1

A Primer on Happiness and Life Satisfaction (Subjective Well-Being)

by Ed Diener, PhD, Alumni Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois

[Excerpted from Frequently Asked Questions at www.psych.uiuc.edu/~ediener Posted with permission of Ed Diener]

Q: What is subjective well-being? Subjective well-being (SWB) is the scientific name for how people evaluate their lives. People can evaluate their lives in terms of a global judgment (such as life satisfaction or feelings of fulfillment), in terms of evaluating the domains of their lives (such as marriage or work), or in terms of their ongoing emotional feelings about what is happening to them (feeling pleasant emotions, which arise from positive evaluations of one's experiences, and low levels of unpleasant feelings, which arise from negative evaluations of one's experiences). The word "happiness" means different things (e.g., joy, satisfaction), and therefore scientists prefer the term "subjective well-being." However, subjective well-being is an umbrella term that includes the various types of evaluation of one's life one might make – it can include self-esteem, joy, feelings of fulfillment, and so forth. The key is that the person himself/herself is making the evaluation of life – not experts, philosophers, or others. Thus, the person herself or himself is the expert here: Is my life going well, according to the standards that I choose to use? Q: Is happiness really a single thing? As mentioned above, SWB is really an umbrella term that includes different components, and these components are somewhat independent. That is, one can be high in one and low in another. Thus, one must to some degree understand the components separately. If one wants to be "happier," this might mean increasing positive affect or decreasing negative affect – and these two things might require very different actions. Similarly, there are even some behaviors that produce higher satisfaction (completing a boring but necessary task, for example) but produce lower positive affect. Q: Is SWB important? First, happiness is important in and of itself because it is how people evaluate their own lives. Certainly, it is hard to imagine a good society in which we think people are living in a desirable way, but they are all unhappy and dissatisfied. Thus, SWB seems absolutely necessary for the "good society," although is not sufficient for that society because there are other things we also value and would want in such a place. Thus, it can be said that high SWB is necessary, but not sufficient, for the good life. When we ask people, they say that SWB is extremely important. For example, college students the world over rated happiness and life satisfaction as very important or extremely important in the 41 nations we surveyed. In fact, in only one country did

2

students rate money as more important than life satisfaction, and happiness was rated as more important than money in every single country. SWB is desirable for another reason – because it seems to lead to many good outcomes. Happy people (those high in long-term average positive emotions) seem to be more sociable and creative, they live longer, make more money and are better "citizens" in their workplace. A host of good outcomes (e.g., marital satisfaction) often follow from happiness. Thus, there are many reasons to suggest that high SWB is extremely desirable. Q: OK, so people think happiness is important. But is it really desirable? If we are happy, might we achieve less, be less good citizens, or be just plain dumb? It turns out that, at least in western culture where the studies have been conducted, that SWB (high levels of positive affect, in particular) produces good outcomes in many areas. For example: 1. Happy people on average have stronger immune systems, and there is some evidence that they live longer 2. Happy people are more creative, at least in the laboratory 3. Happy people are better citizens at work - they tend to help others more, skip work less, etc. 4. Happy people are more successful – they earn more income, have better marriages, get job interviews more, etc. 5. Happy people do better in social relationships. They are more sociable to begin with, and other people like them more. They seem to be more successful in leadership work positions. 6. Happy people are better able to cope with difficult situations. 7. Happy people like themselves and other people more, and others like them in return. They are also more helpful and altruistic, on average. Q: People have been concerned about happiness since the beginning of time. Can you really add anything new here? Philosophers wrote extensively about happiness, and bookstores are crammed with self-help books about it. What we are trying to add is the scientific approach. Although the philosophers and other writers, such as the Dalai Lama, undoubtedly have many good ideas, we are trying to test these hypotheses with rigorous empirical methods. Some of their ideas might seem plausible, but prove to be wrong. Other ideas might be right on target. But until we subject the various ideas to scientific methods, we do not know which ones are right and which are wrong. Another aspect of our scientific approach is to remain skeptical until we have solid evidence. For this reason people often ask me questions that I simply cannot answer. You might wonder many things about happiness, about which there may currently be no firm data. As in all sciences, there are some questions we can now answer with some degree of certainty (although we never claim certainty) – and other questions for which we simply have no answers.

