What is happiness?
Transcription
What is happiness?
Happiness Happiness research 10 February 2015 Charlene van Herwaarden Elyse van Rijsbergen 6V2 2 Foreword Work on subjective well being has brought together many researchers from the fields of economics, sociology, psychology, political science, brain sciences, and so on. Encouraging dialogue between different kinds of researchers is difficult but essential. Happiness research has played a big part in this quest for happiness. For the past years there has been a rising worldwide demand that policy should be more closely aligned with what really matters to people as they themselves characterize their lives. More and more world leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, South Korean President Park Geun-hye and British Prime Minister David Cameron, are talking about the importance of well being as a guide for their nations and the world. We chose the topic happiness, because when you think about happiness, the term seems very easy, but there is more to it than meets the eye. In our daily life we do not realise how important happiness is for our well-being on personal level as well as for our nations. With this research we wanted to find out what influence happiness has on our society and policymaking. We would like to thank some people who have helped us with our research. Meneer van Horssen, teacher economy Erik Vos, from Worldschool The people who answered our questionnaire 3 Content Introduction 5 Subquestion What is happiness? What defines happiness? 6 Which factors affect happiness? 17 How can we effectively measure happiness? 29 What are the happiest countries in the world? And what makes Bhutan one of the happiest places in the world? 45 How can measurements of happiness contribute to policies aimed at the development and progress of society? 57 How will happiness be measured in the future and which factors Will play an important role? 64 Mainquestion What is the impact of the use of happiness meters on the society? 69 Annex Happiness survey 71 Survey results 72 Logbook Logbook Elyse van Rijsbergen 88 Logbook Charlene van Herwaarden 91 Sources All sources 93 4 Introduction The main goal of our research is to find out what happiness meters are and what they do. Our mainquestion is: “What is the impact of the use of happiness meters on the society?” To be able to answer our mainquestion we had to take a look at different aspects of happiness. We answered six subquestions to be able to draw a conclusion. We did research on what happiness defines, which factors affect happiness, how we are able to measure happiness effectively, what the happiest countries are in the world, how happiness measurements can contribute to policies aimed at the development and progress of society, and how happiness will be measured in the future. To answer these subquestions we used a lot of sources. We have visited the ministry of infrastructure and environment in The Hague. There we have talked with a policy officer about happiness meters. He gave us some useful tips. We also bought some books, for example “The World Book of Happiness” and “Happiness & Hardship”. We have used several sites for our research, but the books were very useful as well. Besides that we have also conducted a survey online. Our collaboration went very well. We agreed on the division of labour very easily. Some elements of our research were quite difficult, but we have managed to complete it because of our great teamwork! We are very satisfied about the final result of our research on happiness. We have approached our topic happiness from several positions. In this way we got to know the advantages and disadvantages of using happiness in research and policymaking. It was a very interesting topic to do research on. We have learned so much about happiness and the influence of happiness on our society. 5 “There is no one word in our language for happiness”.1 What is happiness? What defines happiness? Happiness is the phenomenon where everyone on this earth just cannot get enough of. But what defines happiness and what kind of types of happiness do we have? The first and maybe hardest question to answer is the question what is happiness in general. This main question is important for the entire PWS. It is quite difficult to answer this question because happiness can be interpreted in many ways. Happiness for us might mean a whole different thing than happiness to you. Let’s start off with the definition of the word happiness. Even though there are some small differences in meaning it all comes down to the same thing. Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well being.2 So we could say that happiness is all in our head. Happiness has everything to do with the emotions. Positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy can be called happiness. Researchers divide happiness into two components. The first is, as mentioned above, the expression of positive emotions. The other component is having the sense of satisfaction. It is one thing to experience a positive emotion. Though it is another to feel satisfied. We as humans are not often satisfied, more about that in the upcoming pages. Ask anyone about happiness and everyone will answer with a different response. There are differences between sexes, but also between countries and even continents. In enquiries about the happiest countries it are often the same countries that come out on top. Scandinavian countries consider themselves happy. Americans do not consider themselves very happy. The way they look at happiness is very simple. Money, family and fun seem to make them happy, whereas in Russia the ultimate goals of happiness are totally different. They say they would only be fully satisfied when there is a mutual understanding between people, when there is a world of beauty and peace. Goals, which are not as easy to fulfill. This might be the reason why Russians are ranked lower in the contest for ultimate happiness. As you might notice happiness is a very broad topic. Everyone has a different angle on the topic. It is looked at from biological, psychological, religious and 1 2 Quote from Noraini M. Noor from The World Book of Happiness http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=happiness&a=*C.happiness-_*Word- 6 philosophical approaches. All together the concept of real happiness remains a little vague. It is important to know what determines happiness. This is also a quite surprising outcome for some.3 50% of our happiness comes from our genes. 40% of our happiness comes from our intentional activity. 10% of out happiness comes from external factors. What happens to us when we feel happy? Feeling happy is something that everyone wishes. Though it is not as easy as it might seem to fake that feeling. In fact it is impossible. Putting up a smile is not enough to make you happy. The question is what does? Happiness starts in our brains. To be exact the left pre-frontal cortex is the location that is involved in our happiness.4 These cells determine our state of mind. Also the sub-cortex at the bottom of the brain is involved in this (we know this because of research with MRI and EEG). There are billions of cells in our brains and each and every one of them is connected. Vital chemical carry messages from one brain cell to the other. Doing this they ‘talk’ to one another. Those messages determine whether you feel happy or sad. Happy messengers have transport upbeat messengers.5 This is also known as Biogenic Amine/Endorphin system. There are four happy chemicals that could make us feel happy. Dopamine Serotonin Oxytocin Endorphin All of those chemicals make us feel good once released. The optimal situation would be if all of those chemicals would be released all the time. Though this is unfortunately not the case. All of them have a special task to do and once they completed that task they turn off. Dopamine for instance makes people more talkative and excitable. So we reach happiness when one or more of those chemicals are released in our brains. The brains are the first step towards feeling happy. When they are http://thehappinesscoach.biz/do-you-know-what-determines-your-happiness/ https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-face-adversity/201302/the-role-the-brain-inhappiness 5 http://altered-states.net/barry/newsletter185/ 3 4 7 released the next thing will happen. That part of the brain that is involved will ‘light up’. Not really of course, but there will be a sudden increase of activity. When this happens more blood or activity in this part of the brains will occur. Feeling happy is often a result of something. When something good happens to you, you will start to feel happy. This often makes your heart beat faster. And so your blood flows faster. This results in more energy and in a more active mood. Furthermore your skin temperature will rise and so will your skin get damper. All of those signals make those chemicals in your brain active. The smile There are many results of happiness. One is more direct and visible than the other. Smiling is the one thing that represents happiness. A smile from ear to ear can make not only you, but also others feel happy. Though smiling is also a physical feeling of happiness that we ourselves can fake. While we cannot fake our heartbeat or skin temperature we can put on a smile even if we do not mean it. Smiling the one thing that everyone in this world seems to understand. Even though you do not know each other, you do not speak each others language or come from complete different backgrounds, you do understand each other in the language of the smiles. Though most of the smiles are not genuine. We often laugh to be polite or make someone feel better. There is just one smile that is really genuine: the Duchenne smile. The Duchenne smile is the name of the smile that shows true happiness. 6 The name has been given by Paul Ekman. He was a professor of psychology and he named it after Guillaume-Benjamin Duchenne. He did research on the muscle around the eye in the year 1862. Duchenne was a French physiologist. The Duchenne smile goes as follows: The corners of the mouth go up. The eyes of the person narrow, they start forming little crowfeet in the corners of the eyes. The upper half of the cheeks rise, often showing the teeth. If you see someone smile like that you know the smile is genuine. Seeing that smile or smiling it yourself is much more than a contraction of muscles in your face.7 That is only the beginning of feeling good. Little signs go to your brain. 6http://www.investigatinghealthyminds.org/ScientificPublications/1990/EkmanDuchennePers onalityAndSocialPsychology.pdf 7 https://blog.bufferapp.com/the-science-of-smiling-a-guide-to-humans-most-powerfulgesture 8 In the brains some of the chemicals are released. And they tell you to feel good. Smiling is good for all sorts of reasons. Studies have shown that smiling reduces stress.8 Stress is a factor that has influence on our happiness. This is due to the fact that if there is too much stress put on the brain, the ‘delivery’ of the happy chemicals falls behind. They do not reach other brain cells; slowly you begin to feel unhappy, or even depressed. Living without stress is good for our personal life but also for work. So it does not only have biological advantages. Also economical and social advantages. Smiling breeds’ trust, makes you happier overall and can even make you live longer! Ernest L. Abel and Michael L. Kruger from Wayne state university have dedicated an inspiring research to it. 9 Their research question was: ‘does smile intensity have a statistically significant effect on a person’s longevity?’ In their case study they looked at 230 pictures of basketball players. They were looked at and assessed by many professionals. They were divided into three groups: no smile, partial smile, and Duchenne smile. After that they compared it to the life data of those professional basketball players. The outcome was very interesting. The life span of the non-smilers was 72.9 years. Two years less than those who smiled partially on the photos. The big winners of this study are those who laughed on the photos. They lived to an average of 79.9 years. They did the same study, but instead of looking at the smiles they looked at the attractiveness of those players. No difference in lifespan was found this time. With this case study Abel and Kruger showed that people who smile tend to live longer. Appearance does not matter when talking about life expectancy. Long-term and short-term happiness If we want to get a closer look at what happiness really means we can divide happiness in two parts. We can look at the short-term or the long-term happiness. Short-term happiness Firstly we will look at the short-term happiness. Imagine walking on the street and bumping up against a good friend. After greeting this good friend you will probably ask him ‘How are you?’. He automatically responds that he is 8 9 http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/248433.php http://www.psmag.com/health/smile-to-live-longer-10401 9 fine and asks the question back, on which you will probably reply that everything is okay, you’re happy. This is a typical case of short-term happiness. In a conversation like this you will probably respond without thinking. Short- term happiness can be based on all kinds of things. You will become happy of certain activities, a good grade, food or sport. This is really personal. There are critics of short-term happiness. Luminita Saviuc is one of them. She wrote an article for the website purposefairy.com about the risks of short-term happiness. In the Article ‘Say no to short-term happiness’ she wrote: ‘They love to only do what is fun and easy, tension relieving rather than gold achieving. If we keep on living like this, if we will be doing this, we will never find our true happiness.’10 This sentence indicates that if we focus on the things that make us happy for a few seconds we forget the big picture. Living in a world, which is full of distractions can be difficult after all. Furthermore she believes that our lives are journeys to ultimate happiness. During this journey everyone has about the same state of mind. One night you might be very cheerful but eventually you will get back to the same level of contentment. You will never be fully satisfied, because you did not reach your goal yet. So if we should believe misses Saviuc, short-term happiness is overrated. These moments of pleasure only stand in the way of real happiness. While we do agree that long-term happiness is more important than short-term happiness, we do think that the little things are important as well. On this journey that we make in life it would be boring if we always had the same state of mind. It would not only be boring, but also dangerous. Without excitement we will get into a rut. A rut is bad for the mood of people. And in serious cases this rut might make you forget about your initial path to long-term happiness. Long-term happiness Secondly we have long- term happiness. To inquire if someone is happy overall you will need to change the question and the setting. You do not ask for the long-term happiness in small talk because that is quite a personal question. Research has shown that only ten percent of happiness comes from circumstances.11 So where does the other ninety percent come from? To answer that question we need to know what long-term happiness actually is. We would consider happiness as a very broad and big thing in this context. http://www.purposefairy.com/724/say-no-to-short-term-happiness/ http://www.canyonranch.com/your-health/mind-spirit/cultivating-happiness/findingfulfillment/finding-long-term-happiness 10 11 10 Long-term happiness is not something that can be achieved in one day, one week or even one month. It takes much more to become really ‘happy’. There is no exact formula for making decisions that lead to long-term happiness. Though while comparing people who claim they are happy with their lives they share a few principles. The first thing that is important in becoming happy is to engage in activities you love. This seems easier than it is. Through all the stress of work or school or social obligations we often forget to do something that we really do for ourselves. ‘Do what you love’ 12 is an often used advice for anyone who needs to choose a career or a study. Being engaged in something you are passionate about will make you happier. The second important factor in happiness is having friendships and connections. Humans are from ancient times on herd animals. We love to be surrounded. Without any form of contact we might as well change in some kind of animal. Having meaningful contact will make you happier. Having a conversation makes you feel connected and supported. Fixing problems or making decisions is easier with some help from outside. Furthermore connections have proven to improve your coping skills and your level of stress. Good friends take care of each other. We learn each other to live good and healthy. We make the day worthwhile and motivate us for the next day. In this way other people do have a big influence on your happiness. The third advice is to be flexible. Every one of us will one day face disappointment or challenges in our lives. The strongest and thus the happiest of us will not let the disappointment get them down. We should see disappointments as challenges. The challenge is to come out stronger than the way you came in. Sometimes you need to admit that you cannot control the situation. Let everything rain over you and deal with it. Anything is possible as long as you believe in it yourself. Flexibility of the mind is important to forgive and forget. Only then you can move on. Like mentioned in the point above forgiveness is also very important in the path to happiness. Once you keep on holding on to anger or remorse you spoil the precious days of your life. Freeing yourself of this burden makes you feel ten pounds lighter. It also makes people understand you better. They now know why you feel a certain way and will give you the space to process your feelings. http://www.canyonranch.com/your-health/mind-spirit/cultivating-happiness/findingfulfillment/finding-long-term-happiness 12 11 To show a little gratitude in life is not a bad thing. When people help you or when something has succeeded you are allowed to count your blessings. In fact counting your blessings makes people happier. To feel grateful for everything that you do have instead of the things that you do not have makes your mood get better by the hour. These points are only a few guidelines to overall happiness. If it works that depends on the person. Long-term happiness is the thing most people strive for. You might not be as successful in every aspect but there are always things that make you happy. The key factor is to take time to reflect. Stop the world for one second and look around you. What do you have? Amazing friends? A good job or a fantastic hobby? There is always something to live for, something to strive for. Long-term happiness seems to be the one thing that we need in life. There are many ways to achieve that feeling and those ways differ per person. Has happiness changed through the centuries? The search for happiness is very old. The way people regarded happiness back then is different from now. In ancient times happiness was something beyond human agency. In the ancient Greece happiness was controlled by the Gods and just by luck. Even big philosophers like Socrates had an opinion about happiness. In a time were happiness was supposed to be out of human control, Socrates took a different stand. In the Symposium Socrates declared that education is the key to happiness.13 Children should be taught how to become happy. After Socrates, Aristotle was the next big philosopher who had an outstanding opinion about happiness. He lived from 384 BC until 322 BC. Aristotle shared the Socratic view on many points. Though he believed that next to education other external factors played a role in achieving happiness. Though until the 18th century most of the people did not look at happiness like we do to it now. 14 In Europe and America we know that people were encouraged to live a sober life. All for the sake of living a ‘good’ life. People from the church told their followers to live with a slightly saddened outlook on life. If they did so they would be spoilt in after life. God would reward those who had followed his instructions. Lots of inhabitants trusted the church and lived to believe that happiness was unnecessary and maybe even sinful. Ever since the 18th century we got a more