Happiness & Public Policy

This is weird:

Exposure to a type of bacteria found in soil boosts happiness levels and could help restore healthy immune functions in people who are depressed and prone to infection, says a study.

British scientists led by Chris Lowry at Bristol University treated lung cancer patients with the bacteria, named ‘bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae’, and found improvement in their quality of life, reported the online edition of BBC News.

However, they said more work is needed to determine if the bacteria has anti-depressant properties through activation of serotonin neurons - a chemical in the brain that helps maintain a ‘happy feeling’, and seems to help keep our moods under control by helping with sleep, calming anxiety and relieving depression.

Seems low-effort enough. Let’s get dirty!

From a new Time article on Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi’s new grad program at CGU:

Drawing on his research on happiness, Csikszentmihalyi has three general pieces of advice:

* Be attuned to what gives you genuine satisfaction. Although many people assume that popular activities like watching TV are enjoyable, their own reports generally indicate that they feel more engaged, energetic, satisfied and happy when doing other things.

* Study yourself. To better understand their own happiness, Csikszentmihalyi says, people should systematically record their activities and feelings every few hours for a week or two. In recording your observations, try to focus on how you actually feel, rather than what you think you ought to be feeling or what you expect to feel. Afterwards, note the high points, particularly, and the low ones. Then try to adjust how you spend time according to your findings.

* Take control. Repairing unhappy conditions requires active effort. People often assume external conditions will change for the better or let chance determine their response. That’s a mistake. “Get control,” Csikszentmihalyi says. When things aren’t right, “you have to put in the same effort you would if your business were in trouble. Just as markets move, life changes too.”

Again: “unhappy conditions require active effort.” What if you happen to be writing a novel and just don’t have the time? Unhappiness isn’t that bad, really, if you’ve got something better to be working on.

From Trizle. I find this blog’s mixture of middle-manager biz-speak and overexcited, indiscriminate, completely inauthentic mash-up of various forms of slang completely idiotic, yet nevertheless entertaining.

Interesting findings in SciAm article on UC Riverside psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky:

Her aim is not merely to confirm the strategies’ effectiveness but to gain insights into how happiness works. For example, conventional wisdom suggests keeping a daily gratitude journal. But one study revealed that those who had been assigned to do that ended up less happy than those who had to count their blessings only once a week. Lyubomirsky therefore confirmed her hunch that timing is important. So is variety, it turned out: a kindness intervention found that participants told to vary their good deeds ended up happier than those forced into a kindness rut. Lyubomirsky is also asking about mediators: Why, for example, does acting kind make you happier? “I’m a basic researcher, not an applied researcher, so I’m interested not so much in the strategies but in how they work and what goes on behind the scenes,” she explains.

Initial results with the interventions have been promising, but sustaining them is tough. Months after a study is over, the people who have stopped the exercises show a drop in happiness. Like a drug or a diet, the exercises work only if you stick with them. Instilling habits is crucial. Another key: “fit,” or how well the exercise matches the person. If sitting down to imagine your best possible self (an optimism exercise) feels contrived, you will be less likely to do it.

The biggest factor may be getting over the idea that happiness is fixed–and realizing that sustained effort can boost it. “A lot of people don’t apply the notion of effort to their emotional lives,” Lyubomirsky declares, “but the effort it takes is enormous.”

This last is an important observation that points to the idea that more happiness may not be better as long as there is some cost to increasing one’s happiness level. When you hit the point where the cost of the marginal unit of effort is greater than the benefit of the marginal unit of happiness, then you’re as happy as you want to be, even if you could in some sense be happier.

Tim Harford, writing in the new Forbes, tackles the money and happiness question in an entertaining article. Especially quotable:

So, money does not buy happiness. Or does it? “In every society, at any point in time, richer people are happier,” points out Will Wilkinson, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington D.C., who runs a blog on happiness research and public policy. “But that in itself doesn’t tell you much about the relationship between money and happiness.”

