Unit5 - Subjective Questions

The distinction between Hedonic and Eudaimonic happiness is foundational in positive psychology:

1. Hedonic Perspective (Subjective Well-Being):

• Focus: Focuses on happiness as the attainment of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.
• Roots: Based on Aristippus and later Utilitarianism (Bentham).
• Key Components: It is often equated with Subjective Well-Being (SWB), consisting of:
  • High positive affect (emotions).
  • Low negative affect.
  • High life satisfaction.
• Goal: Maximizing momentary pleasure and comfort.

2. Eudaimonic Perspective (Psychological Well-Being):

• Focus: Focuses on meaning, self-realization, and fully functioning.
• Roots: Based on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics ('Daishin' meaning true nature).
• Key Components: It is often equated with Psychological Well-Being (PWB). Ryff’s model includes autonomy, personal growth, self-acceptance, purpose in life, etc.
• Goal: Living in accordance with one's 'daimon' (true self) and achieving excellence/virtue, even if it involves struggle.

Subjective Well-Being (SWB) is the scientific term often used interchangeably with 'happiness' in the hedonic tradition. It refers to how people evaluate their lives, both in terms of their thoughts (cognition) and their feelings (affect).

The Three Components of SWB:

1. Life Satisfaction (Cognitive Component):

   • A global judgment of one’s life. It is an evaluation of how close one's actual life is to their ideal life.
   • Example: Thinking, "I am satisfied with my career and family life."

2. Positive Affect (Emotional Component):

   • The frequency and intensity of pleasant emotions.
   • Examples: Joy, enthusiasm, contentment, interest.

3. Negative Affect (Emotional Component):

   • The frequency and intensity of unpleasant emotions.
   • Examples: Sadness, anxiety, anger, guilt.

Note: Positive and negative affect are not simply opposite ends of a spectrum; an individual can experience high levels of both or low levels of both over a period of time.

Carol Ryff challenged the hedonic view of happiness and proposed a model of Eudaimonic Well-Being consisting of six dimensions:

1. Self-Acceptance:
   • Possessing a positive attitude toward oneself, acknowledging and accepting multiple aspects of self, including good and bad qualities.
2. Personal Growth:
   • A feeling of continued development, seeing oneself as growing and expanding, and being open to new experiences.
3. Purpose in Life:
   • Having goals in life and a sense of directedness; feeling there is meaning to present and past life.
4. Environmental Mastery:
   • Having a sense of mastery and competence in managing the environment; controlling a complex array of external activities.
5. Autonomy:
   • Being self-determining and independent; able to resist social pressures to think and act in certain ways.
6. Positive Relations with Others:
   • Having warm, satisfying, trusting relationships with others; concerned about the welfare of others.

Set-Point Theory:

• This theory suggests that individuals have a genetically determined baseline (set-point) of happiness.
• Life events (like winning the lottery or an accident) may temporarily increase or decrease happiness levels.
• However, over time, individuals tend to return to their baseline level.

The Hedonic Treadmill:

• Proposed by Brickman and Campbell (1971).
• It is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.
• Mechanism: As a person makes more money or achieves better status, their expectations and desires rise in tandem, resulting in no permanent gain in happiness.
• Implication: Pursuing happiness through external goods alone is like running on a treadmill; you exert effort but stay in the same place emotionally.

Bottom-Up Theories:

• Premise: Happiness is a sum of many small positive experiences and satisfied needs.
• Direction: External events Mental state.
• Logic: If a person is wealthy, healthy, and has a good job, they will be happy. The accumulation of happy moments creates a happy life.
• Intervention focus: Changing the environment or life circumstances.

Top-Down Theories:

• Premise: Happiness is determined by the individual's personality, outlook, and cognitive interpretation of events.
• Direction: Mental state/Personality Interpretation of External events.
• Logic: A person with a positive outlook will interpret even neutral events as positive. Happiness is a trait or predisposition.
• Intervention focus: Changing mindset, cognitive reframing, or personality traits.

Current Consensus: Most researchers agree on an interactionist approach, where both personality (top-down) and life circumstances (bottom-up) play a role.

The Relationship:

• Basic Needs: At low income levels, money is strongly correlated with happiness because it meets basic needs (food, shelter, safety).
• Diminishing Returns: Once basic needs are met, the correlation weakens significantly. The relationship is logarithmic rather than linear.

The Easterlin Paradox:

• Proposed by economist Richard Easterlin (1974).
• Finding 1 (Within-country): Within a specific country, rich people are generally happier than poor people.
• Finding 2 (Over time): However, as a country becomes wealthier on average over time, the average happiness of its citizens does not necessarily increase.
• Explanation: This is often attributed to:
  1. Social Comparison: People compare themselves to others, not to their past selves.
  2. Habituation: People adapt to higher standards of living.

Personality is one of the strongest and most consistent predictors of happiness (Subjective Well-Being).