positive outlook on life. The few historians who worked on happiness generally agreed that there was a sudden change. Joseph Addison, an English politician, writer and poet explained that there were three essential sources for happiness in life. Three 13 14 http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~jessegra/papers/OGKG.inpress.HappinessConcepts.PSPB.pdf https://hbr.org/2012/01/the-history-of-happiness 12 grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.15 This is a quite a different outlook on happiness than people were used to. Happiness suddenly became a public desire. Why this change suddenly occurred is not known. The thing we do know is that it is not due to antireligious reasons (it was not until the 19th century that the influence of the church took off). The enlightment did change the mindset of the religious. Happiness was not any longer a sin, it became a way of commemorating life and paying tribute to God. The 18th century became the century in which normal people were more eager to show their happiness. Why this was the moment people started laughing more in public is not really known. There are some historicists that believe that because of the improved dentistry more people were willing to show others their teeth by lifting up their lips. Happiness became an everyday facet of life. Without happiness your life was not complete. So everywhere people tried to find things that make us happy. It was also in this period of time when work was supposed to bring you joy. Whereas work used to be an obligation, the office became a place where you liked to go to. Somewhere you can be yourself, find friends and socialize. At home the atmosphere became very important. Also in the 19th century wives had to stay at home and take care of all the chores in the house. One of her main chores was to keep her husband satisfied. She had to bring him joy and happiness, needed to give him children and needed to raise those children to be good, smart and polite. A big pressure was put on those wives. After the 1920’s happiness was not just an unspoken desire anymore. Through literature and other sources like music more and more attention was put onto being happy. Also on the commercial field happiness was used more often. Where childhood was once a period all based on strict rules, it now loosened up. In the past the feelings of children did not really matter. Whether the child was happy or not it didn’t matter. Only by being strict the children would become successful in life. From the 20th century on experts changed their minds: ‘happiness is as essential as food, if a child is to develop into normal manhood or womanhood.’16 A total different outlook on the life of children. Children are born happy and the parents should let the child be. The child should be able to be as happy as possible in order to have the best future. Another important result of happiness was the growing consumerism.17 More often people associated buying goods with happiness. This had a very positive effect on the economy. http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~jessegra/papers/OGKG.inpress.HappinessConcepts.PSPB.pdf https://books.google.nl/books?id=17 http://americamagazine.org/issue/687/article/happiness-examined 15 16 13 On the one hand has happiness shown us a very bright side of itself. Though if there is one thing that we learned after all those years and from all those experts in the field of happiness is that happiness has a limit. If we expect too much of happiness it will only dissatisfy us in the end. Are we ever really happy? So what defines happiness? In general we as humans are ‘happy’ when basic survival needs are fulfilled. Take for example food. Food is one of the most important things for us in this earth. We eat when we are hungry. Once we fill our stomachs with a snack, we feel complete, we feel happy. This sense of happiness remains for a while and is saved in our minds. The remarkable thing about our brains is that they are able to lay connections we do not even have to think about. Any time we don’t feel good we have the urge to eat. Just to get back to that good and satisfied feeling. Furthermore there are many other basic needs we have to fulfil. Sexual urge, being confirmed and having more power are also general things, which make us happier in life. Though, there is a catch. It is in the nature of human that we do not remain ‘happy’ for long. Every time we have something in life, it could be bigger and better. So the right question to ask is: are we really happy? The short and easy answer to this question is: no. Something inside us keeps telling us to search on. Achieving one big thing does not mean you have succeeded in life. There is a name for this phenomenon: ‘the grass is greener’ syndrome. 18 This syndrome also is common in relationships. We are never really 100% happy or satisfied. Also when we talk about our job or house. Anytime you have settled somewhere you start wondering. Is this really the best I can do? Am I missing out on things somewhere else? Will I be happier if I move to another bigger city? All those questions wander around in our heads. This syndrome often causes the opposite of what we want to accomplish. Since the grass is always greener on the other side we could say that you will never be happy. Focusing on things we do not have is a recipe for disaster. Year after year more and more people are diagnosed with a depression.19 This depression can last up to years. Depression makes you feel lifeless, empty and apathetic. An inquiry from the GGZ showed that up to 20% of all the people in the Netherlands will be depressed once in their lives. 20 This has big consequences. In the Netherlands alone, the costs of depression are 168.000 Disability Adjusted Life Years. This means that depression is more expensive than diabetes, long cancer or dementia for our government. 21 The costs of the treatments are 966 million euro’s per year. 22 http://tinybuddha.com/blog/why-the-grass-is-never-greener-and-how-to-be-happy-today/ http://www.helpguide.org/articles/depression/depression-signs-and-symptoms.htm 20 http://www.ggznederland.nl/uploads/publication/Factsheet%20depressie.pdf 21 RIVM. Nationaal Kompas Volksgezondheid (2013); 22 Slobbe, Kosten van ziekten in Nederland 2007 (2011); 18 19 14 Figure 1.1: Depression. This Dutch graph of depression shows us how much people will ever get into a depression. This depression can be divided over once in their lives, or it occurred in the last twelve months. The second graph shows the division of the people who get into such a depression. The further you go to the right the further you go in life. The first three bars tell us about the lowest education and so it moves up towards HBO or university. Even though something in us keeps telling us we could be happier, there must be a way to feel happy overall. The clue is to keep reminding yourself of what you do have. Focus on the here and now. If you keep on living in the past you will never become happy. When you only look at the future, you forget about the little things that happen now. Every day is special and unique. Mindfulness will help you to keep your mind quiet. It stops us from agonizing over what might have been or what could be. It brings us back to the present. Overall we as humans are not often really happy. We could be though. We should do our best and focus on the here and now. That is the key to a life full of happiness. Do we take happiness serious? Happiness turns out to be quite important for us. Though do we take it serious enough? Most of us would agree that happiness is very much wanted. Though when we start using happiness more, it turns out that it is not the most 15 respected topic. Quitting your job, doing reckless things or staying at home for the sake of happiness is not often seen as a good excuse. Though happiness is a good reason to do things! A happy human being is capable of much more. Happiness leads to self-actualization.23 Happiness is our highest goal in life. Furthermore is happiness an effective way of accomplishing many other goals in life.24 23 24 http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html http://thehappinessshow.com/WhyIsHappinessSoImportant.htm 16 “More and more income does not lead to more and more happiness”.25 Which factors affect happiness? To achieve happiness we need to know which factors have an influence on happiness. Those factors determine whether you are likely to be happy or not. In the first subquestion we already discussed the basic factors for happiness. In the upcoming subquestions these factors will play a key role. The factors will be a recurring topic in the sub questions about how to measure happiness and how it will be measured in the future. The three main factors to gain happiness are: Genes Intentional activity External factors Those three factors determine whether you are happy or not. Though they are not binding. At all times you can become or be happy, even though all three of those factors are against. It is the way of dealing with them, that determines if you really miss your shot at happiness. Genes affect happiness From the moment you come into this world a few things in your live are determined. You will have blue eyes and brown hair; you have asthma or another illness. Both your parents gave you some of their characteristics. External characteristics, but also internal characteristics. All of those characteristics we call genes. Your genes determine for a great part who you are and who you will be in the future. The one thing they also influence is how big your chance on happiness is. Because that is one of the packages they give you from the moment you are conceived. British researchers claim that they have found the reason why certain people are happier than others.26 They compared the genes of over 100 different countries. What they saw gave them the reason to assume that genes are responsible for happiness. How do those genes determine whether you are happy or not? That is thanks to the serotonin levels that you received from your parents.27 Serotonin is a chemical that maintains your mood balance. It is directly linked to depression. Quote from Stavros Drakopoulos from The Book of Happiness. http://www.euronews.com/2014/10/17/why-are-danes-so-happy-it-could-be-in-theirgenes/ 27 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2812573/Americans-Brits-French-BORN-miserableLength-gene-determines-happy-Danes-rank-top.html 25 26 17 In general each and everyone on this earth should have this gene. So we would all be happy. Though this is obviously not the case, because otherwise one country would not be happier than another in the happiness chards. The key to this lies in our genes. There is much less chance on a mutation of the gene that is responsible for happiness. This gene is closely linked to the regulation of the serotonin levels. If those levels are suppressed it is more likely that people get into a depression.28 Scientists at the university of Warwick discovered that the happy gene differs in length.29 Shorter versions of this gene indicate that there is a higher risk on a lower level of serotonin in the brain. People with longer ‘happy’ genes are more likely to have a higher level of serotonin. This will most presumably mean that you are happier and more positive. The research is not done yet. There are conflicting ideas about the ‘happy gene’. After all the research done by the university of Warwick the journal progress in Neuro-psychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry put a spanner in the works. They did some research and found out that while both man and woman have the ‘happy gene’. The woman showed much more activity under the influence of a long or short version gene. Though the man did not show any real changes under that same influence. Those researchers suspect that testosterone might be the reason why men are immune to the ‘happy gene’.30 This is just an assumption, because not everyone agrees on this part. So up to 50% of our happiness lays in the hands of our parents. Happiness affects genes Besides the fact that genes determine your happiness, it can also be the other way around. Happiness can also influence or affect your genes. Scientists say that your genes can be influenced, while handling with very good or very bad emotions for a long time. Steven Cole from UCLA did research together with a special team about the human genome. 31 He was determined to find out about the affects of happiness on the human genes. In order to have a good research, he divided happiness into two parts. Eudaimonic happiness, having a deep sense of purpose and meaning in life. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232248.php http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/features/what-makes-us-happy/clairehaworth/ 30 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/happiness-gene-women-maoastudy_n_1844504.html 31 http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/264105.php 28 29 18 Hedonic happiness, the type of happiness that comes from absolute self-gratification. 80 healthy adults were asked to take part in this research. They were asked several questions about their lives. All those questions were directed to find out whether those people were happy or not. And if they are happy, what kind of happiness they pursue. After categorizing all of those people, a little blood was drew and mapped. Researchers used a gene-expression profile named CTRA (conserved transcriptional response to adversity) to map their findings. The CTRA is a shift associated with an increase of inflammation and a decrease in antiviral activities with the genes. These were some of the findings of Steven Cole and his team about the difference between eudaimonic well-being and hedonic well-being: Figure 1.1: Well-being. 32 Explanation: If we look at figure 1.1 we will see the division between eudaimonic wellbeing and hedonic well-being. The line in the middle shows us the perfect 32 http://www.pnas.org/content/110/33/13684.full 19 division between those two. The little black dots represent the 80 adults. Based on several questions their position was calculated. If your answers suggested that you have a high sense of eudaimonic well-being and a lower sense of hedonic well-being you will be on the left side of the figure. Though the research of Steven Cole pointed out that more people are under the line of the perfect equivalent level. This means that the 80 adults will have a stronger sense of hedonic well-being than eudaimonic well-being. The people in the left bottom of the figure are the least happy. The ones in the right upper corner are the happiest. If we look at figure 1.B we will see the relationship between eudaimonic happiness and total happiness. The vertical axis is the axis of eudaimonic happiness. The number ranges from tree to minus tree. The positive number show that the person (the dot) has more eudaimonic happiness than hedonic happiness. All the negative number shows more Hedonic than eudaimonic happiness. The majority of the dots (persons) are situated below zero. Which means that more people that have more hedonic happiness are came out of the research. Every person of the 80 that participated did not score lower than a 1 out of five on total happiness. The research showed that the people with high levels of eudaimonic happiness are more likely to be healthier and have healthier genes.33 They have low levels of inflammatory gene expression and exhibited a strong expression of antiviral and antibody genes. This means that those people have enough antiviral activities in the genes. Those people will get ill less often and will not have as many health problems. The people who were showing more signs of hedonic happiness showed higher levels of inflammation. There was a decrease in the amount of antiviral expression. They will get more ill and their overall health is often less. All together we could say that happiness and genes go hand in hand. We should not underestimate the power of your own body. Intentional activity Where we cannot change our genes we can actually do something to become happier. 40% of our chances on happiness lie within our decisions. Our behavior can determine a great deal of our happiness.34 http://www.pnas.org/content/110/33/13684.full https://books.google.nl/books?id=Ivf_LufHmwC&pg=PT31&lpg=PT31&dq=Our+behavior+can+determine+a+great+deal+of+our+h appiness.&source=bl&ots=PZgeCrJUme&sig=vgZtxSSqT7qSQYmqgmwvr6uG5yw&hl=nl&sa=X& ei=c47XVPfdK6bOyQOBkYGABg&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Our%20behavior%20 can%20determine%20a%20great%20deal%20of%20our%20happiness.&f=false 33 34 20 If you look at the most happy people around us, they are often doing all kinds of things. Their diaries are filled with appointments and meetings. Work, school, friends, or family all have their place in a very busy schedule. Someone who did research about the active part of the search for happiness is Sonja Lyubomirsky. She teaches at the university of California, Riverside and writes a lot about her findings. She has set up her own theory about happiness: ‘We can not alter our genetic set points, and changes in life circumstances don't have a lasting impact on our happiness, but we can increase and sustain our happiness through intentional activities.’35 She did so much research that she was able to put down a list of activities with which you can recognize a ‘happy person’. Because believe it or not, happy persons do things differently than unhappy persons: 35 Expressing gratitude is the first sign of happiness. Showing gratefulness and counting your blessings once in a while will make you happier. This is because, instead of focusing on everything you do not have, you are focusing on the things you do have. Also when you are more open about how grateful you are people are more likely to do things for you, just because they know that it makes you happy. Relationship will flourish and so your life will be better. Cultivating optimism is the second sign. Having a positive outlook on life will help you to get through the hardest times. Being positive will help you to keep on working on your goals. Also optimists are more likely to have a good image of themselves. Mistakes and negative events happen and there is nothing that can change that. External factors are out there and they will not always work with you. Though being optimistic will help you in your life. Avoiding over thinking and social comparison is the third sign of a happy person. Someone who is unhappy will constantly overthink everything that they do. This often leads to not doing something new at all. Furthermore unhappy people will find themselves comparing to others. The grass is always greener on the other side. Practicing acts of kindness is number four. This does not only show that you are nice to others it also shows that you are confident enough to walk up to someone and say what you think. Giving someone a compliment or helping someone makes the others day. They will feel good and seeing the smile on their faces is very rewarding. One day http://www.edbatista.com/2009/02/happiness.html 21 they will want to make you feel the same way, so they will make it up to you. Nurturing social relationships is the fifth sign of happiness. Keeping contact with people you do not see regularly is difficult. In your busy life, you need to make space for old contacts. Though those people will make you happy. They know you and care about you, just like they do for you. Other people can surprise you and take you off guard. The humankind needs social contact. Without it we would all go crazy. Developing strategies for coping is the sixth point. Do not let people walk over you. If you make up your mind and know your own thoughts, you can handle well in any situation. Learn to forgive is number seven. Sudhir M. Shah once said: ’Forgiveness is not a sense of false humility that makes us better than somebody else. It is an attitude that sets us free, so that we are not continually re-victimized by our wounds.’36 If you are able to forgive the other, it is often a sign of a strong mind. Increasing flow experiences is the eight sign of a happy person. This sign is all about doing things. Work with your strengths passions and talents. While at the same time working on your weaknesses. You will find that your flow experiences will become better. “Everyone has unique gifts and talents. What you love is what you’re gifted at. To be completely happy, to live a completely fulfilled life, you have to do what you love.” ~ Barbara Sher.37 Savor life’s joy is number nine. Even though every one of us always tends to appreciate the big events in life, we should stop for a minute and look around. During the quest for the big events we forget how beautiful the little things in life are. We take the nature and people around us for granted. Though if you are able to see them and appreciate them, you will be a whole lot happier. “Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” ~ Robert Brault.38 Committing to your goals the tenth sign of a happy person. A happy person has goals in his or her life. They set all kinds of goals. Little ones, bigger ones, goals, which are easy to achieve or goals that you need http://www.anekant.org/tott_let_us_learn_to_forgive_truly.htm http://nicolewolf.com/use-your-super-powers/ 38 http://rbrault.blogspot.nl/p/note-november-23-2013-today-to-my.html 36 37 22 to work for a very long time. This gives you a sense of direction in your life. this is important for a well balanced and happy life. Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality.39 Practice spirituality is sign number eleven. This is a step that is not absolutely necessary to feel totally happy. Though the ones who do practice spirituality are often very relaxed. They are stable and strong minded people. It gives them strength to know that they don’t face problems alone. Taking care of your body is the last sign of a happy person. Your body is the material thing that represents who you are. It is important to feel good in your body. So exercise a lot and eat healthy. Feeling confident about your body is very important for a happy life. These are the twelve signs of a happy person according to Sonja Lyubomirsky. Do you want to be happy start with sign ten! Start setting goals for yourself. Set the goal to become happier. It is worth it. The good thing about intentional happiness is the open access to it. Each and every one of us can decide to start working on our happiness. So with the right mindset we can become happy. 40 Learning from the children Learning how to get the right mindset is easier than you might think. We have all got it in us. We only have to dig deep. Think about your years as a child. How happy were we? Some of us might have been luckier than others though everyone has been put on this world as a happy human being. If we speak for ourselves we could say we have had a pretty amazing youth. We had enough food; we had a house and a loving family. The littlest presents made us smile. But why did that characteristic fade away over time? Why did we all of the sudden forget to smile over the little things. Children are happy because they are open to it. One of the things children are amazing in, is in trusting their gut feeling. Your gut feeling is something our original surviving instinct according to Casteix.41 We did not receive it for no reason. If every one of us would use that feeling more often we would not be picking our brains out about every decision we need to make. We would just do it. http://www.mindtools.com/page6.html http://thinksimplenow.com/happiness/positive-attitude-happy-life/ 41 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-mundt/a-backtoschool-rule-forkids_b_5853030.html 39 40 23 Furthermore children live in the present. They do not spend time yearning about the past. Neither do they worry about the future. Their full attention goes to the moment they live in. If they feel good right here at this moment they feel good about anything, also about their future. Partly because they cannot look very far ahead yet compared to adults. This is helpful, because they view their future without gloom.42 Another thing children are professionals in are being excited. When was the last time you saw an adult getting all enthusiastic? Probably quite some time ago. And was it ever as happy as when you tell your little cousin that she is getting a present? Again the chances are small. Though being excited would be so good for our happiness. Expressing your feeling does not make you weak. It makes you accessible. There is no harm in showing how you feel. People will probably only start liking you more, since you show how you feel. They now know how to make you happy and so they will probably do things more often for you. Besides getting excited is good for you, the YerkesDodson Law points that out: ‘a moderate amount of anxiety can actually be motivating and energizing.’ 43 Always living without showing any emotion is tiring. It makes your temper go down and spontaneity will decrease. If you let yourself be as excited as a child, every day will be a pleasure. Last life lesson of our children is: be open! Children say what they think. They do not spend hours a day thinking about saying something, they just say it when it comes up in their minds. This spears them from a lot of stress. If adults would do the same they would be a lot happier. External effects The remaining ten percent that affect our happiness are external. We do not receive them through our genes. Neither does it have anything to do with the way we act. Though we can influence those factors. That is the nice thing about it. Thinking about happiness the big majority thinks about health, brains or the amount of money you have on your bank account. And even though it is only ten percent, we should not forget about it. Every day we face external effects. There are too many effects to discuss, because anything outside ourselves is external. All of those things together make up the ten percent. Money ''The best things in life are free, But you can give them to the birds and bees, I want money, That is what I want, That is what I want.''44 http://www.childresearch.net/chief2/03.html http://harvardmagazine.com/2014/05/a-better-path-to-high-performance 44 http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/wellness_articles.asp?id=1776 42 43 24 This song written in 1959 by Barrett Strong and later on made famous by the Beatles expresses the main question of this paragraph. Can money buy you happiness? According to the song it does, love cannot make you happy. It is money that everyone on this earth needs and wants. Though is this really true? Lots and lots of research has been done about this. Many psychologists had their own opinions about money and the effect of it on people. It was the university of southern California that came up with the Easterlin’s paradox in 1974. Economics professor Richard Easterlinn wanted to conduct research to that burning question. And as the name of the research reveals he came upon a paradox. He found out that it does not matter in which country he did the research all the outcomes showed matching results. The richer people were always more happy that the poor people. He did however not find any evidence that there were differences between the rich people’s happiness in the different countries. For his time Easterlinn was very far. The first part of his research was entirely true. Though in 2008 Stevenson and Wolfers published a paper, which stated that the populations of the rich countries as a whole were happier than the populations of poor counties.45 In this paper the next figure was incorporated: http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/05/10/money-does-buy-happiness-saysnew-study/ 45 25 Figure 1.2: Happiness vs. income.46 Explanation: This figure shows us the outcome of Wolfs research. The first figure called ‘Happiness vs. income worldwide’ combined different countries. He used India, China, Egypt, Germany and Brazil. All of those countries have a different culture and a different situation. In each of those countries they compared the average annual income to the average satisfaction in that country. If we look at the figure we can imagine a line through all the points. This line rises slowly but steadily. India for example has the lowest income and is also the least happy. Whereas the U.S. has the highest average income as well as the highest average grade of satisfaction. The conclusion of this figure: ‘people in rich countries are happier than people who live in a poor country’. The second figure is called ‘happiness vs. income in the U.S.’ in this graph Wolfs decided to look in to the happiest country according to the first figure he published. Also in this graph he compared happiness to income. The higher the income the higher the average satisfaction was in that country. This is because the line rises over the rise of income. Though if the annual income of people is below $75.000 money does make a difference, according to Princeton University. 47 As long as people do not have to worry about their basic needs, money matters less. Under the benchmark people struggle a lot. The only thing they really need is to survive. And lets face it; we need money to buy shelter, food and clothes. Money to them is very necessary. So extra money would make them extremely happy. Even if it is a 1000 dollars, as long as people are above that benchmark money is less important. Money is important. The richer people or nations are the happier they are. Money does not change everything. If you have enough money to fulfill your basic needs your money means less to you than when you have to struggle to survive every day. Relationships Searching for the relationship between money and happiness from the last paragraph we came across an inspiring quote from Henry Miller: “Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”48 http://time.com/money/2802147/does-money-buy-happiness/ http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2019628,00.html 48 http://www.positivityblog.com/index.php/2014/02/12/love-quotes/ 46 47 26 This is a very true quote. The message is beautiful and is soothed for this section. Relationships are one of the most important guideline to happiness. People who have one or more close friendships appear to be happier.49 The humankind is very much focused on the people around us. We could not live alone for very long without going crazy. Also the people that surround us can make or break our happiness. Lots of research has been done about the effect of a person his social connections. What turned out was that people with many friendships are less likely to experience sadness and other problems 50 . The amount and the quality of connections are important for everyone. In this modern world people are connected in all sorts of ways. So you would think nourishing relationships is easy. Though this seems not the case. More and more people end up alone according to professionals. Loneliness is bad for the development of the human. Relationships create psychological space and safety so that we can explore and learn.51 The first relationship that is important for you is your relationship with your family. All through your life you will stay connected to them, does not matter whether you are in contact with them or not. Your family can give you confidence and a warm place to hide when you need it. Your family will always be behind even if that seems impossible. “Do not be fooled. Bad companions ruin good character.” 1 Corinthians 15:33 (TEV). This quote from the bible gives away how important it is to pick your company right. This is actually very logical. If you look around you most of your friends will be quite similar to you. Of course everyone is different and has different characteristics. Though social status and the financial background of your friends are often closely related to your social status and background. You seek for people who are a lot like you. But if you are seeking for someone who resembles you, try seeking for someone with the right state of mind. Friends with good ideas, good goals and a positive attitude can change you. They will make you feel better. Though choosing your friends who are a lot like you will keep you from growing. 52 Since they are at the same level as you. Often you spend a lot of time with your friends. Real friends will help you in good times and in bad times. They will offer you companionships and a sense of belonging. Friends will listen to you and boost your confidence. All of those effects make you a lot happier. 49 http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/science-of-happiness/communicating/ 50http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/raising_happiness/post/happiness_is_being_socially_conn ected 51 http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/topic/connecting/connection-happiness 52 http://www.uklifecoaching.org/friends.htm 27 Health Living a healthy life determines a lot. It determines what you can or cannot do and so it determines your life. Two things can determine whether you are healthy or not. Your genes are the first. Maybe a disease is genetically transmitted. And the second is your lifestyle. Maybe you lived your life drinking and smoking. Then you influenced your health negatively. Having a bad health has only little influence on your overall happiness. Maybe you are extremely healthy. You eat good and exercise a lot. This often means that you can do anything you want. You do not need to worry about your health or well-being. Without this hold-back people tend to be a little more happy. This seems very logical. Everyone who is lucky enough to be healthy automatically feels happier. Though research shows that this is not the case in all situations. Lead author Erik Angner (professor of philosophy, economics and public policy at George Mason University) wrote ‘the journal of happiness Studies’. In this journal another theory came up. Everyone who is or has been very ill appreciates life more than ever.53 They would give their lives a higher average mark than ‘healthy’ people. A patient with prostate cancer for instance, who is not very much affected by his condition appreciates his life. Just because he knows that we do not own life. There are many more external effects that influence our happiness. All of those effects that seem so important only make up about 10% of the overall chance on happiness. But it is in the choice you make every day and NOT the external events around you that creates and sustains happiness in your life.54 Genes, intentional happiness and external factors affect happiness. It is the combination of the three that make us happy or not. The clue in finding happiness is not in desperately searching for it. It is in making right decisions and hoping you have got the right genes! 53 54 https://newsdesk.gmu.edu/2012/11/new-study-examines-how-health-affects-happiness/ http://www.startofhappiness.com/factors-that-affect-happiness/ 28 “We hold happiness within a fairly narrow range of values”.55 How can we effectively measure happiness? Up until know we have looked at what happiness actually is and which things affect happiness. All of this is very interesting, but how do we actually know who is happy and who is not? All over the world there have been philosophers and economists wandering about these questions. In the next couple of pages we are going to look at different case studies. We have chosen tree ways to measure happiness. These studies all come down to the same basic questions. Though there are differences in the outcomes. Figure 2.1: Happiness mind map. While brainstorming about how we could measure happiness we came upon different words. Figure one is our own mind map. Education: the quality of education is a key factor to the possible happiness of a country. In a country with a good education system people are more likely to be happy according to us. Education is important to a good future. A society with a good system is often organized well. This means that there is enough space for everyone to learn and grow. Money: in this materialistic world money is very important. We guess that in a country where people have more money, they are more likely to be happy. Of course we do not say that people in poor countries are not happy. Though we believe that when one is able to buy the things that they want, they will be more content with happiness. 55 Quote from Robert A. Cummins from The World Book of Happiness. 29 Economy: in a country with a good economy there is plenty of work to do. People are able to work and work turns out to make people more happy, because they have a purpose in life. A country with a good economy is, according to us, more likely to be happy. Employment: this one is related to economy. If the economy is good there is much employment. If there is much employment people will have a salary. This means they have the ability to buy the things they want. Personal safety: this is another very important facet for happiness. If you feel safe and comfortable you are more likely to feel happy. This is because only when you feel comfortable you are able to show who you really are. Facilities: the amount of facilities in a country shows how much opportunities people have. Facilities like sport associations, cinema’s and other cultural accommodations show how much the government cares about his citizens. Also how much money is set aside for other things than basic needs. OECD Better life index Who? The OECD is an organization that promotes certain policies. Those policies generally want to improve the economic and social well-being.56 They work together to help people all over the world. All the countries of the OECD work together and share their experiences. They do a lot of research and send questionnaires all over the world. Common problems can be solved. Together they take a look at the schooling system, environment and safety. Furthermore they work together on the research about happiness. They do this by means of the better life index. This is the first index that we will discuss. The better life index has been set up in May 2011. In this index 34 developed countries are examined. The following countries are involved: *Australia *Austria *Belgium *Brazil *Canada *Chile *Czech Republic *Denmark *Turkey 56 * Estonia * Finland * France * Germany * Greece * Hungary * Iceland * Ireland * United Kingdom * Italy *Japan * Korea * Luxembourg * Mexico * Netherlands * New Zealand * Norway * United States * Poland * Portugal * Russian Federation * Slovak Republic * Slovenia * Spain * Sweden * Switzerland http://www.oecd.org/about/ 30 The reason why these countries have been chosen is very clear. Almost all of those countries are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD is a cooperation that brings together the most developed economies and a few emerging countries. 57 Furthermore Brazil and Russia are the most important key-partners of the OECD. This means that they are not officially member of the OECD but they do have a close connection. Both countries fulfill an important role. They are allowed to attend almost any OECD Committee. Brazil and Russia are covered in many databases and are sometimes the subject of certain policy reviews.58 Why? This index aims to involve citizens in the well-being debate. 