may have little
effect on your overall wellbeing because they are not very important. For the
scientific study of wellbeing researchers often focus on a relatively small set
of preferences that play an important role in people's lives. Common examples
are preferences related to basic needs, health, family, work, and recreation.
A
precise and accurate definition of well-being is important for well-being
science, and some readers may disagree with my definition. Alternative
definitions of well-being can be found here.
Wellbeing
and Happiness
Happiness
is a vague concept with many meanings. It is tempting to think of happiness and
wellbeing as the same thing, but philosophers have pointed out that they are
not (Sumner, 1996). There are two fundamental differences between happiness and
wellbeing. One definition of happiness is the experience of pleasant feelings
(I feel good, I feel happy) and the lack of unpleasant feelings (I feel bad, I
feel unhappy). A life with many realized preferences (a good job, a good
marriage, etc.) may also produce a lot of good feelings. However, good or bad
feelings can also be caused by other factors. For example, even a crack junky
feels good when high. The crack junky could also have a preference not to feel
so good when high. The reason is that he or she wants to get off the drugs, but
the good feeling when high keeps him hooked. Philosophers try very had to find
examples like these. There are two reasons for the difficulty of finding
discrepancies between preferences and feelings. First, our feelings respond to
our preferences. When I have a preference for anchovy pizza, and I am eating
anchovy pizza, I feel good. Second, feeling good is an important preference of
many people. Especially during times of recreation, feeling good is the main,
if not the only preference.
Authentic
Happiness versus Illusory Happiness
There
is another important distinction between happiness and wellbeing. The
definition of wellbeing implies that preferences have to be realized. Whether a
preference is realized or not is an objective aspect of people's real lives. If
the preference is to live in a big city, wellbeing is maximized only if you
actually, really live in a big city. Happiness does not impose these
restrictions. In fact, a vast literature in psychological science has
documented that happiness is correlated with various illusions, such as
illusions about one's abilities, illusions about one's future, and illusions
about one's romantic partner. The reason is that our feelings do not respond to
the objective aspects of our lives. They can only reflect on our lives to the
extent that we accurately perceive our lives. Some people may actually prefer
to feel good based on illusions. For these people, even illusory feelings of
happiness add to wellbeing. However, others may really want a live that matches
their preferences. For these people illusory happiness does not add to
wellbeing. Sumner
(1996) coined the term "authentic happiness" for a pursuit of happiness
that is grounded in reality. The Positive
Psychology movement also uses the term, but with a different meaning.
Followers of the positive psychology movement have proposed that "Authentic
happiness does not depend on anything happening… or not happening." Another website offers the following
definition "What
is authentic happiness? For me it is the feeling of contentment in my life,
wherever I am and whatever is going on. This is true happiness." I am
in agreement with critiques like Eric
Wilson that being content whatever is going on in one's life is not true
happiness or authentic happiness, it is pathological. Evidently, constant
feelings of happiness that do not respond to changes in one's life have little
in common with Sumner's (1996) original definition of authentic happiness.
Sumner's definition implies that we are unhappy and feel unhappy when our
actual life does not match our preferences. For example, we would feel unhappy
if we like to be with a loved one, but this preference can no longer be
realized because the loved one died.
The History of
Wellbeing Science
The science
of wellbeing is the empirical study of the causes that influence wellbeing. The
term wellbeing science or science of wellbeing emerged in the late 19th
century. An early reference can be found in Sully
(1886) Teacher's handbook of psychology: " Our pleasures and
pains make up the interesting side of our experience. The objects of the
external world only have a value for us in so far as they affect our
sensibilities or touch our feelings. Since the feelings are the elements of
happiness and its opposite, the study of them is an important part of the science
of wellbeing."
The basic
idea of positive psychology that psychologists should make wellbeing a
prominent topic of inquiry can already be found in the early 20th
century . "Scientific information as to the fundamental positive
conditions of protracted happiness are conspicuous for their absence. We do not
even know the laws by which pleasant situations become unpleasant and
unpleasant situations become bearable or even pleasant. The positive conditions
of happiness are left largely to accident, such as the satisfaction of instinctive
wants with its tragic disillusionments and negative adaptations, the economic
pressure to provide a market for manufactured products, the exigencies of the
labor market, the desire to amass wealth, or the abolition of private wealth.
There are numerous wise protests that protracted happiness is achieved by none
of these things; but positive scientific data on the real conditions are as
inconspicuous as scientific interest in the problem. If there were a real
solicitude for intelligent adaptation, our science would be busy with very different
tasks." (Dodge, B. History of
Psychology in Autobiography, Vol. I, 1930, pp. 119-120).