Strongest Correlations:

1. Extraversion (Positive Correlation):

   • Extraverts tend to report higher levels of Positive Affect.
   • They are more sensitive to rewards and have stronger social support networks, which fosters happiness.

2. Neuroticism (Negative Correlation):

   • Neuroticism is strongly linked to Negative Affect and lower life satisfaction.
   • Individuals high in neuroticism react more strongly to stress and negative events.

Other Big Five Traits:

• Agreeableness and Conscientiousness show moderate positive correlations with happiness, often by facilitating better relationships and achievement.
• Openness to Experience has a complex relationship, enhancing both intense positive and negative emotional experiences.

Sonja Lyubomirsky and colleagues proposed a model to determine what determines chronic happiness levels.

The Formula:

Where:

1. S (Set Point) ~ 50%:

   • The genetically determined baseline of happiness. This is relatively stable and difficult to change.

2. C (Circumstances) ~ 10%:

   • Life conditions such as age, gender, geographic location, wealth, and marital status. Surprisingly, these have a small impact on long-term happiness due to adaptation.

3. V (Voluntary Activities) ~ 40%:

   • Intentional activities and cognitive practices that individuals choose to engage in.
   • Examples: Practicing gratitude, exercising, reframing thoughts, acts of kindness.

Significance: This model empowers individuals, suggesting that despite genetics, roughly 40% of our happiness is under our direct control through our daily habits and mindset.

Happiness is a subjective construct, so it is primarily measured via self-reports, though physiological measures are also used.

Common Methods:

1. Global Self-Reports: Surveys asking about general satisfaction.
2. Experience Sampling Method (ESM): Participants report feelings at random intervals when paged/notified.
3. Day Reconstruction Method (DRM): Reconstructing the previous day into episodes and rating affect for each.
4. Informant Reports: Asking friends/family about the subject's happiness.

The Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS):

• Developed by Ed Diener.
• It is a 5-item scale designed to measure global cognitive judgments of one's life satisfaction (not emotional levels).
• Participants rate statements on a 1-7 scale (e.g., "In most ways my life is close to my ideal").
• It is one of the most widely used tools in positive psychology due to its high validity and reliability.

Research indicates that happiness is not just a result of health, but also a cause of better health.

Key Effects:

• Immune System Function: Positive affect is associated with stronger immune responses (e.g., higher levels of antibodies), leading to greater resistance to the common cold and viruses.
• Cardiovascular Health: Happy individuals tend to have lower blood pressure, lower heart rate, and lower cortisol (stress hormone) levels, reducing the risk of heart disease.
• Pain Tolerance: Positive emotions can mitigate the perception of pain.
• Health Behaviors: Happy people are more likely to engage in healthy behaviors (exercise, good diet, sleep) and avoid risky behaviors (smoking, excessive drinking).
• Longevity: Longitudinal studies (e.g., the Nun Study) have shown that individuals who express more positive emotions live significantly longer than less happy peers, sometimes by several years.

Proposed by Barbara Fredrickson, this theory explains the evolutionary function of positive emotions.

1. Broaden Effect:

• Unlike negative emotions (which narrow focus to survival—'fight or flight'), positive emotions (joy, interest, love) broaden an individual's momentary thought-action repertoire.
• People become more creative, open to new information, and flexible in their thinking.

2. Build Effect:

• Over time, this broadened mindset helps build enduring personal resources.
  • Physical resources: (e.g., health, coordination).
  • Social resources: (e.g., support networks, friendships).
  • Intellectual resources: (e.g., knowledge, problem-solving skills).

Relation to Well-Being:

• These accumulated resources function as reserves that can be drawn upon during stressful times, enhancing resilience and contributing to long-term well-being and an upward spiral of happiness.

Martin Seligman, the father of Positive Psychology, proposed the PERMA model in his book Flourish (2011) to define the elements of well-being.

The 5 Elements:

1. P - Positive Emotion: Feeling good, experiencing joy, gratitude, and optimism (The Hedonic aspect).
2. E - Engagement: Being completely absorbed in activities; experiencing 'Flow'.
3. R - Relationships: Having authentic, supportive connections with others. Humans are inherently social.
4. M - Meaning: Belonging to and serving something bigger than oneself (e.g., religion, family, community causes).
5. A - Accomplishment: Pursuing success, winning, achievement, and mastery for its own sake.

Note: According to Seligman, these elements are pursued for their own sake and measured independently to constitute 'flourishing'.

Social relationships are arguably the single most important external correlate of happiness.

Key Findings:

• Necessity: Diener and Seligman found that "very happy" people have rich, satisfying social relationships and spend little time alone. It is viewed as a necessary (though not sufficient) condition for high happiness.
• Marriage: Generally, married people report higher levels of happiness than those who are single, divorced, or widowed. However, the 'honeymoon effect' (spike in happiness) often wears off after a few years (adaptation).
• Social Support: Having people to count on buffers against stress. It fulfills the fundamental need to belong.
• Quality vs. Quantity: The quality of intimacy and depth in relationships predicts well-being better than the mere number of acquaintances.