59 They believe that everyone in the society has his own opinion about everything. All of those opinions are important. What makes someone happy? Is it a combination between several factors, or is it purely money or relationships? How? The OECD became involved in the everlasting debate about happiness. How to measure it and how important it is for the society. The organization chose 11 topics that they believe indicate happiness. They chose those topics because they all had their individual meaning. Material living conditions and the quality of life have been researched in all of those countries. The eleven chosen topics: Housing. This is one of the most important spaces for a human being. A house is the place where you can be yourself. It is so much more than just four walls and a roof. A house is your shelter. We may use our homes to help distinguish ourselves.60 A house represents who you are and how you want your life to be. Having a clean tight house might represent someone who likes to be in control. The vast majority of OECD households, 87%, are satisfied with their housing. The research focuses on the living conditions. For instance the amount of people living in one house. Income. Neither the OECD can avoid putting money into the list of topics that influence happiness. No, money does not buy happiness, but it is important. The money that is available for buying goods or services differs per country and per person. Distribution of income, http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/about/better-life-initiative/ http://www.oecd.org/about/membersandpartners/enlargement.htm 59 http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/about/better-life-initiative/ 60 http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/the-psychology-of-home-why-whereyou-live-means-so-much/249800/ 57 58 31 61 disposable income and the differences between the incomes of countries are looked at by all of those countries. Jobs. Jobs and income have a strong connection. Though jobs mean so much more than just the pay check. A job keeps you socially connected, because there are a lot of people around you. Furthermore working can help you build your self-esteem and individuals develop themselves. OEDC looked at the level of employment. Community. The OECD looked at community because the social environment is really important for the development of a human being. They took the quantity and the quality of relationships into consideration. And also the volunteer work in countries fall under the community topic. This turned out to make people happier. Education. The OECD investigated what percentage of the population earned a high-school degree. This is important according to them because a well-educated individual is more involved in the daily life and will turn out to be happier. People who have been taught facts, skills and competences can participate in the society more easily. Environment. Surroundings are very important for the human being. The OECD did research about the amount of green spaces. Because having a place like that calms people down and give them a place to relax. Furthermore they did research to find out how the environmental problems in the country are tackled. Since nature is and will always be important for a healthy life. Civic engagement. How much the citizens are involved with the community is also taken into account by the OECD. The transparency of the government and the trust in the government is very important in a stable community. A country in which there is lots of civic engagement has often great public services and is governed in a fair and proper way. Health. Another important factor according to the OECD is health. The public health is very important, and it is measured while looking at life expectancy. Health care per country has also been taken into account. A healthy country brings all sorts of benefits along. Like an increase in productivity and wealth, reduced health care costs, good social relations, and of course, a longer life.61 Life satisfaction. An important factor for happiness is how satisfied someone is with his life. by means of surveys the OECD was able to measure this very subjective topic. Feelings can be called facts, however when comparing the ‘feelings’ to the quality of life, you will be able to draw some conclusions. The more satisfied someone is with his life, the happier he is. Security. The next topic is all about personal safety. Also this one has been researched with a survey. Does everyone feel safe while walking http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/health/ 32 on the street in the dark? Questions like those are asked to find out whether people feel safe in their own country. An important factor for happiness, because crime causes vulnerability. Work-life balance. People are the happiest when the work-life balance is perfect. Though it is not easy. Some find they work too much and have no spare time, while other would like to work more. Figure: 2.1: Personal better life index. These are the eleven topics the OECD looked at to make a good ranking of countries. While filling in the index ourselves we explored what the best counties for us are, to live in. We filled the index in according to what we find important in our own lives. Figure two is the index that we filled in. To us education and health are the most important indicators of all. This is because we believe that education is the key to success. If we would create a world in which every child gets education in a proper way, the future will look a lot brighter. The knowledge those children gain can be used in the future, so it an investment. Furthermore we believe that health is very important in our society. Not only health itself is important, but healthcare is also very important in a happy society. A healthy person can accomplish so much more than someone who is in a constant struggle with its own health. The results we got after filling in were we lived, how old we were and whether we were male or female were interesting. The country we should live in is not the Netherlands. If we wanted to live in the country that matches our index we had to move to: Australia 33 Sweden Norway Denmark Canada All of those countries generally look similar to our wishes. The countries were we would not belong are for instance: Turkey, Mexico or the Russian Federation. World happiness report Who? The next index we will be looking at is the world happiness report. This report has been published by the Sustainable Development Solution Network (SDSN). In 2012 UN secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched this organization. The reason for launching it was the continued battle against problems worldwide. Economical, social and environmental problems are all over the world. The SDSN is an organization that wants to bring the entire world together. They aim to work together with a group of very diverse people. All of those people together would then be responsible for making various decisions. This organization is directed by professor Jeffrey D. Sachs. He works closely together with The high Level Panel of Eminent Persons. The power of the SDSN is divided. The SDSN leadership Council is a board of the SDSN. The Executive Committee is a smaller group of people. They oversee financial, programmatic and other operational matters. 62 Thematic Groups contain involved experts. In total there are twelve of these groups. All of them contain experts from all over the world. They are involved in the technical side of the SDSN. The SDSN Assembly contains everyone who is a member of the SDSN. All of those members are allowed to participate in National or Regional SDSNs. The Academic Committee focuses on education and curriculum design. This is a small group of experts. The world happiness report is edited by Professor John F. Helliwell, of the University of British Columbia and the Canadian Institute for advanced Research. Why? 62 http://unsdsn.org/about-us/vision-and-organization/ 34 Happiness and well-being becomes more important each year. When in 2011 the UN General Assembly was in concert, the topic happiness also came along. They wanted countries to start measuring the happiness of their inhabitants. This report got a lot of attention. This was mainly because the world happiness report was the first report on worldwide global happiness that was released on the Internet. 63 It was released only two weeks before the United Nations general assembly How? The report used the data from the Gallup World Poll. The Gallup world Poll is the source for most of the information the World Happiness Report is based upon. The Poll set up in 2005 was set up by Dr. George Gallup. He said: ’If democracy is about the will of the people, should not someone find out what that will is?’ 64 Gallup made this question his life-goal. He succeeded. Now over 160 countries participate in his survey. The survey consists of 100 questions. These questions all inform about important worldwide issues. For each and every one of those countries the survey is the same. The way the questions are asked and the question itself. The survey is spread through technology. Though in the countries where technology optimal, they use a different method. They will for instance have face-to-face interviews. Or they try to seek contact over the phone. We have searched for the survey ourselves in the internet. However we were not able to fill it in. This is a very professional research. There are no online possibilities. The very first World Happiness Report is the one from 2012. It is a very detailed report with lots of interesting facts. The report is divided into different chapters: The state of world happiness. Happiness across the world Happiness averages by country Comparing different measures Making the Case for Measuring Subjective Well-Being The causes of happiness and misery Income Work Values and religion Mental health Physical health The family 63http://www.earth.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/Sachs%20Writing/2012/World%20Happiness%20 Report.pdf 64 http://www.gallup.com/services/170945/world-poll.aspx 35 Education Gender Age Some policy implications New policy priorities The formation of policy Case study: Bhutan Origins of the Concept of GNH Purpose of the 2010 GNH index GNH survey 2010 Domains and indicators Psychological Well-being Health Culture Time use Good governance Community vitality Ecological diversity and resilience Living standards Weighting What does the GNH index show us? Case study: ONS The Measurement of Subjective Well-Being Further Testing and Development of Subjective Well-Being Measures Case study: OECD Rationale Scope This is the content of the report written on the happiness worldwide. Difference? The World Happiness Research took a different stand than the Better life index. Not only was the WHR earlier with it report, it is also a lot bigger. The Better Life Index only did research in a few countries. These countries were all quite wealthy. Whereas there are many more countries used for the World Happiness Research. The way the WHR measured happiness was more thouroughfully. They did not have their own survey though worked closely together with the Gallup. The conclusion of the report: 36 ‘Happy people live longer, are more productive, earn more and are also better citizens.’65 Furthermore does this report show that happiness is important in every country. The skeptics now find hard evidence about the importance of happiness. The report can teach us a lot about how to improve our world. The Happy Planet Index Who? The happy planet index is the third and the last way of effectively measuring happiness that we will discuss. This index is again slightly different from the two who came before. The Happy Planet Index was founded in 2006. It did not take very long before this index was discovered. It only took two days for the report to be downloaded in over 185 countries. The Index is a project from the New Economics Foundation. The New Economics Foundation is a think tank from the United Kingdom. They take a stand for social, economic and environmental justices.66 What sets the Happy Planet Index apart from the other two reports is their interest in the environment. The HPI is one of the first index that uses sustainability to make a ranking of the well-being of countries. The countries that pollute the most are not the happiest according to them. How could you be happy if you damage the environment? Why? The NEF (New Economics Foundation) came up with the idea of the Happy Planet index a couple of years ago. 67The reason why they did this was very clear. The 21st century is dominated by the economy. Though we ca not longer hide from the problems we might have caused to the environment. The New Economics Foundation decided to create a index that clearly showed which country is progressing in a good and mature way. The human progress is reported and their main question was: ‘What is the extent to which countries deliver long, happy, sustainable lives for the people that live in them?’68 Another facet the Index is really aiming on is the future. The index is a great way to show the situation of today. Though this is not the real goal. GEF tells us how nations are doing in supporting their inhabitant to love good lives now, while ensuring that others can do the same in the future. 69 http://www.ibtimes.com/worlds-happiest-countries-2013-according-un-1403880 http://www.neweconomics.org/ 67 http://happyplanetplatform.nl/happy-planet-index/ 68 http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/entry/measuring-what-matters-the-happy-planetindex-2012 69 http://www.happyplanetindex.org/assets/happy-planet-index-report.pdf 65 66 37 The outcome of the Happy Planet Index is quite different from the outcome that you might suspect: Figure 3.1: Happy planet index.70 How? The three components there are talking about in figure three are: o Ecological footprint is the impact one human being has on the environment. The human activities are measured In the amount of the environment necessary to produce the goods and services one human uses.71 o Life expectancy is the estimated age someone will reach. Often this number is estimated at birth. Life expectancy differs per country, time, gender and is influences by many other factors. Also lifestyle, healthcare, diet and economical status determine how long you will have to live.72 70 https://richvickaryous.wordpress.com/2011/10/ 71 http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/teacher_resources/webfieldtrips/ecological_balanc e/eco_footprint/ 72 http://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-Life-Expectancy.aspx 38 o Life satisfaction needs two factors 73 . The first factor required is the presence of all the conditions that you need in order to live a good life. The second factor is the practice of a good living. Are you happy with your life or is there something missing? As you can see in figure three there are no deep green countries in our world. That means that there is not a single country in the world that scores ‘good’ on ecological footprint, life expectancy or life satisfaction. We do see that there is a region in America that has a light green color. This means that they score well on two of the three components. Though in Europe we see a lot of orange. We scored low on at least one of the components. Africa has overall got the red color. This is most presumably due to the low life expectancy and low life satisfaction. Figure 3.2: Happy planet index experienced well-being. Figure 3.2 shows which countries experience the best well-being. The countries with the green color are in general the ones with the highest sense of well-being. The orange countries are in the middle and the red ones are of course the countries that experience the lowest sense of well-being. We can see that America, big parts of Europe and Oceania are in general the ones with the highest well-being. 73 http://www2.eur.nl/fsw/research/veenhoven/Pub1990s/96d-full.pdf 39 Figure 3.3: Happy planet index life expectancy. In figure five we see the world colored with regard to life expectancy. Again green is positive and red is negative. The map of life expectancy and well being is quite similar. Though in this map we see slight differences. Brazil for example is colored orange in the map of life expectancy, while it is green when we talk about well-being. 40 Figure 3.4: Happy planet index ecological footprint. In figure 3.4 we see the ecological footprint of every country in our world. Again it is graded in colors. In this figure we see that the countries that experience good well-being and a high life-expectancy are colored red more often. The happy planet index is very much focused on the combination of a happy life without affecting the environment with that. None of the countries have been able to be fully 100% happy according to this index. Though the research did show that is was important to look at the environmental effects as well. Plus, it is very nice for the countries to get credits for living happy in a healthy way. This index should encourage more and more countries to work on their flaws. For the richer countries this flaw is often the ecological footprint. Looking at the figure above we see a lot of red. Europe, North America, Russia, Australia and a other countries should try to reduce more. The ecological footprint measures the human demand on the nature. 74 Other countries like the African ones have another flaw. Their life expectancy is very low. Famine, corrupt government officials, lack of education and medication are only a few reasons for the low life expectancy. 75 This index shows how shocking the differences are between countries. We need to work together and help each other. The report written 2012 contains the following chapters: 74 75 http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/footprint_basics_overview/ http://econsguide.blogspot.nl/2009/02/possible-reasons-for-uks-deficit-in-its.html 41 New economy, new indicators A measure of sustainable well-being Results: An amber planet Steps towards a happy planet Measuring the happiness of the different countries they used a formula that no one ever did: Happy planet index ≈ experienced well being x life expectancy ---------------------------------------------------------------------Ecological footprint76 The New Economics Foundation came up with this formula. All of the questioned asked in the survey are or based on well-being, or on life expectancy or on your ecological footprint. When we did this survey it turned out we had a happy planet score of 63.9. Even though this is above the average of 54.3 it is below the target. The HPItarget is a score of 89 out of 100 by 2050. That represents a good life that does not cost us the world. 77 This would mean that the footprint has to decrease to an amount of 1.7 Global hectares. The life satisfaction needs to receive an average mark of an eight on a scale from one to ten and the life expectancy needs to increase to an age of 87 78 . If we reach that we would life a completely happy life that does not affect the life on earth. Topics questioned were: Life satisfaction Feeling good Doing well Connecting with others Freedom to be yourself Self-esteem and making a difference Tips to reach 89: 79 Get more involved in the community. If doing this good, it will both benefit your social being as well as developing new skills. Volunteer for a charity. This will make you more aware of the problems in the world. Furthermore it gives you a sense of doing something worthwhile. http://www.happyplanetindex.org/about/ http://www.happyplanetindex.org/survey/feedback.php 78 http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/entry/the-happy-planet-index-2-0 79 http://www.happyplanetindex.org/survey/feedback.php 76 77 42 Difference The main difference between this index and the others is the general topic. Whereas other indexes focus purely on the happiness of the human, the happy planet index looks at the happiness of the environment as well. They stand for long, happy and sustainable lives. We could also say that the outcome of the investigations is totally different. Costa Rica ended on top again in 2012.80 Costa Rica is not even questioned in the better life index. And in the World happiness report it reached the 12 th place in 2013.81 Conclusion There are all sorts of ways to effectively measure happiness. The key is in your own interest. General happiness is often measured by looking at the wellbeing of humans. Factors as work, relationships, health etcetera all play a role in this. Looking at the Better life index happiness is created by striving for eight basic principles. This is a very effective way of measuring, because filling in the survey does not take long and gives a clear answer. If you want a more detailed look on happiness you should widen your perspective, just like the world happiness report. They measured happiness much more in a detailed manner. Their survey is not available online. The survey is spread in a very organized way. This makes it more difficult and more expensive, but also more accurate. The survey is not only filled in by people using the Internet, but also by people who do not have Internet at all. The Happiness Report asked a lot of questions. Doing so they measure happiness on a different manner. Step by step they explore if someone is happy and if so, why that person is happy. Or why that person is not happy. This is another effective way of measuring happiness, because it is very detailed and precise. Looking at what is best for the human kind and for the world is examined in The Happy Planet Index. The index does not only show who the happiest country is. It shows the country that has the best combination of happiness and sustainability. Another affective way to measure how happy we are after all. All of those indexes and surveys have their own main interest. Researchers use their own angle to look at happiness. This gives us lots of information to work with. Measuring how happy you or your community is can be done in all sorts of ways. We personally think that the World Happiness Report is the most valuable index of the three that we discussed. Merely for the fact that the report is very http://theblogprogress.blogspot.fr/2012/06/2012-happy-planet-index-launchedtoday.