1. Happiness Research Part 2
The Results!

2. Happiness and Wealth

3. The Traditional View
“I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor; believe me, rich is better” --Mae West

4. Kahneman & Deaton (2010)
450,000 U.S. subjects in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index
GHWBI asks about both subjective well-being (stress, “blue mood,” positive affect) but also life satisfaction (Cantril Ladder)

5. The Cantril Ladder
Think of a ladder. Now imagine that the best possible life for you is at the top of the ladder, a 10. The worst possible life for you is at the bottom, a 0. Where are you on the ladder?

6. Kahneman & Deaton (2010)
Subjective well-being scores satiate after about 75,000 USD (annual income). Life-satisfaction scores continue to increase (at least until ~120,000 USD).

8. Proposed Explanation
After a certain amount of income, more doesn’t allow you greater access to the emotionally important things: family, leisure, health….

9. The Easterlin Paradox
Richard Easterlin was the first economist to study happiness. The “Easterlin paradox” refers to a perplexing difference between happiness at a point in time and happiness across time.

10. The Easterlin Paradox
At one point in time: richer people are happier than poorer people; richer nations are happier than poorer nations. Over time: as the nation as a whole gets richer, the people don’t get happier.

11. The Easterlin Paradox

12. “Comparison is the Thief of Happiness”
Relative deprivation: lacking things that you are used to, entitled to, or are expected of you in society. When GDP goes up, you get richer, but so does everyone else. Relative to them, you are still where you were before.

15. Mo Money Mo Problems

16. Happiness and Family

17. Happiness and Marriage
“There is a comfortable consensus in the social sciences that marriage has a positive and enduring effect on well-being.”
Zimmerman & Easterlin (2006)

19. Diener et al. (2000) World Values Survey II (1990- 1993)
59,169 participants from 42 countries
Median N: 1,027 per country
Median age: 42 (sd 16.5)

20. Y/N Past Few Weeks: Have You Experienced?
So restless you couldn’t sit for long in your chair.
Very lonely or remote from other people.
Bored.
Depressed or very unhappy.
Upset because somebody criticized you.

22. Two Theories
Source of self-esteem/ escape from stress (e.g. job) Companionship/ less likely to be lonely or bored

23. An Alternative

24. GSOEP
German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP). 17 years: ,952 observations from 15,268 different people

25. Metric
How satisfied are you with your life? 0: completely dissatisfied 10: completely satisfied

27. Happiness and Health

32. Some Case Studies
Overweight/ obese women: less satisfied, also less likely to socialize, be mothers, and more likely to work at home/ be self-employed.
Erectile dysfunction: less satisfied with life, but successful treatment increases life satisfaction

33. Happiness and Religion

34. Francis Scale of Attitudes toward Christianity
24 statements to rate
1-5 scale (5 more positive)
Commonly used, translated into many languages

35. FSAC

36. FSAC & OHI
A number of studies have been done using the FSAC and the Oxford Happiness Inventory. Take a look at the correlations!

37. For Comparison
0.8
0.6

38. Some Concerns Obviously, only looks at Christianity!
Weak correlations (but real ones!)
Significant correlations NOT found between FSAC responses and the Depression-Happiness scale
Confounding variables

44. Life expectancy past 65

45. Quality & Accessibility of Healthcare

48. The Lesson?
Religiosity is bound up with a bunch of things– in particular, many indicators of societal dysfunction.
The causal relationships are unclear!
One theory: Dysfunction causes religiosity, because religion offers substitutes for what’s missing (morality, community, etc.)

50. Happiness and Meditation

51. Some Concerns Small sample sizes Selection effects Gaming the system
Michael’s Happiness Enrichment Programme

52. Happiness and Hong Kong

54. World Happiness Report
Data from Gallup World Poll
156 total countries
~1,000 people per country per year
Happiness results based on Cantril ladder
Analysis looks at the contributions of six factors: levels of GDP, life expectancy, generosity, social support, freedom, and corruption
These variables explain 75% of the national variation on the ladder

55. World Happiness Report (2016-2018)

56. What It Says
Hong Kong should rank higher than where it is, based on its scores for the six key features.

57. Where the Explanation Might Lie
“[M]easures of the quality of the social context, which have been shown in experiments and national surveys to have strong links to life evaluations and emotions, have not been sufficiently surveyed in the Gallup or other global polls, or otherwise measured in statistics available for all countries.”

58. Something Similar…

59. Final Thoughts