Nevertheless,
the empirical study of wellbeing and its determinants had a slow start in the
social sciences. The first major contributions to wellbeing science emerged in
other social sciences like sociology and political science. Important
milestones are Cantril's (1965) and Bradburn's (1969) books, and Andrews and
Whithey's (1976) classic book "Social indicators of wellbeing: America's
perception of life quality."
Important contributions in psychology were Lazarus's work on appraisal
theories of emotions and coping, Costa and McCrae's work on personality
influences on wellbeing, and Diener's (1984) seminal review article in the
Psychological Bulletin. In sociology, the work by Ruut Veenhoven, and his World Database of Happiness,
have made important contributions to wellbeing science.
fter a slow
start the science of wellbeing is now a thriving interdisciplinary science with
contributions from economists, sociologists, political scientists,
psychologists, behavioral geneticists. The results of this empirical effort
have been widely publicized in original research articles, review articles,
unpublished publications on the web, newspaper articles, and popular books.
Current (May 1, 2008), Google retrieves
over 3 million pages for a search that combines (well being or happiness with
science). This wealth of information is wonderful for wellbeing scientists, but
too much information for people who want to learn about the results of
empirical studies of well-being. This website aims to provide summary
information on important research questions in wellbeing science.
It is important
to emphasize that neither the term science nor the term wellbeing are protected
or clearly defined. Numerous websites use these term to promote ideas and
beliefs that are not based on a rigorous empirical research program (e.g., The Science of Well Being, wellbeingmanifesto.net, Nick Baylis.com, Well Being Sciences), or to promote
interventions with dubious claims about the effectiveness of these
interventions ("anyone
who wants to be happier and healthier can do so through self-help and/or
professional therapy"). Information provided on these websites is
typically not sufficiently supported by empirical facts to be relevant for the
purpose of this website.
The main
findings of wellbeing science are published in original research articles in
peer-reviewed journals in economics, psychology, sociology, and other social
sciences. There exist a few specialized journals that focus on wellbeing
science, such as Social Indicators Research and Journal of Happiness Science.
However, most of the publications are scattered across various journals. One
aim of the World Database of Happiness is to keep track of these publications.
Many
researchers make important contributions to wellbeing science, although
wellbeing is not their primary research focus. A relatively small, but growing
number of currently active researchers has made wellbeing the main focus of
their research. A selected list of the major wellbeing scientists is presented
below.
Michael Busseri,
Psychology, Brock University, Canada
Cummins,
Robert A., Psychology, Deakin University, Australia
Ed Diener, Psychology, University
of Illinois, USA
Bruno S. Frey,
Economist, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Bruce
Headey, Political Scientist, Melbourne University, Australia
Daniel Kahneman, Psychology,
Princeton University, USA
Laura
A. King, Psychology, University of Missouri, USA
Richard E. Lucas, Psychology, Michigan
State University, USA
Sonja Lyubomirsky, Psychology,
University of Riverside, USA
Alex Michalos,
Political Science, University of Northern British Colombia, Canada
Shige Oishi, Psychology,
University of Virginia, USA
Andrew
Oswald, Economist, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Carol D. Ryff,
Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
Ulrich Schimmack,
Psychology, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Canada
Alois Stutzer,
Economist, University of Basel, Switzerland
Mark Suh, Psychology, Yonsei
University, South Korea
Ruut Veenhoven, Sociology,
University of Rotterdam, Netherlands
Joar
Vitterso, Psychology, University of Tromso, Norwey
[Please email me if you are an active wellbeing scientist and would like to
be added to the list.]
Besides this
small group of researchers, a vast number of researchers study more specific
aspects of people's lives that are important for wellbeing. Their research will
be featured in the review of specific research questions about wellbeing.
How
do wellbeing scientists measure wellbeing?
Any
empirical science needs objectively measurable observations. A main challenge
for wellbeing science is to develop and validate measures of wellbeing. Like
other sciences, well being science has to rely on indirect methods to measure
wellbeing. For example, astronomers know a lot about the universe, including
some facts about its origin. Many of these facts are based on indirect methods.
Although people's lives happen right here on earth, it is as difficult to look
into people's minds as it is to study planets in outer space. Like astronomers,
wellbeing scientists have developed indirect methods to measure wellbeing. Click here for more information on the
measurement of well-being.
Some
well-being measures rely on people’s own reports of their wellbeing (e.g.,
judgments of life-satisfaction, positive affect vs. negative affect, average domain
satisfaction). These measures can be influenced by a number of measurement
artifacts. I will start posting evidence on biases in subjective well-being
measures.