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+ blogspot/theprogressblog+(prog+blog) 81 http://www.ticotimes.net/2013/09/10/costa-rica-ranks-12th-in-world-happiness-report 80 43 official. There are lots of countries involved. Furthermore did they expand their research to more people? More social categories have been questioned. Their index is best in our opinion because it is the report with the most respondents. 44 “Paradise is definitely not a place to go, if nobody is there”.82 What are the happiest countries in the world? And what makes Bhutan one of the happiest places in the world? Everywhere you look in the world there are signs of instability, destruction and hopelessness. Still there are a lot of countries, which seem to be very happy. The distinction goes to countries, which have freedom, peace, good healthcare, quality education, a functioning political system and a lot of opportunities. There are more lists of the happiest countries in the World. They all measure happiness in a different way and they use different variables to measure which country has the highest life satisfaction. OECD as part of Better Life Index Based on figures published by the OECD as part of its annual Better Life Index, they reviewed variables measured for each of the member nations and participating countries. Housing, income, jobs, community, education, the environment, civic engagement, health, life satisfaction, safety and work-life balance constitute the Better Life Index. 83 Life satisfaction measures how people feel about their life as a whole, not only their current feelings. Self-reported good health is measured by asking in surveys “How is your health?” This is a way of measuring a health status. The answers given to this question seem to be a good predictor of people’s future health care use. With employees working long hours they mean the balance between work and leisure time, so the amount a person spends at work. By disposable income we mean the amount of money that a household earns, or gains, each year after taxes and transfers. It represents the money available to households for spending on goods or services. Life expectancy is the most used measure of health. It only measures the length of people’s life and not their quality of life. 84 According to the Better Life Index these are the five happiest countries in the world: 1. Switzerland - Life satisfaction score: 7.8 (on a scale from 1 to 10) - Self-reported good health: 81% (7th highest) - Employees working long hours: 7.3% (17th highest) - Disposable income: $30,745 (5th highest) Quote from Elie G. Karam from The World Book of Happiness Ranking according to the Better Life Index 2014 84 Background information from www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org 82 83 45 - Life expectancy: 82.2 years (the highest) This is not the first year that Switzerland is being ranked higher than any other country in the life happiness score. There are a few countries, which have been rated higher than Switzerland in measures of wealth. Swiss residents had $30,745 in household disposable income per person. Jobs were relatively plenteous, because 79% of the working-age population (aged 15 to 64 years) is employed. This is the second highest rate reviewed by the OECD. Residents also felt more secure than other people in any other country. Residents in Switzerland are being reviewed as extremely healthy; this is because of the wealth and security in employment. Life expectancy in Switzerland is rated very high. It was 82.2 years for the residents. And more than 80% of the population of Switzerland felt like they were in good health. 2. Norway - Life satisfaction score: 7.7 (on a scale from 1 to 10) - Self-reported good health: 73% (15th highest) - Employees working long hours: 3.1% (6th lowest) - Disposable income: $32,093 (3rd highest) - Life expectancy: 81.4 years (10th highest) Norway had an unemployment rate of only 3.5%, which is the half of the OECD’s average unemployment rate of 7.9%. Norwegian workers earned $46,618 annually. This score is one of the highest reviewed by OECD on income. Norway’s wealth comes from the energy sectors; their economy relies on its oil industry. Norway’s environmental quality is very good. More than 90% of the Norwegians were satisfied with their life. 3. Canada - Life satisfaction score: 7.6 (on a scale from 1 to 10) - Self-reported good health: 88% (3rd highest) - Employees working long hours: 4.0% (11th lowest) - Disposable income: $30,212 (7th highest) - Life expectancy: 81.0 years (17th highest) Canada’s per person disposable income exceeded $30,000. Nevertheless, high income and wealth alone do not explain happiness. They have only been ranked 17th in life expectancy. Also Canadians are more likely to work than to be unemployed if you compare them to the United States of America, which also contribute to higher evaluations of their lives. 4. Denmark - Life satisfaction score: 7.6 (on a scale from 1 to 10) - Self-reported good health: 71% (17th highest) - Employees working long hours: 2.1% (4th lowest) - Disposable income: $25,172 (15th highest) - Life expectancy: 79.9 years (12th lowest) 46 Just like for example Norway, Denmark’s government plays an important role in the live of its residents. Denmark has high taxes rates and a comprehensive welfare system, which play both a large role. Denmark has a perfect work-life balance according to the Better Life Index, this probably contributed to a high life satisfaction. The residents of Denmark are also very high educated. People spent on average 19.2 years in school. 5. Austria - Life satisfaction score: 7.5 (on a scale from 1 to 10) - Self-reported good health: 69% (tied-17th highest) - Employees working long hours: 8.6% (15th lowest) - Disposable income: $29,256 (9th highest) - Life expectancy: 81.1 years (13th highest) Austrians are rated as a country with a high employment. Austria had working-age population of 73%, while the OECD had a working-age population of 65%. Austrians feel really secure about their jobs. They were also quite happy with their community they are living in. 95% says they have a support network where they can rely on. The social safety net and health care increase the quality of life as well in Austria. The Netherlands The Netherlands have been ranked 10th of the 34 countries that have been measured by the OECD Better Life Index. - Life satisfaction score: 7.4 (on a scale from 1 to 10) - Self-reported good health: 76% (11th highest) - Employees working long hours: 0.6% (2nd lowest) - Disposable income: $25,697 (14th highest) - Life expectancy: 81.3 years (11th highest) In the Netherlands the percentage of working-age residents with a job is one of the highest of all OECD countries with a percentage of 75%. Dutch citizens spend more than 15 hours a day to leisure time and personal care, among the fifth highest measured by the OECD Better Life Index. Because of a good balance between work and leisure time, the Netherlands have been ranked as one of the best countries for work-life balance. Only 0.6% of the working population has worked long hours, less than in any nation which has been reviewed by OECD except for the Russian Federation. A good work-life balance together with high earnings probably have contributed to a high life satisfaction of its citizens. The average earnings of an employee in the Netherlands ($45,362) is significantly higher than all the other countries measured by the OECD. 85 85 Ranking of the happiest countries according to the Better Life Index, www.247wallst.com 47 World Happiness Report The World Happiness Report has made a top ten list of the happiest countries. They look at earnings, living standard, employment, mental health and family stability. 86 1. Denmark Denmark, with a population of 5.5 million, has been named the world’s happiest country in the World Happiness Report. Denmark has topped the European Commission’s Eurobarometer scale ever since 1973. In this scale countries are surveyed to measure well-being and happiness amongst its citizens. The capital city of Denmark, Copenhagen, was also named the world’s most livable city. 2. Norway Norway has been topped the Legatum Institute’s Prosperity Index of the world’s happiest countries. 95% of the people who were surveyed were pleased with the freedom they have of choosing the direction of their own lives. Norway also has the second highest level of satisfaction with their standards of living. 3. Switzerland Switzerland has been named the most competitive country in the world by the World Economic Forum report for the fifth year. This results in higher welfare. Switzerland has also been recognized for its excellent institutions (universities, research centers, etc.), the dynamism of its markets and its capacity for innovation. 4. Netherlands The Netherlands is for the second time, the fourth happiest country according to the World Happiness Report. The Netherlands scored highest in the categories of freedom, donation and generosity. It was ranked third in terms of GDP per capita. With an average income of $36,854 per year. The Dutch became fourth in the social support category. Citizens believe that they have a strong support system around them. The corruption category placed the Netherlands in a sixth place. Also the life expectancy of the Dutch citizens is very high, on average for women 83 years and for men 79 years. 5. Sweden Sweden is one of the happiest countries is the world, because the Swedish population is giving their lives an average satisfaction grade of 7.6. This is one of the highest satisfaction scores in the OECD. 6. Canada Canada has a very high average on life expectance and income. Over 90% of the Canadians say that they have someone in their lives to rely on. Also the 86 Ranking of The World Happiness Report 2013 48 majority feels like they are experiencing more positive moments in a day than negative moments, according to the Better Life Index. 7. Finland Finland has been ranked with the highest quality of life by Legatum Institute’s Prosperity Index. Finland also has been ranked as the most peaceful country in the world by the Global Peace Index. 8. Austria Austria has been ranked as one of the wealthiest countries of the world, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund. 9. Iceland Iceland offers its citizens a relatively low income tax, free health care for everyone and post-secondary education. The Global Peace Index has rated Iceland the most peaceful country in the world. The Global Peace Index takes several factors into account such as freedom of the press, perceived willingness to fight in wars, access to weapons, violent crime, gender inequality and political corruption. 10. Australia Australia is one of the most popular and beautiful places to go to in the world. Melbourne, the capital city of Australia, has been named the best city in the world to live in, according the Economist Intelligence Unit global livability study. This study looks at crime levels, threat of conflict, quality of health care, temperature, education and transport. Happy Planet Index The new Happy Planet Index results show the extent to which 151 countries in the world produce long, happy and sustainable lives for its citizens. The index ranks countries based on their efficiency, and how many happy lives each country produces. Below you can see the top 10 of happiest countries. The components: experienced well-being, life expectancy and ecological footprint are given a score based on good, middling and a bad performance. Together with the Happy Planet Index score they look at the best. To score high as a country all components must be good. 87 HPI Experience well-being Life expectancy Ecological Footprint 1. Costa Rica 64.0 7.3 79.3 2.5 2. Vietnam 60.4 5.8 75.2 1.4 87 Ranking of the Happy Planet Index 49 3. Colombia 59.8 6.4 73.7 1.8 4. Belize 59.3 6.5 76.1 2.1 5. El Salvador 58.9 6.7 72.2 2.0 6. Jamaica 58.5 6.2 73.1 1.7 7. Panama 57.8 7.3 76.1 3.0 8. Nicaragua 57.1 5.7 74.0 1.6 9. Venezuela 56.9 7.5 74.4 3.0 10. Guatemala 56.9 6.3 71.2 1.8 *Costa Rica's HPI score reflects high life expectancy, high levels of experienced well-being, and a moderate ecological footprint. *Vietnam's HPI score reflects high life expectancy, 'middling' levels of experienced well-being, and a low ecological footprint. *Colombia's HPI score reflects a relatively high life expectancy, relatively high levels of experienced well-being, and a moderate ecological footprint. *Belize's HPI score reflects high life expectancy, relatively high levels of experienced well-being, and a moderate ecological footprint. *El Salvador's HPI score reflects a relatively high life expectancy, relatively high levels of experienced well-being, and a moderate ecological footprint. *Jamaica's HPI score reflects a relatively high life expectancy, relatively high levels of experienced well-being, and a low ecological footprint. *Panama's HPI score reflects high life expectancy, high levels of experienced well-being, and a moderately high ecological footprint. *Nicaragua's HPI score reflects a relatively high life expectancy, 'middling' levels of experienced well-being, and a low ecological footprint. *Venezuela's HPI score reflects a relatively high life expectancy, high levels of experienced well-being, and a moderately high ecological footprint. *Guatemala's HPI score reflects a relatively high life expectancy, relatively high levels of experienced well-being, and a low ecological footprint. 50 Differences and similarities between these three rankings Better Life Index – World Happiness Report – Happy Planet Index The variable life satisfaction is measured in all the rankings, because happiness is all about being satisfied in life. Health is measured in the Better Life Index and in the World Happiness Report. The Happy Planet Index only measures the life expectancy. While The Better Life Index both measures health and life expectancy. World Happiness Report is the only ranking, which actually looks at living standards and livability. All the three rankings take up earnings and disposable income into their measurements, because this plays an important role. Education seems to play a less big role into the measurements, because only World Happiness Report uses this variable in their measurements. Family Stability is being measured in the World Happiness Report as well. All the rankings except Better Life Index think that freedom, peace, safety and security play an important role in measuring happiness. Item Life satisfaction Health Life expectancy Living standards Livability (cities) Employment/long working hours Earnings/disposable income Education Family stability Freedom/peace Safety/security OECD as part of Better Life Index X X X X X World Happiness Report X X Happy Planet Index X X X X X X X X X X X X Figure 4.1: Differences and similarities between the earlier mentioned rankings. 88 Best ranking according to our opinion According to our opinion the ranking of the happiest countries in the world of the World Happiness Report are the best. Because they use the most variables to measure happiness and well-being. Also they explain their measurements well and they have used lots of other resources such as Legatum Institute’s Prosperity Index. In this way the results are very reliable and they really define happiness in all aspects. The World Happiness Report does not measure life expectancy, but it is strongly related to health measurement, so we think it does not make a great difference whether life expectancy is taken into account or not. Changes of happiness in countries over time In 2012, the first World Happiness Report was released. Measuring and 88 Figure 4.1 made by ourselves 51 analyzing happiness and well-being caused international attention, because this was the first time global happiness has been surveyed. This report also examines trends over time. They go more into the analysis of the global happiness and well-being data and they break scores down into component parts, so that citizens as well as policy makers can understand the ranking of their country. In the World Happiness Report of 2013 they use six variables, which explain three-quarter of the variation in scores over time and among different countries. The factors are: life satisfaction, health, living standards, livability, employment/working long hours, earnings/disposable income, education, family stability, freedom/peace and safety/security. Looking at the data we can see some significant changes in happiness and well-being in countries all over the world over time. Some countries have been rising and others have been falling over the past five years. More and more countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Latin America are gaining higher happiness levels. Industrial countries are losing happiness. In 60 countries happiness has significantly improved while in 41 countries happiness has worsened. The figure below gives some idea of the variety of trend experiences within each region, for the 130 countries at the beginning and the end of the 200507 and 2010-12 period. It shows the percentages of countries in which life evaluations have grown significantly, not changed by a significant amount. Figure 4.2: Countries with Rising and Falling Happiness, from: The World Happiness Report. 52 Bhutan, one of the happiest places on earth They say that money doesn’t buy happiness, but still there are many people looking for it in stores. There is still an assumption that people cannot be happy while they are poor. Yet Bhutan is offering a lesson to us all. In Bhutan it is all about happiness. It is a Buddhist kingdom high in the Himalayas between India and China. Bhutan has gradually opened itself to the world and it has projected its philosophy of ‘the Gross National Happiness’. They believe that a society should be measured not only by its material indicators, but also by health, education and the happiness of its citizens. So how do they do it? What do the citizens of Bhutan do different than we to become happy people? They try to manage spiritual and material happiness equally. Here in the western world we overvalue material things. Most of us get happier when we have the latest iPhone or the latest fashion. This is not the most successful way to become happier, because all of this can cause unneeded stress and unhappiness when we actually can not afford those things. In Bhutan they manage to balance their material possessions and their spirituality, which helps them to become happy. The citizens of Bhutan do not care whether they have the latest iPhone or not. They just appreciate being alive. They have the fastest growing Gross Domestic Product in the world. Bhutan’s GDP has been growing steadily over the last several years. This is because they allow India to invest heavily in hydro-power in their country. Bhutan is becoming rich very quickly just by managing their resources. When people are making money, everyone is happy. The citizens of Bhutan don’t care about TV, radio, or the Internet. Lets face it; media makes us feel terrible about ourselves. On the television we see horrible things on the news or we get jealous at celebrities. On the Internet we also experience all sorts of bad things. In the western world, we all get obsessed with social media and get upset when we for example do not get our retweets or likes on Facebook. Life would be a lot easier if we did not have to deal with that. Life would generally be better. 50% of Bhutan is protected as a national part. The landscape and the environment are really important to the citizens in Bhutan. Half of their country is a national park. The forest, animals, and environment are strictly protected. Also Bhutan announced that 60% of their country is safe from things like deforestation permanently. Caring this much about the planet makes people feel happier. Most of the citizens of Bhutan are Buddhist. Buddhism is one of the most calm and happy religions on Earth. Buddhists believe in good and bad karma. The People who live their life well are closer to enlightenment and will be 53 reincarnated as better creatures when they are reborn. This encourages them to live good lives, help others in need, and be a good person. They actually measure their own happiness. In Bhutan the government wants their population to become the happiest citizens they can be. The government actually measures their countries happiness using the Gross National Happiness. The government is not the best at providing happiness to their citizens, but the fact that they acknowledge and measure happiness makes them probably better at keeping the happiness in their country than any other government. Bhutan is a beautiful country. Bhutan is situated in the Himalaya Mountains and more then 60% of the country is untouched wilderness. The population lives there probably more preferable, peaceful, and visually enjoyable than in the middle of a city every day. There is not a great gap between normal people and royalties. The people of Bhutan are very close with each other. The way that normal people and royalty people live together helps everyone becoming happy. People from Bhutan are well rested. Somewhere around 2/3 of all Bhutanese people get at least eight hours of sleep per night. There are a lot of benefits of sleeping on happiness. There is almost no pollution in Bhutan. Bhutanese people live in less pollution than everyone else. Of course they do have some things that cause pollution such as vehicles. However, they have waste-producing businesses. They make the air, water, and ground much cleaner. 