3

Q: Can we define and measure SWB scientifically? Subjective well-being is defined as how a person evaluates his or her own life. These evaluations can be more focal (e.g., marital satisfaction, or satisfaction with one's car) or broader (e.g., life satisfaction or satisfaction with the self). In addition, these evaluations can be more cognitive – in terms of satisfaction judgments – or they can be more affective (moods and emotions, which are reactions to what is happening in one's life). Thus, there appear to be at least three major components to subjective well-being – pleasant emotions and moods, lack of negative emotions and moods, and satisfaction judgments. Other variables such as optimism and feelings of fulfillment are also a part of SWB, perhaps a 4th component. Global measures of SWB which simply ask people how satisfied or happy they are have been proven to have some validity. At the same time, such measures do suffer certain drawbacks and limitations. Thus, we have used a set of additional measures, in order to measure SWB with a number of assessment devices that complement one another: 1. Informant reports - what do your friends and family say about your SWB?, 2. Experience sampling - how happy are you over time when we beep you at random moments, and then aggregate those moments?, 3. Memory measures - can you quickly recall good events (and not bad events) in a timed period, and 4. Interview or qualitative measures. Although we have not used biological measures of SWB in our lab very frequently, a number are available: 1. Frontal brain asymmetry, 2. Facial electromyography, 3. Saliva cortisol levels, and 4. Eye blink startle response. Q: Is there a "key" to SWB; a secret to happiness? So many popular writers seem to search for the "key and sometimes even offer what they think is THE key to happiness. But our research indicates that there is no single key. Some things seem to be necessary for high SWB (e.g., solid mental health, good social relationships), but they are not sufficient for happiness (some unhappy people possess these, too). So a variety of things appear to be necessary for happiness even though we have not found any characteristic that is sufficient for happiness. The above findings suggest a better analogy than a key is a recipe. Most good recipes call for quite a few ingredients. Some of these ingredients are absolutely essential, and other ingredients are merely helpful. But there is no single key ingredient that by itself gives you the good food. You need to have multiple ingredients put together in the right way. This is like SWB – you need several important and necessary ingredients, but no single one of them by itself produces a happy person. Q: Many books are written explaining how to be happy. What do you think of these? I'm sure there must be a lot of good advice in many of these books. My job, however, is to examine which of these claims are valid and which are invalid. So I am more

4

concerned with building the science, of discovering what is true and not true about happiness. Therefore, as a scientist I need to empirically study happiness, and hope that over time what I discover finds its way into the self-help books. My opinion is that the books are often right, and probably sometimes wrong, but that we need a scientific foundation for the future books that will provide help to people. Q: Isn't SWB really genetic? That is, isn't our happiness level really just based on our genetic predisposition? There are certainly genetic influences on SWB. One type of evidence for a genetic predisposition that influences both positive affect and negative affect are the twin studies. For example, in the most famous of these studies, conducted at the University of Minnesota, researchers found that identical twins reared apart are more similar in their happiness levels than are fraternal twins (dyzygotic twins who are only half alike on average genetically) who were reared together. The twin studies (and adoption studies as well) suggest that some portion of our happiness is likely to come from our genetics. Complementing these studies are new studies of specific gene influences. We now believe that certain genes are linked with a propensity toward depression, for instance. Some researchers have interpreted the genetic evidence to mean that our happiness is really almost entirely controlled by our genes. We know this is not true based on several types of data. First, in the studies reported by the University of Minnesota group, there was a fair amount of variability in happiness over time. Although the long-term common level of happiness a person reported across Time 1 and Time 2 had a highly heritable (genetic) component, people's moods seemed to swing up and down over time in reaction to events. A second piece of evidence supporting environmental effects on SWB also comes from the Minnesota twin study. The researchers found that early family environment (twins who grew up in the same home) had an influence on levels of positive affect that the twins experienced as adults. In other words, something about the family home environment in childhood predisposed individuals to later feeling more or less positive emotions such as joy. In our own lab, we see evidence for environmental effects on SWB in the large differences between nations in life satisfaction and other SWB variables. The poorest and richest nations, for example, differ substantially in SWB. And the former Communist nations, which have recently gone through so much turmoil, show much lower rates of SWB than nearby nations - and than was formerly reported in these Communist nations. So the larger environment seems to influence happiness, and it seems unlikely that all these national differences are due to genetic differences (see the Inglehart chapter in our cross-cultural book (Diener and Suh, 2000) for a fuller exposition of this argument. One other piece of data against the idea that SWB is completely determined by our genetic inheritance comes from our longitudinal studies in Germany. We find that people who become unemployed are less happy-and remain so for many years. We find, similarly, that women who get married on average remain somewhat happier for years.