Well, that’s just my favorite part. Read the whole thing.
Over at the Fly Bottle we really like Tim’s big sex-n’-Wittgenstein finish:

Some results are predictable enough: Work is miserable, and commuting is worse. Others are not so obvious. For instance, praying is fun, but looking after the kids is not. Spending time with your friends is one of the most enjoyable things you can do, but spending time with your spouse is merely OK. In fact, parents or other relatives turn out to make more enjoyable company than the supposed love of your life.

What is perfectly clear, though, is that socializing with anyone except your boss makes you feel good. Sex is best of all. This is handy advice at last. But what if you are having sex with your boss? Whereof economists cannot speak, we must remain silent.

Layard’s advice is good. I doubt Oswald was really trying to say that if you’re depressed, wait until you’re older. It is worth noting that satisfaction in about every life domain other than the financial declines as we age. So don’t think this “money can’t buy you happiness” schtick means you can go chintzy on the 401K. When your knees break down, your eyes start to go, half your friends have died, and your kids never call anymore, money is the main thing buying you happiness. (See Easterlin. Head right for the graphs in the appendix.)

The Pew poll mentioned below confirms a longstanding trend: Republicans say they are happier than Democrats. This year, 45% of Republicans said they were “very” happy as opposed to 29% of Democrats. That’s a big gap! Here’s the the 30+ year trendline from Pew:

This stability is interesting in part because, I take it, that the demographic composition of Republican and Democratic voters has changed not insignificantly over the last 30 years. Is that right? Anyway, what accounts for Dem.-Rep. gap? Well, it’s not income. Republicans report themselves as happier at all points on the income distribution, as this Pew graph shows:

So what’s the deal? Here’s the Pew folk

[The regression] analysis shows that the most robust correlations of all those described in this report are health, income, church attendance, being married, and, yes, being a Republican. Indeed, being a Republican is associated not only with happiness, it is also associated with every other trait in the cluster.

Clean-livin’ Christians are more likely to be in good health, go to church, be married, and vote Republican.
What doesn’t the study mean? In today’s Colorado Springs Gazette, hometown paper of the Focus on the Family folk, I am quoted thus:

Does membership in the GOP really make people happy? Probably not, said Will Wilkinson, who studies happiness for the Cato Institute. The bliss is probably connected to some other facet of life that also inclines people to be Republicans, he said.

“People might read that and say, ‘I’d like to be happy, maybe I should be a Republican.’ It definitely doesn’t mean that,” Wilkinson said.

Sorry Dobsonites!

Assuming that the entire Dem.-Rep. difference doesn’t disappear when controlling for demographic variables, what psychological traits would you guess predict both higher self-reports and Republicanism?

I’ve just received Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis and so far it is the best “how to be happy” book I’ve come across. Good combination of classical wisdom, current research, and good sense. For those who don’t know of him, Haidt is a first-rate social psychologist at UVA who works on moral emotion and cognition.

The only mildly surprising thing here is that an unhappy marriage can be better, happiness-wise, than no marriage at all.

The bottom line, say the Cornell researchers, is that having a romantic relationship makes both men and women happier - and the stronger the relationship’s commitment, the greater the happiness and sense of well-being of the partners.

“Some commitment appears to be good, but more commitment appears to be even better,” said Claire Kamp Dush, a postdoctoral fellow with the Evolving Family Theme Project of the Institute for Social Sciences at Cornell and first author of one of the few studies to examine well-being across the relationship continuum. The study was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (22:5, 2005).

Interestingly, even those in relatively unhappy marriages appear to benefit from being married, Kamp Dush said, perhaps because they benefit from marriage’s stability, commitment and social status.

“Even when controlling for relationship happiness, being married is associated with higher self-esteem, greater life satisfaction, greater happiness and less distress, whereas people who are not in stable romantic relationships tend to report lower self-esteem, less life satisfaction, less happiness and more distress,” she explained.

I think this data supports the contention that refusal to recognize same-sex marriage constitutes a real harm to those people who would like to get legally married, but cannot.