89 Statistics of the GNH survey in Bhutan In order to set up indicators, the Gross National Happiness developed a detailed questionnaire covering nine key areas considered very important for reflecting the values and principles of the GNH. The key areas are psychological wellbeing, health, time use, education, culture, good governance, ecology, community vitality and living standard. Below you can see some statistics of the Gross National Happiness survey of 2010. 90 89 90 From The World Book of Happiness, Johannes Hirata, Bhutan From The Gross Nationall Happiness site: www.grossnationalhappiness.com 54 Figure 4.3: Distribution of people by happiness, from: The Gross National Happiness survey. In the graph “Distribution of people by happiness” the GNH shows us the percentages of people’s happiness on a scale from 0 to 10. Only a few people feel unhappy. Almost 30% of the people feel neither unhappy nor happy. Around 20% of the people feel quite happy. And around 5% of the people feel very happy. 55 Figure 4.4: Quality of Life, from: The Gross National Happiness survey In this graph “Quality of Life” the GNH shows us the percentage of people who experience their lives very poor to poor, neither poor nor good, or good to very good. Only 8% of the people of Bhutan experience their lives poor to poor. 37% of the people of Bhutan experience their lives neither poor nor good. More than half of the people of Bhutan, 55%, experience their lives good to very good. Figure 4.5: Satisfaction with livelihood, from: The Gross National Happiness survey In this graph “Satisfaction with livelihood” the GNH shows us the percentage of people who feel very dissatisfied, dissatisfied, neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, satisfied, or very satisfied with their livelihood. Only 1% of the people of Bhutan feel very dissatisfied with their livelihood. 4% of Bhutanese people feel dissatisfied. 12 % of the people are in the middle; they feel neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. Most of the people of Bhutan, 65%, feel satisfied with their livelihood. And almost 1 out of 5 people, 18%, feel very satisfied with their livelihood in Bhutan. 56 “The core is being able to fulfil our targets and aspirations at the broader levels of society”.91 How can measurements of happiness contribute to policies aimed at the development and progress of society? The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, believed that political wisdom was one type of practical wisdom and that the goal of politics should be the happiness or well being of society, what we might label as the common good. Such happiness required people to live according to reason and to be virtuous. He thought that “the true student of politics is thought to have studied virtue above all things.” Emphasis on subjective measures The progress of societies should not be measured only from objective measurements, but also from subjective measurements directly assessed with the populations concerned. Just by asking simple questions as “how do you feel?” or “how satisfied are you with your life?”. With these subjective scales, we can understand how different dimensions such as personal security, community, health and standard of living can all add to a person’s sense of well being. People give more importance and weight to non-material values when assessing satisfaction with their lives. This is the reason why we can often find more satisfied people in societies that have been defined as underdeveloped countries. Those people search for meaning and support, which in turn gives them a sense of higher well being, compared to people who live in more wealthy societies. To be able to use measurements of subjective well-being as indicators for public policy, it is important to distinguish different concepts and meanings associated with these indicators. We are not only looking to identify happiness, but also well-being. In this way well being becomes the ultimate goal for both public policy and personal realisation. The public policies of subjective well-being measures within the context of the social indicators movement also play an important role. Global problems all point to the increased importance of the social indicator movement, which looks for alternative measures for understanding the development and progress of societies. Emphasis on subjective measures of well being will lead to a change in the short term, with regard to methods for the formulation of new objectives for public policy. Encouragement of social networks for 91 Quote from Luisa Corrado from The World Book of Happiness 57 affective and material support of the most vulnerable must become an important public policy objective.92 Using well being as a guide to policy in countries Happiness and well-being has been measured in different countries for a while now. We also start to learn what influences happiness and what does and does not raise well-being. How could this knowledge be used to make new and better policies in terms of improved outcomes? As we mentioned before more and more countries are starting to measure their progress with reference to the happiness of their citizens. Bhutan has gone the furthest. Countries like the UK are now systematically collecting data on happiness and life satisfaction. The OECD is leading the way in developing clear standards so that the happiness and life satisfaction can be compared between multiple countries. There are also many private organizations which collect well being data across the world. Governments and international institutions use more data of happiness and well-being. There is a growing consensus on two points: firstly, that GDP is a very partial and imperfect measure, and secondly, that measures of subjective well-being have an important role in defining success and happiness. Of course they should not only use happiness as a measure. Still at the macroeconomic level, politicians have found it not easy to move the focus on commentary away from GDP towards well-being measures. This is in part due to the fact that they hardly try to draw attention away from the economic realities of the world, particularly in those countries struggling to recover from the consequences of the financial crash in 2007-2008. Well-being measurements take a number of forms. Some countries use survey data to measure how happy their citizens’ feel, while other countries ask about overall satisfaction with life. Lots of international organisations use different factors to come to a conclusion. They use less subjective data such as life expectancy and freedoms. It is hard to say whether these different factors and indicators should be combined to be able to produce a single measure. Also every government uses different indicators and will place different weight on these various indicators. Countries and researchers are using more and more subjective well-being measures to formulate better policies as well as to measure the success of those policies. Different countries also have a great interest in the spatial distribution of wellbeing. This is because there is no evidence for the large spatial divergence in well-being. Those divergences are not explained by differences in income. There are many policies designed by the government to reduce economic inequalities, such as progressive tax systems. A progressive tax is a tax where 92 The World Book of Happiness 58 the tax rate increases as your income increases. Income equality is one of the biggest pros that progressive tax advocates promote. Those individuals who earn more pay more into the federal government. This helps keeps the income gap from growing wider between the rich and the poor. Social Justice is another advantage. Some argue that it is morally right that those who can afford to pay more in taxes should do so. Those that have very little income should be helped out by those who can afford to help. A progressive tax allows governments to collect money from those who can afford to pay, and uses it to help create a society that is happier as a result. A progressive system also allows governments to collect more money from higher income earners. This results in more money collected, rather than if everyone paid the same percentage. As a result, the government can provide more programs and services that benefit society. However, progressive taxation has its critics. They argue first that the system violates the basic principle that all people are equal under the law, since it treats the poor and the wealthy differently. Another objection to progressive taxes is that they create unfair representation; if for example 10% of the population is funding 60% of the tax base of a country, they still receive only 10% representation in the government since paying more tax does not earn more voting power. Progressive taxes have also been demonstrated to lower overall savings rates, a situation that most countries wish to avoid. Policy makers are now trying to design a policy, which reduces spatial inequalities. At micro level, governments are trying to incorporate well-being data into standard policy making. They make these incorporations because of the need for government intervention often arises because of risks to individuals’ well being. For example the misery caused by unemployment. This lowers the public sector budgets and private incomes. When people get back to work they start paying taxes, do not collect any benefits, and maybe the most important thing is that their self-esteem rises. They are also better capable of looking after their families and do not have to rely on the state. 93 Some practical and political obstacles Governments from various countries are more and more realizing that using well-being of their citizens will lead to better policies. However, some are worried about whether all practical as well as political obstacles can be overcome. And how all these policies based on well being can be implemented successfully. Many policies have upfront costs, but the benefits are not directly visible. In order to gain some patience from the citizens of a country the government should involve the public as much as they can in the policy decisions. Putting the focus on well-being often means experimenting. It is highly doubtful that a well-being analysis will immediately lead to a perfect policy. 93 The World Happiness Report and Report: Happiness, Economics and Public Policy 59 The process of testing options on policy making can cause problems. It can take a very long time, experimenting can as well involve treating identical groups differently, which is a political challenge. Overcoming these obstacles require a communication strategy between the researchers and policy makers. The benefits of subjective well-being There are many benefits of subjective well-being, which can help to develop our society. Firstly, if we take a look at the category health and longevity we can say that there is a reduced inflammation, improved cardiovascular health, immune and endocrine systems, lowered risk of heart disease, practicing good health behaviours, a faster speed of recovery, survival and longevity. There is evidence about the processes that mediate between happiness and its beneficial outcomes. For example, adversity and stress in childhood is associated with higher inflammation later in life. Evidence also suggests a causal link between positive feelings and reduced inflammatory, cardiovascular and neuroendocrine problems. Also a high subjective wellbeing influences our habits, such as healthier eating, likelihood of smoking, exercise, and weight. And happier people tend to live longer and they do have a lower risk of mortality. Secondly, the category income, productivity and organizational behaviour. If we are happier we have an increased productivity, better financial performances, reduced absenteeism, we are more creative and flexible, we can work better together, we have a higher income and are better organized. For these benefits there has been found evidence as well. Researchers have found out that individuals who are happy were more productive in an experimental setting. Happy workers were also more likely to be rated highly in terms of financial performance. Among employees happiness can increase creativity and motivation. We can associate wellbeing with better earnings. An important avenue for future research is to determine why rising incomes have weak effects on positive feelings such as enjoying life. One would imagine that enjoyable activities such as fine food, travel, and better health, as well as comforts such as more reliable heating and cooling, might raise the enjoyment of life. One possible reason that income might in general not produce higher enjoyment of life is that incomeproducing work is less enjoyable than social leisure. However, higher income women enjoyed both work and leisure more than poorer women according to Kahneman et al. The relation of income change and changes in feelings is a very important avenue for further future research.94 94 Report/research: Rising Income and the Subjective Well-Being of Nations 60 Finally, the category individual and social behaviour. This category has benefits as well when people are happy. We have longer-term time preferences, reduced consumption and increased savings, more employment, pro-social behaviour, more social relationships and networks. Researchers have found out in experiments that individuals with a higher wellbeing are willing to obtain a smaller benefit in the moment in order to obtain a larger benefit in the future. Other studies find evidence that happier people spend less than unhappy people and try to save more money. Evidence from surveys show that people who are more happy are more likely to be reemployed than those who are not as happy. Also people who are satisfied and happy donate more time and money to people around them. All this existing evidence indicates that subjective well-being has a great impact on behavioural traits and life outcomes. High subjective well-being does have a great influence on our society. If people are happier, than we are more capable of developing our society and policies.95 Problems with using happiness date for policymaking The use of happiness data is a new interest for many policymakers. Many governments around the world are more and more using measurements of happiness, also called subjective well-being, as alternative to gross domestic product for the purpose of policymaking. There are several reasons why happiness date cannot be used as a guide for policymaking. The term happiness has several meanings to different people. For researchers and policymakers it is very difficult to define and measure happiness in a way that generates useful data that can be used for policymaking. Mark D. White argues that there are three problematic aspects of happiness and he explains why each aspect of happiness may be a poor guide for policymaking.96 1. Definition. Happiness is a complex concept. Defining the word happiness is very difficult for researcher and policymakers. Everyone has different ideas of what happiness means. Researchers and philosophers have been arguing about the meaning of happiness for thousands of years and still have not found an official understanding of the concept. 2. Measurement. Even if researchers could define happiness, it is still something, which cannot be measured with great confidence. For example, if happiness were measured on a scale of zero to ten, would zero mean the absence of happiness or profound unhappiness? And would ten mean that no more happiness is possible? How can 95 96 The World Happiness Report and The Better Life Index A paper for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University by scholar Mark D. White 61 policymakers be sure that if two people both rate their happiness as a four are equally happy or less happy than someone who rated their happiness as a five? These questions confound measurements of happiness, because quantifying what is a subjective opinion is an uncertain process. 3. Policy implementation. The implementation of happiness data to make policy choices would be filled with problems. For example, would society wish to maximize total happiness or equalize it among individuals? Answering this question may lead to greater happiness for some but less for others. For this reason, researchers and policymakers should proceed with caution when using such measures. To measure how policies affect social welfare, economists have traditionally operated in two steps. First, they look at how policies affect behaviour. Then after using these predictions, they connect policies to welfare through some theoretical models. A common problem with this approach is that, even if agreement exists on how a policy affects behaviour, there is often a lack of consensus on how the consequences of policy will affect welfare. For example, where happiness data can help in evaluating policy involves changes in unemployment benefits. Some evidence suggests that the unemployment rate should decrease when unemployment benefits fall. However, researchers are not sure what will happen to welfare. There are some conflicting elements within each group. Those who were unemployed but end up taking jobs as a result of the lower benefits may become better off. However, the overall effect on welfare within the unemployed is ambiguous because those that remain unemployed have their welfare reduced by the cut in benefits, but also have their welfare increased because the average duration of their unemployment declines. Similarly the existing group of employed workers face different consequences: they gain if lower benefits lead to lower taxes and a reduced fear of losing their job, but their welfare may drop because the risk of becoming unemployed with a lower level of unemployment benefits now will involve a higher personal cost. The effect of all these consequences is hard to estimate. A policymaker could compare the effects on happiness for workers of losing their safety net with the gains from lower unemployment rates.97 This example proves that policy making can have a different influence on the variety of groups. For one group happiness increases, and for the other group happiness decreases. Report: Some Uses of Happiness Data in Economics by Rafael Di Tella and Robert MacCulloch 97 62 Using happiness data for policymaking in practice The strengths and weaknesses of the Gross National Happiness (GNH) index of Bhutan revolve around the improvement of happiness in areas surrounding health, education, environmental preservation, and good governance. Health is one of the nine domains of the GNH where improvements have been made overall. Success in creating abundance in health care access has improved in rural areas especially. The government has placed clinics in various rural areas due to data collected that showed the health indicator not being met. Overall the GNH reform around health has been beneficial. Over 90% of the population now has some form of access to healthcare. These improvements bring a greater happiness and security for the need of health that can lead to improvements in mental health as well. Improvements have extended to the education system where the government has assessed how to improve GNH through educational programs and traditional learning environments. Creating an easily accessible schooling system improves the GNH by creating a knowledgeable generation that is the future of Bhutan. Some areas of improvement have shown in general mental health of students. Educating the public has also proven beneficial within policies revolving around environmental preservation. The GNH, as well as Bhutanese culture, revolve around environmental preservation creating clean sources of drinking water, clean air, and ecological diversity to promote sustainability and happiness. The government is bound to the measures of GNH to create abundance in happiness for its people. Government policies are assessed in the GNH by the people to help develop ideas how the government can improve. This type of active participation helps policy reform ensue where it is needed. The Bhutanese government can improve GNH in any of the nine domains. A secure government can lead to a happy society in which one's government adheres to the general needs of the people through a communal effort to resolve issues in creating happiness. 