1.
Wellbeing Measurement and
Social Desirable Responding
2.
Wellbeing Measurement and
Interview Methods
Top 5 Facts about
Wellbeing
1.
On average, unemployment reduces wellbeing. This finding has been demonstrated in
international surveys and longitudinal studies have demonstrated causality. The
finding has been demonstrated both with life-satisfaction measures and with
affective measures of wellbeing.
2.
The average level of wellbeing is positively correlated with many objective
indicators such as nations' GDP, longevity, low corruption, and observance of
human rights. A better society produces higher wellbeing.
3.
Wellbeing has a stable component. Even over long time-periods of one or two
decades, people with high wellbeing in the beginning are more likely to have
high wellbeing in the end. Twin studies suggest that genetic factors contribute
to this stable component in wellbeing. However, stability is lower than the
stability of height, which shows that wellbeing can change.
4.
Twins and biologically related family members (e.g., parent-child) have similar
levels of wellbeing. This finding suggests genetic influences on wellbeing.
However, similarity of relatives who share only 50% of their genes tend to be
quite low in several studies (.10). This finding suggests that additive genetic
effects have a weaker effect on wellbeing than on other characteristics such as
height, intelligence, or personality traits. As a result, it is difficult to
predict children's wellbeing from parents' wellbeing. In contrast, it is
possible to predict children's height and intelligence quite well from measures
of parents' height and intelligence.
5.
Spouses have similar levels of wellbeing. This has been documented using
measures of life-satisfaction and depression. The reason for this similarity is
not clear. Some studies suggest that people with similar dispositions are more
likely to marry each other and that spouse's wellbeing changes in response to
similar live circumstances.
Top 5 Misconceptions
about Wellbeing
1.
Money does not buy happiness. Most studies of money and wellbeing show positive
correlations between income and wellbeing. Whether these correlations reflect a
causal effect of money on wellbeing has not been conclusively established, but
it is incorrect to conclude that it has been established that money does not
have a causal effect on happiness or wellbeing.
2.
Happiness is a trait. Some scientific studies suggest that wellbeing is indeed
influenced by genetic dispositions, which produce stability in happiness over
time. However, these studies do not show that wellbeing is genetically fixed,
predetermined at birth, or held constant at a biological set-point.
3.
The hedonic treadmill. The assumption is that people get used to good and bad
life-circumstances, even extreme ones. As a result it does not matter whether
you win the $50 million jackpot in a lottery or have to spend the rest of your
live immobile and communicating to the rest of the world by blinking with one
eye. Empirical research shows that wellbeing changes in response to many
life-events and that adaptation can be a slow process that can take several
years. Thus, there are limits to human's ability to adapt.
4.
The Easterlin Paradox. Easterlin proposed that wealth and economic growth of
nations is unrelated to nations' wellbeing. This hypothesis was based on weak
data and flawed data analysis. As demonstrated by Veenhoven (1991) Easterlin
(1974) concluded that nations' wealth is unrelated to nations' happiness even
though his own data showed correlations of r = .5, a finding that has
been replicated in all studies. Newer studies with more countries even show
higher correlations. Whether economic growth translates into greater happiness
over time is currently being investigated, and the conclusions are limited by
existing data. It is to early to conclude that it does, but it is incorrect to
accept Easterlin's premature conclusion that it does not.
5.
Being a nice, altruistic person who cares deeply about others leads to more
happiness. Exemplary individuals like Mother Theresa are increasing wellbeing
on this planet by increasing the wellbeing of others. However, it is less clear
whether helping others is a cause of greater wellbeing for the helper. Some
studies suggest that it does, and other findings suggest that it does not.
Possibly, the effects depend on other factors such as the response of the
individuals who are being helped. Helping a con artist is unlikely to produce
more wellbeing for the helper.
Important Findings in
Wellbeing Science
In
this section, I will post more detailed summaries of important findings in
wellbeing science.
1.
National
differences in wellbeing and the Easterlin Paradox
3.
Nations' Wellbeing and the Human Development Index
Wellbeing Science Review. This section reviews
selected original research articles. The aim of this section is to provide a
more accurate account of the empirical facts. The reason is that original
articles often favor a particular interpretation of the empirical facts. As a
result, overall conclusions often go beyond the empirical evidence provided in
an article.
Wellbeing Science in the Media - The results of
wellbeing science are a popular topic in the media. I posts links to news
articles about wellbeing science with comments and corrections of inaccurate
representation of the facts.
Wellbeing Science Links - Here I post links to
alternative websites that are dedicated to providing information about
wellbeing science.