Last night, I discovered a wonderful passage from Thomas Mann’s short story “Little Herr Friedemann,” in which the title character, crippled from infancy, reconciles himself to the fact that he will never know sensual love, but instead learns to take value in the full range of human emotion. Indeed, he becomes a connoisseur of feeling, sensitive to the subtle notes of value even in unhappiness.

Is not life in and for itself a good, regardless of whether we may call its content “happiness”? Johannes Freidemann felt that it was so, and he loved life. He, who had renounced the greatest joy it can bring us, taught himself with infinite, increidble care to take pleasure in what it still had to offer. A walk in the springtime in the parks surrounding the town; the fragrance of a flower; the song of a bird–might not one feel grateful for such things as these?

And that we need to be taught to enjoy, yes, that our education is always and only equal to our capacity for enjoyment–he knew that too, and he trained himself. Music he loved, and attended all the concerts that were given in the town. He came to play the violin not so badly himseld, no matter what a figure of fun he made when he did it; and took delight in every beautiful soft tone he succeeded in producing. Also, by much reading he came to possess a literary taste the like of which did not exist in the place. He kept up with the new books, even the foreign ones; he knew how to savor the seductive rhythym of a lyric or the ultimate flavour of a subtly told tale–yes, one might even call him a connoisseur.

He learned to understand that to everything belongs its own enjoyment and that it is absurd to distinguish between an experience which is “happy” and one which is not. With a right good will he accepted each emotion as it came, each mood, whether sad or gay. Even he cherished the unfulfilled desires, the longings. He loved them for their own sakes and told himself that with fulfillment the best of them would be past. The vague, sweet, painful yearnings and hope of quiet spring evenings–are they not richer in joy than all the fruition the summer can bring? Yes, he was a connoisseur our little Herr Friedemann.

It’s the last paragraph here that demands our attention. But it requires the preceeding to make full sense. For the point is that the capacity to take full enjoyment in–as opposed to experiencing a superficial, stereotyped positive reaction to–such obviously pleasant things as flowers and birdsong implies the capacity to take pleasure also in frustration and pain. Once our sentimental education attunes us the finer grain of experience, there is no facile distinction between the happy and unhappy.

And so suppose you gave a happiness survey to little Herr Friedemann. What would he say? Let’s look at the next paragraph:

But of course they did not know that, the people whom he met on the street, who bowed to him with the kindly, compassionate air he knew so well. They could not know that this unhappy cripple, strutting comically along in his light overcoat and shiny top hat–strange to say, he was a little vain–they could not know how tenderly he loved the mild flow of his life, charged with no great emotion, it is true, but full of a quiet and tranquil happiness which was his own creation.

So, Herr Friedemann is happy. But his happiness is not the aggregate of happy feelings, but is constitituted even by unhappiness, pain, and frustrated longing. How is this possible? All the flow of life is tranformed–created–into tranquil happiness by his attitude of tender love toward his complete experience. Perhaps the most precious thing is the alchemical education of sensibility that can turn emotional lead to gold. And so shouldn’t we note the flaw in a measurement instrument indifferent between gold seen through shallow waters and gold mined from depths where there is no gold?

From the Times of London:

C&G’s annual Happiness Index suggests that hairdressers, beauticians and cooks or chefs are among the happiest people in Britain, while estate agents, civil servants and architects — who invariably earn more and who enjoy the cachet of being among the professional classes — are often the least content.

No word on policy analysts.

While money, status and job titles may initially quicken the pulse rate, long-term contentment at work comes from enjoying autonomy in what we do, good career progression and, in many cases, helping others through our work.

I am increasingly convinced that a sense of unfolding, growth, and progress is very important — the feeling that you’re getting better and going somewhere. I’d like to see a study that finds a way to measure something like an economy’s oppenness to advancement. This could be promotions within the firm, upward moves from switching into a higher responsibility job in a different firm, upward moves from starting a new business doing what you were doing before, but at a higher level, etc. My guess would be that the general demand for labor, and the flexibility of the labor market (ability to hire and fire, level of burden from labor regulation, etc.), would predict the pace of this kind of upward career mobility. And that, finally, economies with relatively rapid upward career mobility will have happier workers, other things equal.

