Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.
- Palmer Sondreal
In recent years, calls have been made for an expanded conception of a nation's well-being, going beyond the economic indicators long used to include psychosocial indicators (Diener, 2000). Consider Bhutan's explicit concern with "gross national happiness" and the Gallup Organization's ambitious surveys of psychological well-being in dozens of nations. It seems only a matter of time before the happiness of all nations is routinely assessed and tracked, perhaps to influence policy decisions. Indeed, steps are already underway in the UK and the EU to do precisely this, with the US apparently lagging a bit behind.
Two issues need to be considered. First, what do we mean by psychosocial well-being (i.e., "happiness")? Is it the presence of positive feelings or the absence of negative feelings? Is it a summary judgment by a citizen that his or life is satisfying? What about close relationships with others, engagement with one's work, a sense of community, or meaning and purpose? All of these figure into the definition of happiness, and the good news as it were is that they tend to co-occur, although the mix will no doubt vary across time and place.
Second, how can these components of happiness be assessed? I am a survey researcher, and my first thought is that assessment would entail asking people about these components, using our tried-and-true 7-point scales. Doing surveys at the level of nations seems daunting, but only logistically, no different from what social scientist researchers have done for years with more modest samples of respondents.
But upon reflection, I worry that a sole reliance on surveys to gauge the happiness of nations might be misleading. The pitfalls of self-report surveys are familiar, and in the present case, consider that most measures of "happiness" are thoroughly transparent. If some or many respondents believe that policy decisions will hinge on their answers (e.g., more funding for unhappy communities), can we really trust what they say? Maybe yes, maybe no, but how could we know for sure?
The thing about economic indicators of well-being, incomplete though they may be, is that they refer to verifiable things,
I am not suggesting that surveys have no use in gauging the happiness of nations. They are a great place to start. I am suggesting instead that additional methods of gauging happiness be used, those that are unobtrusive.
I am not on Facebook, but I may be among the last people on the planet who can say that. Anyway, a story recently caught my eye about a new use of Facebook entries. Perhaps you readers are well aware of it, but it was new to me.
Apparently it is possible to count up the number of "happy" and "unhappy" words in updated posts, and use them to gauge the collective mood of some large group of people (Facebook has 300,000,000+ users) over time and as a function of events. Not surprisingly, folks are happier on holidays. The unexpected deaths of famous people (e.g., Michael Jackson) result in unhappy days.
These results are hardly surprising, but that is the point: They imply a modicum of validity.
Should Facebook be used to gauge the happiness of nations? Probably not, considering issues of privacy and the nonrandom groups who use Facebook, within and across nations.
But the general method suggested by this example - to use naturally-occurring cultural products, like newspapers, books, popular songs, whatever - seems intriguing. The more products assessed for happiness, the better the results.
Indeed, what would analysis of Psychology Today blog entries show, besides our collective obsession with sex?
Reference
Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist, 55, 34-43.