Discrepancy Theories suggest that happiness is determined by the gap (discrepancy) between reality and various standards.

Types of Gaps:

1. Ideally vs. Reality: The gap between what one has and what one wants (aspirations).
2. Past vs. Present: The gap between what one has now and what one had previously.
3. Social Comparison: The gap between what one has and what others have.

Mechanism:

• Small Gap: When the discrepancy is small (Reality Ideal), satisfaction is high.
• Large Gap: When the discrepancy is large (Reality Ideal), distinct dissatisfaction occurs.

Critique: Constant closing of gaps often leads to the formation of new, higher standards (raising expectations), making happiness elusive (the Hedonic Treadmill).

Culture plays a significant role in defining what constitutes happiness and how it is pursued.

1. Individualistic Cultures (e.g., USA, Western Europe):

• Definition: Happiness is often defined as high personal arousal, excitement, and personal achievement.
• Predictors: Self-esteem and personal goal attainment are strong predictors.
• Focus: The 'Self' is the center of well-being.

2. Collectivist Cultures (e.g., East Asia, parts of Africa):

• Definition: Happiness is often viewed as low arousal (calmness, contentment) and harmony.
• Predictors: Social harmony, fulfilling duties, and relationship quality are stronger predictors.
• Focus: The group/family is the center. Excessive personal happiness might even be viewed negatively if it disrupts group harmony.

Measurement Bias: Many standard scales (like SWLS) were developed in the West and may not fully capture the collectivist view of well-being.

Experience Sampling Method (ESM):

• A research methodology where participants are prompted (via pager, app, or text) at random times throughout the day/week to report their current activity, thoughts, and feelings.

Advantages over Global Self-Reports:

1. Reduces Memory Bias: Global reports (e.g., "How happy are you these days?") are subject to the 'Peak-End Rule' and faulty memory. ESM captures the experience in the moment.
2. Ecological Validity: It measures happiness in the natural environment of the participant, rather than a lab setting.
3. Detailed Patterns: It reveals temporal patterns (e.g., happiness fluctuates by time of day) and situational correlates (e.g., happiness is higher with friends than alone) that global summaries miss.

The 'Happy-Productive Worker' thesis suggests that SWB contributes to better work outcomes.

Key Benefits:

• Productivity: Happy employees tend to be more productive and have higher quality work output.
• Creativity: Positive affect promotes flexible thinking and innovation (Broaden-and-Build effect).
• Leadership: Happy people are often perceived as more competent and are more likely to be selected for leadership positions.
• Retention/Attendance: High well-being is associated with lower absenteeism and lower turnover rates (burnout).
• Income: Longitudinal studies show that happy people tend to earn higher incomes later in life, suggesting happiness leads to success, not just vice versa.

Correlation:
Yes, studies generally show a small to moderate positive correlation between religious involvement/spirituality and subjective well-being.

Reasons/Mechanisms:

1. Social Support: Religious communities provide a strong, built-in support network.
2. Meaning and Purpose: Faith provides a sense of meaning, answers to existential questions, and a framework for understanding suffering.
3. Healthy Lifestyle: Many religions discourage vices (drugs, alcohol) and encourage moderation.
4. Psychological Coping: Prayer and faith can serve as effective coping mechanisms during stress.
5. Altruism: Encouragement of charity and helping others promotes well-being (Helper's High).

Flow State:

• Concept by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
• It is a state of total absorption in an activity where the self-consciousness disappears, and the sense of time is distorted.
• Conditions for Flow: It occurs when there is a balance between High Challenge and High Skill.

Relation to Happiness:

• While in Flow, a person may not feel 'happy' in the emotional sense (no active reflection on feelings), but afterward, they report high gratification and satisfaction.
• It contributes to Eudaimonic well-being (growth and engagement).
• A life full of Flow activities leads to a more complex, grown self, which contributes to long-term well-being.

While the science of measuring happiness has advanced, several limitations remain:

1. Subjectivity & Biases:

• Social Desirability: People may report being happier than they are to look good.
• Current Mood Bias: A person's mood at the exact moment of taking a survey influences their rating of their whole life.

2. Cultural Bias:

• Definitions of happiness vary globally. Western scales emphasizing self-esteem may not accurately measure well-being in collectivist cultures.

3. Adaptation/Scale Recalibration:

• Individuals may interpret the scale differently over time. A '7/10' for a student might mean something different than a '7/10' for the same person 20 years later.

4. Ceiling Effects:

• Most people report being 'moderately happy', making it difficult to distinguish nuances at the top end of the scale.

5. Affective vs. Cognitive:

• Measures sometimes conflate momentary pleasure (affect) with life reflection (cognitive), yielding inconsistent results.