63 “Those who feel good, do good”.98 How will happiness be measured in the future and which factors will play an important role? The Ten Commandments of Happiness Do you want a happier life?99 According to social psychologist Professor David G. Myers we need to make ten commandments with ourselves to become a happier person. He has written several articles and books, including “The Pursuit of Happiness: Who is Happy and Why”. The ten commandments mentioned below are a summary of the ideas in this book. You must realise that enduring happiness does not come from success. People adapt to changing circumstances, even to wealth or disability. Having success or money does not guarantee happiness. Give priority to close relationships. It’s important to intimate friendships with those who deeply care about you, and those who help you in difficult times. Do not take your loved ones for granted, by playing together and sharing together. Seek work and leisure that engage your skills. Satisfied people are often absorbed in tasks that challenge but do not overwhelm them. The most expensive forms of leisure often provide less satisfaction than for example gardening, socialising or craftwork. Take control of your time. Happy people feel in control of their lives. To control your use of time, set goals and break them down into daily aims. Although we often overestimate how much we can accomplish in one day, we generally underestimate how much we can accomplish in a year, given just a little progress every day. Act happy and satisfied. Sometimes we can act ourselves into a happier frame of mind. When having a smiling expressing, people feel better. So put on a happy face. Try to think and feel positive, be optimistic, and outgoing. Join the ‘movement’ movement. Research reveals that aerobic exercise can relieve mild depression and anxiety, and at the same time promotes health and energy. 98 99 Quote from David G. Myers from The World Book of Happiness Ten commandments written by David G. Myers in The World Book of Happiness 64 Give your body enough sleep. Many people suffer from a sleep debt, with resulting fatigue. Happy people live active lives yet reserve time for sleep. Focus beyond yourself. Help the people in need. Happiness increases helpfulness (those who feel good, do good). Nurture your spiritual self. For many people faith provides a support community, a reason to focus beyond ourselves, and a sense of purpose and hope. Study shows that religious people are happier, and that they can cope better with crises. Keep a gratitude journal. Those who reflect on some positive aspects of their live will experience heightened well-being. We think these ten commandments can really influence our happiness. We believe that we need to work everyday on becoming the happiest and most satisfied person we can be. By following these ten important steps it might become easier to enjoy life. Which factors will play a role in the future? The factors, to achieve happiness, that have been important for the last decades will still be important in the future. Up to 50% of our happiness is explained by our genes. 40% of our chances on happiness lie within our decisions. Our behaviour determines a great deal of our happiness. The other 10% is explained by external effects such as money, relationships, and health. We think that these factors will probably not change very much in the near future, because first of all we think that the 50% explained by our genes will not change. The other 40% may probably change in the future, because these kinds of changes take a long time. But we do think that if we want to decrease our happiness we need to improve our behaviour and decisionmaking.100 A challenge for the future When we take a look at progress in societies we can see that for fifty years we have aimed at higher incomes and got them. But over the same period of time, there has been no increase in happiness in several countries. Lately there has been a rise in the number of unhappy people. We need to change our priorities in order to become a happy society. When we look at what causes differences in happiness between individuals and societies, than we can look at seven main factors: income, relationships at home, relationships at work, relationships in the community, health, personal values, and personal freedom. Income is one of the most important 100 The percentages are explained in subquestion 2. 65 factors. But if people get richer they do not become happier. The factor which explains the variation in happiness the best is the quality of personal relationships (with family and friends). It is really important for us to commit to a happier society, because it has major implications both for our individual lives and for public policy. In our private lives, we should take into account all those whose happiness we can affect. We call this harmony. It brings out the fact that everyone can gain, including ourselves. In order to have a happier state we need to change, because too much regulation reduces happiness. We shall require a huge change in government priorities in different sectors. Governments should actively promote happiness. Schools should be more concerned with developing characters instead of only focussing on imparting knowledge. Children and young adults must learn how to regulate their emotions and behaviour. They also should learn to care for others. School should acquire these life skills based on norms and values. Recent research also shows how important positivity is for young people. Teacher should try to focus even more on what students should do, rather than what students should not do. Eventually it will reduce drugs, overeating, smoking, and drunkenness. Health, and especially mental health, is very important for happiness. In some countries, for example in Britain, mental illness accounts for nearly half of all disability. In the Netherlands 9,9% has a mental disability. Also the effect of depression on ordinary life is 50% higher than the effect of common chronic physical illnesses. All over the world we can see that more and more children and adults could be diagnosed as suffering from depression, or from an anxiety. Mental illness should be taken as seriously as physical illness. Employment is very important, because people need to make a living for their family. Providing employment for everyone is more important than it is to raise the long-term rate of economic growth. When young people graduate from school they need to fill needed in the society, because it offers them meaningful job opportunities. We all want a community where everyone is equal and in which people have confidence in the good will of the other citizens. Research has shown that communities with more equality are less violent and have a higher trust among the citizens. To be able to be happy we should also think about our environment. We do not want a world beset by droughts and floods. We aim for a world with a harmonious relationship between man and the planet. In the end, governments will only take happiness seriously if they also measure happiness. At a recent OECD Conference on “What is progress?”, Joseph 66 Stiglitz said: “If you measure the wrong thing, you will do the wrong thing.” And that is totally right. Nationals and local governments need to make regular surveys of the happiness of their citizens in order to measure trends and to have information so that we can understand the cause of happiness. Also social science should become an important part of studying what determines happiness. Until today there are to many people suffering unnecessary. That is why we should move forward and change so that there is less misery and more happiness among people. 101 The future of happiness research For many years psychologists and economist have been asking themselves, “Who is happy? The rich, the poor, the young or the old? As mentioned before, the best way to find out is to survey people once or maybe twice and try to determine which group of people is happier. The tools, which have been used, were pretty blunt instruments. The last years there are things possible that have not been possible before, such as collecting data in real time from huge numbers of people. Matt Killingsworth has built an experience-sampling application called Track Your Happiness. With this application he is able to follow more that 15,000 people by smartphone, querying them several times a day about their activities and emotional states. With this technology, Matt is able to answer a question, which we want to know for years now. Instead of being able to ask who is happy, he can now ask the question when they are happy. Matt gets the answer by tracking people and measuring what they do and how happy they are while they are doing it. This works much better than asking people, “When are you happy?”, because people do not know when they are most happy. 102 In the future, we need to get more specific about what we are measuring and what we want to measure. Many scientists say that they are measuring and studying happiness, but if you look at the data they are collecting, you will see that they are actually studying depression or life satisfaction and not happiness. Of course, depression and life satisfaction are closely related to happiness, but it is not the same. Some other researchers believe that some very powerful technologies will be developed during the coming decades, such as advanced biotechnology, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence. These bring unmatched opportunities for increasing global happiness. Biotechnology can be used to improve human health and welfare as well as for enhancing our emotional capacities. Nanotechnology can help us solve problems, cure diseases and 101 102 The World Happiness Report and The World Book of Happiness Research by Matthew Killingsworth, The Future Happiness Research 67 reduce poverty. The Future Happiness Unit tries to draw attention to, investigate and encourage the use of these opportunities. 103 103 The Future Happiness Unit 68 What is the impact of the use of happiness meters on the society? After answering all of our sub-questions we can now look at the main question. Do the happiness meters have an impact on the society and if so how big is that impact? Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being. There are two types of happiness. The first is the expression of positive emotions and the second is having the sense of satisfaction. In our body a lot of things happen when we experience a positive emotion. The ultimate quest for happiness has always been important for the human species. Though we could take it more serious than we do now. The three factors that affect happiness are genes, intentional activity and external factors. Whether we have the possibility of becoming happy is in the hands of your parents for up to 50%. External factors are not as important as we might think! Measuring happiness in the society can be done in various ways. Often surveys are used to measure happiness. Though also surveys differ in content. It is up to the organization itself, to determine the content of the survey. Common topics are community, income, housing, and relationships. Though in the society of today, more surveys are becoming interested in the environment. Happiness meters turn out to be very effective ways of measuring the happiness of the inhabitants of a country. The bigger the survey will be, the more accurate the outcome. By using for example surveys to measure people’s happiness we can achieve great things. Not only for ourselves as individuals, but also for our society. The data collected by these surveys can be used for policymaking in the future. By using the data for policymaking we can increase our well-being and life satisfaction. Every government uses different factors and indicators to measure happiness under their citizens. These factors and indicators also place different weight on it. Countries and researchers are using more and more subjective well being measures to formulate better polies as well as to measure the success of those policies. Using all this happiness data has a great impact on our society. Our society is changing, because we are trying to achieve greater happiness and greater well-being. To be able to actively promote happiness, the government needs 69 to change priorities, as said before in subquestion 6. Some sectors will see some of these priority changes. Schools should be more concerned with developing characters instead of only focussing on imparting knowledge. Children should be learned how to control their emotions and behaviour. Also health, especially mental health, is very important for our happiness. This means mental health care should become a priority. Employment ensures greater happiness as well. There are many more sectors, which need some attention to increase happiness. If happiness meters would be used to measure the well-being of a country, life would be a lot different. In the society of today lots of emphasis has been put on the economy of a country. Happiness meters would shift the attention from the economy to the society. Does the society work properly? And what are ways to improve the happiness within your country? The impact that the use of happiness meters will have on our society can be fairly positive. Especially when you look at the social developments. Healthcare, environment and emotions will become more and more important. Well-being will become better. We believe that these meters will keep us from focusing on the price tag. Money is not the most important thing in life. If you live in a country with a flourishing economy, this does most certainly not mean that you are happy. This is what the modern gross national product lacks. The possibility to look further than a price tag. We think that if we would use happiness meters instead of the gross national product we would have a totally different outlook on life. An outlook that is not less or more than the current method we are using but just different. The government, companies and other leading associations would have to change their attitude towards happiness. On the one hand this might lead to a stagnation of our economic developments on the international market, because instead of putting money into developments it is spend on making inhabitants in your own country happy. On the other hand happy people tend to spend money more easily (for example on parties of presents). We think that it would be good to give more attention to the use of happiness meters in our society. It would teach us that life does not only revolve around money and making the biggest profits. Happiness has also got a certain value even though it does not have to cost us money. We should not forget that the best things in life are for free. 70 Happiness Survey We are doing research on happiness and the influence of happiness on the society. We would like to know how happy people feel in different countries in Europe. Hopefully you want to help us by filling in this questionnaire. Thanks in advance! Charlene van Herwaarden and Elyse van Rijsbergen, from the Netherlands. Sex: Nationality: Age: male/female ……………………… ……………………… 1 = Strongly Disagree 2 = Moderately Disagree 3 = Slightly Disagree 4 = Slightly Agree 5 = Moderately Agree 6 = Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5 6 I do not feel particularly pleased with the way I am I feel that life is very rewarding I am not particularly optimistic about the future I find most things amusing Life is good I laugh a lot I am well satisfied about everything in my life I do not think I look attractive I am very happy I always have a cheerful effect on others I can fit in everything I want to I feel that I am not especially in control of my life I feel able to take anything on I often experience joy I do not have a particular sense of meaning and purpose in my life I do not have fun with other people I do not feel particularly healthy I do not have particularly happy memories of the past “Whatever you decide to do, make sure it makes you happy!” 71 Happiness Survey Results Happiness is a main goal in modern society. Most individuals seek to live a happy life and see much value in happiness. We, as people, try to achieve greater happiness. We put out this survey, because we were very curious how happy people are around us and what would be the results of our survey. We have sent the survey to some schools abroad, to Sweden, Austria, Germany and Finland. We also uploaded our survey on Facebook. And handed the survey out to some classmates and colleagues of our parents. In some graphs the percentages are not a total of 100%, this is because of the rounding up some numbers. Figure 10.1: “What is your sex?”, Survey question number 1. The first question we asked in our survey was “What is your sex?”. We thought it was important to know how many male and female answered our survey. The total amount of male (49%) is almost equal to the amount of female (51%) who have answered our survey. 72 Figure 10.2: “What is your nationality?”, Survey question number 2. The second question we have asked in our survey was “What is your nationality?”. Because we have sent our survey abroad we have got results from different nationalities. All of those people have their own connection to The Netherlands. In total we have measured eight different nationalities, people from Austria, Czech Republic, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Poland, Romania and Sweden. Because we have the most Dutch contacts the survey has been answered by Dutch people for 66%. 73 Figure 10.3: “What is your age?”, Survey question number 3. We also thought it was important to know what the age is of the people who have answered our survey, so we asked the question “What is your age?”. 54% of the people who have answered our survey are between 0 and 10 years old. 19% of the people are between 21 and 35 years old. Only 12% of the people are between 36 and 50 years old. The last group, 15% are between the 51 and 65 years old. No one older than 65 years has answered our survey. 74 Figure 10.4: “I do not feel particularly pleased with the way I am”, question number 4. With the upcoming theses the people had to decide whether they agree or disagree with the thesis. They could choose between: strongly agree, moderately agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree, moderately disagree and strongly disagree. With this thesis we can see that the majority disagrees with the thesis. 78% of the people disagree with the fact that they feel not pleased with the way they are. Figure 10.5: “I feel that life is very rewarding”, question number 5. The majority (83%) agrees with the fact that they feel that life is very rewarding. Only 17% disagrees, but only 2% strongly disagrees. So we can say that most people think life is very rewarding. 75 Figure 10.6: “I am not particularly optimistic about the future”, question number 6. The majority of 75% disagrees with the thesis. They do feel optimistic about the future. Only 25% agrees with the thesis. Only 5% strongly agrees with the fact that they are not optimistic about the future. Figure 10.7: “I find most things amusing”, question number 7. 76 84% of the people find most things amusing, so the majority agrees with the thesis. Only 17% disagrees. No one strongly disagrees with the thesis: I find most things amusing. Figure 10.8: “Life is good”, question number 8. Almost everyone agrees with this thesis, life is good. 7% slightly disagrees, but no one moderately or strongly disagrees. So we can say that most people think life is good. 77 Figure 10.9: “I laugh a lot”, question number 9. The majority laughs a lot. 91% agrees with this thesis. Only 7% slightly disagrees. While only 2% strongly disagree. We can say that most people laugh quite a lot. Figure 10.10: “I am well satisfied about everything in my life”, question number 10” 78 77% agrees with the thesis. The majority op the people is satisfied about everything in their life. We can say that the people who disagree are not always satisfied about things in their life. Figure 10.11: “I do not think I look attractive”, question number 11. Most people think they do look attractive, the majority of 74%. Still there is quite a big percentage of 25% people who think they look not attractive. And that should be changed. 