From the BBC:

In an unusual three-month experiment, six specialists from a variety of disciplines worked to improve the happiness levels of a typical UK town.

The experts tried and tested 10 simple measures in the quest for happiness.

They found successful strategies included nurturing a plant, smiling at strangers and cutting television viewing by a half.

The ten tips?

* Plant something and nurture it
* Count your blessings - at least five - at the end of each day
* Take time to talk - have an hour-long conversation with a loved one each week
* Phone a friend whom you have not spoken to for a while and arrange to meet up
* Give yourself a treat every day and take the time to really enjoy it
* Have a good laugh at least once a day
* Get physical - exercise for half an hour three times a week
* Smile at and/or say hello to a stranger at least once each day
* Cut your TV viewing by half
* Spread some kindness - do a good turn for someone every day

Sounds good to me. I need to exercise more. And, I suppose, do more good turns. Otherwise, I think I’m doing alright by this list. You?

From the Murfreesboro Daily News Journal:

Take a few moments to reflect with your children on things to be thankful for that we often take for granted. Would any of the following be found on your list?

* the ability to hug a child

* hugs from a child

* eight fingers and two thumbs that function correctly

* umbrellas

* eyes to see, ears to hear, sense of smell

* waffle irons

* washer and dryer

* hair ribbons

* running water

* electricity

* flashlights for when the lights go out

* reliable transportation

* paper clips, staplers, tape

I believe all these things would be on my list. But especially tape.

From the genius of Bill Watterson:

Click for full image.

(Is the amazing Calvin & Hobbes box set a preference you can afford to satisfy? Or does knowing about it and not having $100 for it frustrate you as much as it frustrates me?)

It struck me this morning that Schwartz’s problem of managing “too much” freedom is kind of the opposite of the problem of managing too little freedom implicit in Admiral Stockdale’s Epictetian stoicism and Victor Frankl’s existential therapy. Or is it the same!? (If you don’t know, Stockdale was tortured for years by the North Vietnamese as a prisoner of war. Frankl was imprisoned in a concentration camp by the Nazis.)

Stockdale tells us [pdf]:

Epictetus was telling his students that there can be no such thing as being the “victim” of another. You can only be a “victim” of yourself. It’s all in how you discipline your mind. Who is your master? “He who has authority over any of the things on which you have set your heart… What is the result at which all virtue aims? Serenity… Show me a man who though sick is happy, who though in danger is happy, who though in prison is happy, and I’ll show you a Stoic.”

[If you haven’t read Stockdale’s amazing account of his torture and confinement, do it.]

Frankl writes:

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

So here we have strategies for maintaining a sense of freedom — a psychological feeling of choice, control, agency, and self-efficacy — under conditions where the external menu of open alternatives is more or less blank. Both push us to consider what ultimately is and is not in our power. In the end, the only steadfast choices, the only ones that cannot be taken away, are choices about how to orient our minds, and about our attitude toward our situation. This implies that we can maintain a sense of freedom and openness, and the sense of responsibility and dignity that entails, even under conditions where we are not at liberty to act on most of our desires. The Stoic also implies that other freedoms, because they can be taken away, are not genuine freedoms, and so we should cultivate an attitude of indifference toward them. The only true freedom for the stoic is in virtue, and virtue is entirely a matter of what is genuinely up to us, and the only thing that is genuinely up to us is the maintenance of our composure.

Because the problem of two much choice is apparently the opposite of the problem of too little, I entertained the idea that what we need is to turn the stoic and/or existential attitude inside out. But now I’m not so sure. It seems to me that the problem of too much choice requires, in the first instance, a kind of withdrawal, detachment, and centering, and then a kind of selective re-engagement with the panoply of choices once we’ve achieved a firmer grasp of what one really cares about and is after in life.