5

One last bit of evidence for environmental effects comes from data on widows. Studies show that widows remain less happy for several years after their partners dies. That is, their genetic predisposition notwithstanding, widows on average are made less happy by a tragedy that befalls them. Thus, there are lots of data indicating that happiness is not solely genetic - the environment matters too. Genetic effects are undoubtedly important, but cultural and situational factors can also influence SWB, sometimes strongly. Q: Who are the happiest people? A recent study by Diener and Seligman took a first look at the happiest 10 percent of college students. We used many different types of SWB measures to make sure that we were getting truly happy people. In our study the happiest people always had two things - good mental health and good social relationships. Every one of the happiest people had good social relationships in general (although not necessarily every single social relationship, of course), although some of the unhappy people also had good social relationships. For this reason, we concluded that high quality social relationships are necessary for well-being, but not sufficient for it. The happiest group also scored low on the MMPI psychopathology scales - except some scored high on the mania scale. Q: Are rich people happier? When wealth is measured within countries, wealthier people seem to be slightly happier on average. But the effects of money on happiness in general are not large. Dire poverty is more likely to make a person unhappy than wealth is to make a person happy, although even for poverty the effects are not overwhelming. The effects of living in a wealthy nation are stronger - people in wealthy nations show higher levels of SWB, and this is true for all levels of wealth within nations. One thing that appears clearly to be bad - wanting money too much. Those who highly value materialism have been found in a number of studies to have lower SWB. It is easy to forget that poor people can have many strengths in their lives. For example, in Robert Biswas-Diener's study in the slums of Calcutta, even the homeless (who are extraordinarily poor by western standards) have friends, often have a family back in the countryside, gain positive feelings from their religion, have decent self-esteem, and so forth. Q: What about physical beauty? Our research on physical attractiveness shows that it has a small, but positive, influence on SWB. Like income and health, the effect is not large. But there is a small effect such that pretty and handsome people on average are slightly happier than the unattractive. Of course there are lots of individual exceptions in both directions - attractive people who are unhappy and unattractive people who are quite happy. The data suggest that there is a slight advantage for attractive people in terms of SWB, just as there is a modest advantage for wealthier people in terms of SWB.

6

Q: What role do values play in SWB? People's values influence the goals that they set for themselves. For example, people who place a high value on the environment might set a goal of recycling and composting. People who set goals for themselves that are consistent with their values will experience fewer internal conflicts. As people work for their goals, and achieve them, they experience subjective well-being. Thus, SWB can be achieved by seeking those things that one values. Values (including helping others, hard work, contributing to society) are thus not inconsistent with SWB. Instead, people's SWB can be enhanced to the degree that they work for goals that are consistent with their values, and are able to make progress toward those goals. Being happy is not just a hedonistic enterprise of "eat, drink, and be merry" - for most people, obtaining high SWB means working for important values. People might not enjoy specific activities that are necessary to achieving their goals. However, these activities in the long-run can lead to satisfaction. Thus, some activities might not produce pleasure or even positive affect at the moment, but might lead to longer-term life satisfaction. There is evidence, however, that people on average do tend to enjoy activities more if they are consistent with their values. It is important to understand that there is not a choice between other important values and SWB. If a person is socialized to desire values and goals that are positive, the person will achieve SWB by moving toward those values. Thus, achieving SWB is not a search for hedonistic pleasures, but instead can be best achieved by working for the things that a person values. Being happy does not stand in contrast to basic values - the choice need not be between one or the other. Instead, SWB can derive from working for one's values. Q: What is your advice to those who want to be happy? As I have said repeatedly, I have no simple, easy answer that will make everyone happy. Some people with serious problems need to see a therapist and get professional help. And many of us have such deep-grained habits that it won't be easy to change overnight. Plus, we all have our temperaments that will put some limits on how easy it for us to be happy. So there is no magic elixir. Having said this, I think there are some steps people can take to insure that they are as happy as they can be (although nothing will make us happy every moment, fortunately). First, we need good friends and family, and we may need to sacrifice to some extent to insure that we have intimate, loving relationships - people who care about us, and about whom we care deeply. Second, we need to involve ourselves in activities - work, for example - that we enjoy and value. We are likely to be best at things we value and think are interesting. Finally, we need to control how we look at the world. We need to train ourselves not to make a big deal of trivial little hassles, to learn to focus on the process of working toward our goals (not waiting to be happy until we achieve them), and to think about our blessings (making a habit of noticing the good things in our lives).