Classic research- Myers & Diener “Who is Happy?”

What’s the Background for the research?

Surveys have shown that people who are strongly religious are twice as likely to say they are “very happy”. Faith seems to help people cope with a crisis. Musera & Diener used their research tot develop ideas about a theory of happiness.

What is Happiness?

Happiness in psychology is a state of emotional well-being that a person experiences in a narrow sense, when good things happen in a specific moment or more broadly. This occurs as a positive evaluation of one’s life and accomplishments overall

What is SWB?

Subjective well-being, a person’s happiness or well-being

What are the aims of Myers & Deiners Research

They were interested in finding evidence towards what makes people happy

The Methodology of the study-

Literature review: a lit review of research on the topic of happiness from the 80’s n 90’s. Contains 3 main steps- select research topic, collect & read relevant articles & write the review article

Interviews/questionnaires: interviews with a closed question “how satisfied are you with life?” (Very/not very/ not at all) were asked to assess individuals subjective well being. Questionnaires could also be used to assess happiness. Both producing quantitative data.

Observation: Another method of researching happiness- asks people to report what they’ve been doing at certain times- Researchers will use a beeper to remind participants to report what they’re doing in that comment

Correlations: Correlation doesn’t equal causation. It’s also used to consider factors linked to happiness. Eg: people who high SUB tend to have positive life events. It can be a result of being happy or a CAUSE of being happy

Does the study have a procedure?

There’s no procedure but the methodology acts as the procedure in terms of how the info was collected.

1. Literature review was way of collecting data. Following techniques used to investigate happiness

2. Myers & Deiner collected and reviewed this info but didn’t directly carry those studies out themselves

3. When reviewing research. These were the methods of investigating happiness:

• interviews & questionnaires

• Observations

• Correlations

What were the 4 myths of happiness and what was found?

Is happiness related to age?- no real difference. No time of life is notably happier or unhappier than the other whilst people do face times of crisis they don’t occur at any predictable age

Is happiness related to gender?- generally no difference. Women twice as vulnerable to men to depression and anxiety. Men are 5 times as vulnerable to women to alcoholism and anti-social personality disorder. Report me of happiness result is roughly equal balance for women and men. Gender accounts to less than 1% of somebody’s wellbeing. 80% of men & women said they were at least “fairly satisfied” with life

Is happiness related to race or culture?- no real difference people of different nationalities score similarly on tests of self-esteem. Despite discrimination, people in disadvantaged groups maintain self-esteem by valuing things at which they excel, making comparisons with other groups and attributing problem to external sources such as prejudice

Is happiness related to money?- correlation is modest. 75% of Americans beginning college said that being very well off financially was a very important life goal marked higher than raising a family and helping others difficultly. Many adults believe increased income would make them happier. Strong positive correlation between national wealth and wellbeing.(exception Irish reporting greater life satisfaction that the wealthier Japanese? In poor countries financial statisfaction is a moderate predictor of SWB as soon as people are able to afford life’s necessities (food & shelter) it matters a lot less. Correlation isn’t negative it’s modest

What are traits of happy people?

Self esteem sense of person control options and extroversion. Happy people tend to like themselves. There is a strong correlation between self-esteem and SWB. Happy people believe themselves to be more ethical, intelligent, healthier, less prejudiced and better to get along with than unhappy people. Happy people feel a stronger sense of personal control

The relationships of happy people

Those with more friends have higher positive emotion. People who can name several intimate friends are healthier, less likely to die prematurely & happier than people who have few or no friends. When people are with others they report higher positive emotion. Holocaust survivors who confided more openly in other people had most improved help. Those married are more likely to describe these moves as very happy than those who never married, divorced or separated

Work & the “flow” of happy people

People with greater work satisfaction also have better life satisfaction. Many people work provides personal indenting also adding a sense of community. This sense of pride and belonging helps people contrast their social identity alongside work adding focus and purpose

Faith of happy people

Religious people report higher levels of happiness- less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol, to divorce or be unhappily married & commit suicide. Tend to be happier and live longer because of better eating/drinking habits: they report higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction and are less vulnerable to depression. People who are strongly religious 2x likely to say they’re happy. Positive correlation

What are the 3 conclusions?

1. Adaptation- happy people tend to be adaptive to life events and the emotion doesn’t linger too long. Only events with the last 3 months have a significant effect on well-being as the response to either positive or negative events fades over time. Over time, the immediate emotional response to significant events inevitably fades eg: lottery winners are initially elated, their euphoria soon fades. Likewise, agony of most bad events gradually subsides. Even the psychological trauma of a paralysing car accident usually gives way to a return of normal happiness, studies have found that only events within the last 3 months affect SWB and the most recent an event the greater its emotional effect

2. Cultural worldview- an individuals culture influenced how life events are interpreted which in turn affects well-being. Some cultures construe the world as caring and controllable whilst others place emphasis on the normality of emotions such as anxiety & guilt. One’s cultural template influences how life events are interpreted which can have a significant effect on SWB

3. Values & goals- Having goals & making progress towards them can predict well-being. Therefore, things like money are only important if they’re relevant to a person’s life goals. Having non-conflicting goal and making progress towards them are all predictors of SWB. Money, social skills and intelligence are only predictors of SWB if they’re relevant to a person’s goals. This explains why income predicts SWB in poor nations and why self-esteem predicts SWB in wealthy,individualistic nations

What are the 2 additional conclusions?

A persons age,sex,race or income doesn’t inform us about how happy a person is

By exploring who’s happy & why this research can help people build priorities & build a life that enhances human wellbeing

What’s weaknesses of Myers and Dieners Methodology?

1. They used a self report- subjective to social desirability. They rely on personal opinions which can often be subjective. Pts may also give socially desirable answers given the nature of the research

2. Correlational data- many data is correlational meaning there are links between happiness and factors such as relationships, faith & culture- this however hasn’t been established as a cause & effect relationship

Strengths of Myers And Dieners Methodology?

Even though a self report was used- when friends are asked to rate happiness of scores of individuals these scores correlate with each other confirming people who rate themselves as happy are also rated happy by others

Strengths & Weaknesses of Ethics

Weakness- privacy some of the studies used in the review asked for personal info such as well-being religion or relationship status. Revealing this may have been uncomfy for many participants and risked their privacy

Strength- low risk of psychology harm- no manipulation of participants and no deception. HOWEVER researchers must be sensitive to those who are unhappy as this research could be triggering for them and uncomfy. Therefore a debrief would be necessary in those scenarios

Social implications

It can risk certain religions or cultures being viewed differently. Generalisability’s being made “10% of people in Portugal are happy” so presuming most Portuguese people are unhappy

Work- for work people need appropriate levels of challenge at work to be in a “flow state” for a happy workforce and the work shouldn’t be too easy or difficult it should be in the middle.

“Money is only important to a certain point” this can be misinterpreted by laws or work and living wagers may be deducted so employers only pay enough to get the bare necessities for people

Alternative evidence

Support- Schinka 2004 found if happiness stays at a fairly steady level through life with occasional highs or lows some researchers call this four happiness set point and believe that it could be partly due to geneticsA gene has been linked to happiness the 5 HTT gene which controls levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Some people have a form of this gene and report higher instances of life satisfaction.

Weaknesses- 50% of happiness due to genetics & 10% due to circumstances remaining 40% due to self control. Argues happiness isn’t due to cultural differences or goals people some towards. A person will always have a large chunk of happinessj