It seems like a mistake to concentrate on the sheer quantity of choices rather than on the quality of the choices relative to the nature of the choosers. Chinese takeouts generally offer hamburgers, pizza, jalapeno poppers, etc., etc. The most celebrated restaurants often have tiny menus. If a friend offered to take me to either Lucky Dragon carryout or a Michelin 3 star, I would not regret my loss of the freedom to order curly fires with my wantons upon choosing the fancier joint. A single job you like is better than 1000 you don’t want.

If we were homogeneous in our natures, interests, talents, projects, and preferences, then it might be possible to trim the set of choices to a subset that is more manageable, and yet with all the best choices intact. But we are not homogeneous. So, even if the set of choices that is ideal for each of us, given our unique constitution and aims, is small, the fact of our variety will require the availability of a huge set of choices overall. Almost any reduction of the most inclusive set of choices reduces the quality of choices for someone, i.e., it restricts their freedom to choose something that is best for them.

The difficulty is that the plenitude of consumer culture, which offers the tantalizing possibility of a different ideal pattern of consumption for each of us, tends to drown out the whisper of what is best for each of us in the cacophony of variety. We are left searching through a junkyard for a handful of gems (though one man’s junk is another man’s gem), often without knowing what’s junk and what’s gems. But the problem is not quite that we have too much choice. If I need to get to Minnesota and don’t know how, the problem is not that there are just too many roads. The problem is that I don’t know which ones to take. It wouldn’t help me if there were fewer roads, none of which goes to my destination. But if I know the route, the number of other roads is irrelevant. Similarly, if I know what I am, know what I need, know what I like, and know what will make my unique life go uniquely well, then I can just tune out the stuff that is superfluous to me. Most of the choices will just psychologically fall away, fade into the background, because they are not for me.

So what we need is self-knowledge, and a procedure for identifying authenticity in desire, a kind of practical wisdom. It does not seem that public policy can do much about this for us. But a kind of Stoic indifference toward the hurly burly of market culture may be useful, helping us to stay disentangled from the lures of marketers, salespeople, and taste makers, and allow us to better focus and who we really are. A kind of existential therapy may also be useful, sensitizing us to reflexive modes of thought and action, our bad faith, our false consciousness, and our ability and responsibility to consciously define ourselves and make meaning in our lives.

So maybe the ways of thinking that make it possible to remain human in Nazi concentration camps and Hanoi prisons are also indispensable in carving authentic lives of customized meaning out of the otherwise disorienting surplus of alternatives. Maybe the way to maintain a sense of freedom when in chains is also a way to manage agoraphobic hyperventilation in the unbounded consumer paradise.

Schwartz also constantly mixes up objective opportunity and the representation of such: “. . . choice has negative features, and the negative features escalate as the number of choices increases.” No, the negative features escalate as the number of choices entertained, or represented to the self, increases.

It is very important for Schwartz that whatever negative consequences there may be here aren’t a simple function of the number of choices, but are rather a function of the individual’s psychology, otherwise all the advice he gives us (choose when to choose; satisfice more, maximize less; don’t dwell on foregone alternatives; be grateful; anticipate adaptation; be wary of social comparison; etc.) would be moot.

But if he lays too much weight on the point that whether or not there are negative consequences to more choice depends on how individuals psychologically manage their representation of the choices, their procedures for making them, and their attitudes toward choices already made, then it becomes fairly clear that the market, per se, isn’t harming anyone, or causing dissatisfaction by causing choices to proliferate. But Schwartz wouldn’t want that to be clear.

Like Layard’s argument that upward moves in the income distribution impose a negative externality on people beneath, Schwartz is more or less arguing that a high number of alternatives amounts to a negative externality of markets. But in both cases, the authors provide very useful and likely effective techniques of individual psychological management to immunize oneself against the negative effects of dimished comparative position or a vast array of choices. But this self-help advice directly implies that the market is not the causal origin of the imagined harm.