79 Figure 10.12: “I am very happy”, question number 12. The whole survey is actually about this thesis. We want to know how happy people are. And luckily the majority (85%) agrees with the thesis, so they are happy. Only 14% disagrees with the thesis. Figure 10.13: “I always have a cheerful effect on others”, question number 13. 80 The majority of the people agrees with this thesis. 86% think that they have a cheerful effect on other. Only 15% of the people disagree with the thesis. Figure 10.14: “I can fit in everything I want to”, question number 14. This thesis caused some questions. People found it difficult to understand what was meant with “I can fit in everything I want to”. With this thesis we mean how much you are able to adjust to some situations, how you can belong and fit in something. 68% of the people agree with this thesis. But there is also a quite big group, which slightly disagrees with the thesis, 15%. But still we can say that most people agree on the fact that they can fit in everything they want to. 81 Figure 10.15: “I feel that I am not especially in control of my life”, question number 15. The majority of the people disagree with this thesis with a percentage of 70%. But there is also a large group that agrees with thesis. No one strongly disagrees with the thesis. So we can say that most people feel that they are in control of their own life. Figure 10.16: “I feel able to take anything on”, question number 16. 82 We can see that most people are in the middle of the scale between strongly agree and strongly disagree. Most people are between moderately agree and slightly disagree. Still the majority does agree with the thesis, 71%. And 29% disagrees with the thesis. Figure 10.17: “I often experience joy”, subquestion number 17. 90% agrees with this thesis, this is by far the largest group. Only 10% of the people feel they do not experience joy very often. So we can say most people often experience joy. 83 Figure 10.18: “I do not have fun with other people”, question number 18. Also this thesis shows by far a majority (95%) in people who disagree with the thesis. They all do have fun with other people. Only a small group of 5% agrees with thesis, that means that they do not experience much fun with other people. Figure 10.19: “I do not feel particularly healthy”, question number 19. 84 79% of the people agree with this thesis. They do feel healthy. The other 21% does not agree with the thesis. They do not feel particularly healthy in some sort of way. Figure 20.20: “I do not have particularly happy memories of the past”, question number 20. The majority of the people (96%) disagree with the thesis. Only 6% of the people disagree with the thesis. This means that those people do not have happy memories of the past. Still 96% does have happy memories of the past. 85 Results all together 1 = Strongly agree 2 = Moderately agree 3 = Slightly agree 4 = Slightly disagree 5 = Moderately disagree 6 = Strongly disagree I do not feel particularly pleased with the way I am I feel that life is very rewarding I am not particularly optimistic about the future I find most things amusing Life is good I laugh a lot I am well satisfied about everything in my life I do not think I look attractive I am very happy I always have a cheerful effect on others I can fit in everything I want to I feel that I am not especially in control of my life I feel able to take anything on I often experience joy I do not have fun with other people I do not feel particularly healthy I do not have particularly happy memories of the past 1 2 3 4 5 6 3% 17% 5% 14% 38% 40% 8% 8% 24% 10% 5% 0% 3% 27% 2% 2% 4% 8% 27% 10% 31% 46% 33% 43% 7% 40% 38% 45% 17% 32% 50% 0% 8% 0% 10% 39% 10% 39% 10% 18% 26% 10% 21% 38% 28% 14% 36% 13% 3% 11% 2% 10% 12% 19% 12% 7% 7% 10% 41% 8% 10% 15% 24% 20% 5% 17% 16% 13% 38% 3% 39% 5% 0% 0% 10% 25% 3% 3% 5% 36% 7% 0% 39% 38% 36% 29% 2% 17% 0% 0% 2% 3% 8% 3% 2% 2% 10% 2% 5% 39% 25% 45% * Grey areas are positive. Analysis If we look at the table we can analyze the overall happiness of the population of a lot of Dutch people and a combination of European countries we can see clear results. The grey areas are the positive answers to the questions. Those areas represent a ‘happy’ or ‘content’ answers. When we would compare the percentages in the grey area to the percentages in the white area there is a difference. On each question the ‘positive’ answers outnumbers the ‘negative’ answers. This means that the people in our surveyed group are overall quite happy. They are content with their lives and feel overall content with their body. The top three of things were people are most content with: I do not have fun with other people. 95% of the people did not agree with this statement. They do have fun with other people. I do not have particularly happy with memories of the past. 86 94% of the surveyed people disagree with this statement. They think back on their memories on a positive way. This means that the people we surveyed, Dutch or foreign, have had a good youth. Life is good. 93% of the people agree with this. This means that overall they think that life is good. They feel quite good about their lives. Conclusion This survey taught us a lot about happiness. The group we chose was a group of people with a Dutch nationality and other European nationalities that all have their own connection to the Netherlands. We chose to survey this group because we live in a globalized world. The Netherlands and other countries in Europe are very much connected. Even within our own borderlines it is not strange to come across foreign people. Last year we participated in an exchange. During one of the many conversations we had, we talked about happiness. What happiness mend to them and how that differs from happiness to us. We found out that our ideas are not that different from others. The survey pointed out that we in Europe are quite content. We are pleased with our lives, the people around us and our appearances. It is interesting to see that people are most content with the ones around them, their memories and that their life is good. We learnt that we as Europeans are happy, and have all the reasons to be happy. Most of us feel good about the things we do. And we should be! We Europeans are a happy group of people! 87 Logbook Elyse van Rijsbergen Date 08-07-2014 Time 6 hours What? Plan of approach + brainstorming about our topic. Orientation topic + Worldschool. Search for information about our topic. Meeting Worldschool in Den Haag. 20-09-2014 1 hour 27-09-2014 1 hour 03-10-2014 3 hours 04-10-2014 1,5 hours 15-10-2014 0,5 hour 16-11-2014 1 hour 17-11-2014 2 hours 22-11-2014 2 hours 23-11-2014 2 hours 25-11-2014 3 hours I selected all the useful information first to get everything ready to start. Subquestion 4. 30-11-2014 2 hours Subquestion 4. 02-12-2014 2 hours Subquestion 4. 07-12-2014 2 hours 08-12-2014 2 hours Subquestion 4. Made graphs for subquestion 4. Started working on subquestion 5 and Thinking about subquestions and main question. Formulate questions and divide them. Search for information subquestion 4. Problems Register at Worldschool did not run smoothly. When we arrived we were not on the list. Though it was not a problem, the day was very informative. A lot of information, so it was quite difficult to decide what I could use and what not. So I first collected all useful information. Read book: “The World of Happiness”, subquestion 4. Subquestion 4. 88 10-12-2014 2 hours 6. Subquestion 4. 11-12-2014 2 hours Subquestion 4. 16-12-2014 1 hour 23-12-2014 2 hours Subquestion 4. Measurements Gross National Happiness. Together with Charlene look at what we had been doing so far. + Subquestion 5 and 6. 29-12-2014 2 hours Subquestion 5 04-01-2015 1,5 hour Subquestion 5 06-01-2015 3 hours Survey 06-01-2015 2,5 hours 11-01-2015 3 hours Subquestion 4, adjustment. Subquestion 5 en 6 13-01-2015 2 hours Subquestion 5 en 6 14-01-2015 4 hours Subquestion 5 en 6 17-01-2015 2 hours Subquestion 5 en 6 19-01-2015 20-01-2015 2 hours 2 hours Subquestion 5 en 6 Put survey results in graphs. It was quite difficult to find information and good sources. Filled all our question in at surveymonkey.com, but we could not use more than 10 questions. So did everything for nothing actually. Eventually used a different site, which did work. Difficult to find sources, so it took a long time. I could not use the graphs from the site survio.com, so I had to make them all by my self. Was a lot of 89 work because we also had handwritten surveys. 21-01-2015 3 hours 25-01-2015 2 hours 02-02-2015 3 hours 04-02-2015 3 hours 05-02-2015 2 hours 10-02-2015 3 hours Totaal 78 hours Foreword + Introduction + Survey Results Survey results Adjustments on subquestion 5 and 6 Adjustments on subquestion 5 and 6 Mainquestion Put everything in one document, looked for spelling mistakes or other mistakes. 90 Logbook Charlene van Herwaarden Date 08-07-2014 Time 6 hours 20-09-2014 1 hour 27-09-2014 1 hour 03-10-2014 3 hours 04-10-2014 1,5 hours 15-10-2014 0,5 hour 18-11-2014 2 hours 19-11-2014 3 hours 24-11-2014 1 hours 08-12-2014 2 hours 10-12-2014 2 hours 15-12-2014 3 hours 24-12-2014 4 hours 30-12-2014 4 hours 31-12-2014 2 hours What? Plan of approach + brainstorming about our topic Orientation topic and Worldschool Searching information about our topic Meeting Worldschool Den Haag Thinking about the subquestions Formulate subquestions Search for information about subquestion one Long-term/shortterm happiness Research changes of happiness Has happiness changed through the ages? Are we ever really happy? Determination happiness meetingwith Elyse and thinking about ideas for subquestion two What happens when we feel happy? Finishing touch subquestion one Problems To register at the Worldschool did not run smoothly. When we walked in we were not on the list. Though that was not a problem, the day was very informative. There was too much information available. Everything was interesting, but we had to draw a line what to say and what not to say. We had forgotten to place notes at the bottem of the page. So I had to search 91 the right site with the right quote. 01-01-2015 2 hours 02-01-2015 4 hours 07-01-2015 5 hours 11-01-2015 7 hours 12-01-2015 2 hours 14-01-2015 3 hours 19-01-2015 2 hours 20-01-2015 2 hours 23-01-2015 2 hours 07-02-2015 2 hours 08-02-2015 5 hours 09-02-2015 3 hours 10-02-2015 Totaal 4 hours 79 hours Subquestion two – Genes Subquestion 2 – intentional activity Subquestion two – external effects Finishing subquetion two + start with subquestion three Searching for information about subquestion three Subquestion three, dealing with the information Subquestion three – Happy Planet Index Subquestion three – filling out indexes + writing the conclusion Answer main question There are a lot of external effects. So again we had to made a clear division of topics that we wanted to discuss What is the most important information that we can use to asnwer the main question Adjustments to subquestions Adjustments to subquestions Finishing the survey + conclusion main question Finishing touch 92 Sources Subquestion 1 - http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/nic-marks/happiness-is-a-seriousbusiness_b_2914174.html http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/12/happiness-serious-business/ http://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/local/middlesexcounty/20 14/11/12/pursuing-happiness-classroom/18847355/ http://thehappinessshow.com/WhyIsHappinessSoImportant.htm https://www.westfieldhealth.com/blog/healthworks/2014/12/12/happin ess---it%27s-a-serious-business http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=happiness&a=*C.happiness_*Wordhttp://thehappinesscoach.biz/do-you-know-what-determines-yourhappiness/ http://www.canyonranch.com/your-health/mind-spirit/cultivatinghappiness/finding-fulfillment/finding-long-term-happiness http://www.purposefairy.com/724/say-no-to-short-term-happiness/ http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/emotional_health/a rt3689.html http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/emotional_health/a rt3689.html http://thinks.ezuk.org/shortterm-vs-longterm-happiness https://hbr.org/2012/01/the-history-of-happiness http://tinybuddha.com/blog/why-the-grass-is-never-greener-and-howto-be-happy-today/ http://www.helpguide.org/articles/depression/depression-signs-andsymptoms.htm http://www.ggznederland.nl/uploads/publication/Factsheet%20depres sie.pdf http://wwwbcf.usc.edu/~jessegra/papers/OGKG.inpress.HappinessCon cepts.PSPB.pdf https://hbr.org/2012/01/the-history-of-happiness http://www.canyonranch.com/your-health/mind-spirit/cultivatinghappiness/finding-fulfillment/finding-long-term-happiness http://www.purposefairy.com/724/say-no-to-short-term-happiness/ http://www.canyonranch.com/your-health/mind-spirit/cultivatinghappiness/finding-fulfillment/finding-long-term-happiness http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=happiness&a=*C.happiness_*Wordhttp://thehappinesscoach.biz/do-you-know-what-determines-yourhappiness/ http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/gg_live/science_meaningful_life_vide os/speaker/sonja_lyubomirsky/what_determines_happiness http://www.truthmagazine.com/archives/volume27/GOT027276.html 93 - http://thehappinesscoach.biz/do-you-know-what-determines-yourhappiness/ http://wwwbcf.usc.edu/~jessegra/papers/OGKG.inpress.HappinessCon cepts.PSPB.pdf http://www.liberales.be/boeken/bormans http://aporia.byu.edu/pdfs/hughesthe_role_of_happiness_in_kants_ethics.pdf http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/59029/happychemicals.pdf http://www.examiner.com/article/happiness-research-what-ishappiness-and-what-happens-to-our-brain-when-we-are-happy http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/backwards-smiling/ http://altered-states.net/barry/newsletter185/ http://www.rivertea.com/blog/does-smiling-really-help-you-live-longer/ http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/smile-to-livelonger-10401/ Subquestion 2 - http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2013/03/27/how-happinessaffects-your-health/ http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/adult-health/indepth/friendships/art-20044860 http://www.midus.wisc.edu/findings/pdfs/751.pdf http://www.childresearch.net/chief2/03.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/heather-mundt/a-backtoschool-rulefor-kids_b_5853030.html http://www.survio.com/survey/d/U8S3J8W6L2Q7Z3A4D http://fortune.com/2013/05/01/proof-that-money-does-in-fact-buyhappiness/ http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/wellness_articles.asp?id=1776& page=2 http://www.startofhappiness.com/factors-that-affect-happiness/ http://www.thechangeblog.com/gratitude/ http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/22/1/57.full?patientinformlinks=yes&legid=spcdp;22/1/57 http://www.pnas.org/content/110/33/13684/F2.expansion.html http://www.pnas.org/content/110/33/13684.full http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/264105.php http://www.medicaldaily.com/how-happiness-affects-your-geneschronic-stress-primes-cells-fight-nonexistent-infections-causing http://www.nature.com/news/immunology-the-pursuit-of-happiness1.14225 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2812573/Americans-BritsFrench-BORN-miserable-Length-gene-determines-happy-Danes-ranktop.html http://www.livescience.com/46877-denmark-happiness-genetics.html 94 - http://www.mensfitness.com/life/what-makes-people-happygenes%E2%80%94and-gender%E2%80%94may-play-a-role http://www.euronews.com/2014/10/17/why-are-danes-so-happy-itcould-be-in-their-genes/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2812573/Americans-BritsFrench-BORN-miserable-Length-gene-determines-happy-Danes-ranktop.html http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/don-t-worry-be-happy-247644 http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/happiness-can-affect-yourgenes/article4970268.ece http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232248.php http://tinybuddha.com/blog/7-things-that-influence-happiness-thatyou-dont-need-to-have/ http://www.gretchenrubin.com/happiness_project/2010/11/5-basicfactors-for-happiness-according-to-carl-jung/ http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/topic/connecting/connectionhappiness http://www.lifecoachexpert.co.uk/whyishappinesssoimportant.html http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/03/why-doeshappiness-matter http://www.changeitpsychology.co.nz/how-to-cultivate-optimism http://www.anekant.org/tott_let_us_learn_to_forgive_truly.htm http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/raising_happiness/post/happiness_is_ being_socially_connected Subquestion 3 - http://www.oecd.org/about/ http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/about/better-life-initiative/ http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/the-psychologyof-home-why-where-you-live-means-so-much/249800/ http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/health/ http://unsdsn.org/about-us/vision-and-organization/ http://www.earth.columbia.edu/sitefiles/file/Sachs%20Writing/2012/Wor ld%20Happiness%20Report.pdf http://www.gallup.com/services/170945/world-poll.aspx http://www.ibtimes.com/worlds-happiest-countries-2013-according-un1403880 http://www.neweconomics.org/ http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/entry/measuring-what-mattersthe-happy-planet-index-2012 http://www.happyplanetindex.org/assets/happy-planet-indexreport.pdf https://richvickaryous.wordpress.com/2011/10/ http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/teacher_resources/webfieldtrip s/ecological_balance/eco_footprint/ http://www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-Life-Expectancy.aspx 95 - - http://www2.eur.nl/fsw/research/veenhoven/Pub1990s/96d-full.pdf http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/footprint_b asics_overview/ http://econsguide.blogspot.nl/2009/02/possible-reasons-for-uks-deficitin-its.html http://www.happyplanetindex.org/about/ http://www.happyplanetindex.org/survey/feedback.php http://theblogprogress.blogspot.fr/2012/06/2012-happy-planet-indexlaunchedtoday.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&ut m_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/theprogressblog+(prog+blog) http://www.ticotimes.net/2013/09/10/costa-rica-ranks-12th-in-worldhappiness-report Subquestion 4 - The World Happiness Report 2013 The World Book of Happiness by Leo Bormans Happiness & Hardship by Carol Graham and Stefano Pettinato Report: Happiness, Economics and Public Policy Article: The World’s Happiest (And Saddest) Countries, 2013 Article: Bhutan: The Happiest Country in the World http://www.grossnationalhappiness.com http://www.happyplanetindex.org http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org Ted Talk about Happiness http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/01/bhutan-wealthhappiness-counts http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/10302485/Theworlds-happiest-countries.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report http://www.earthporm.com/top-10-happiest-countries-world/ http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/20/travel/happiest-countries-to-visit/ https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/non-economic-data/happiestcountries http://footprint.wwf.org.uk http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2960 http://www.firstpost.com/world/the-ethnic-cleansing-hidden-behindbhutans-happy-face-918473.html Subquestion 5 - The World Happiness Report 2013 The World Book of Happiness by Leo Bormans Happiness & Hardship by Carol Graham and Stefano Pettinato Report: Happiness, Economics and Public Policy https://www.historynewsnetwork.org 96 - https://www.psychologytoday.com https://www.questforhappiness.ca https://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/12sa.html http://oecdinsights.org/2014/09/18/using-happiness-data-in-policymaking/ http://www.oecd.org/site/worldforum06/ishappinessmeasurableandwh atdothosemeasuresmeanforpolicy.htm http://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/research/wellbeing/happiness.asp http://theconversation.com/why-our-happiness-and-satisfactionshould-replace-gdp-in-policy-making-30934 http://www.csls.ca/notes/note2011-1.pdf http://www.bhutanstudies.org.bt/publicationFiles/JBS/JBS_Vol26/264.pdf Subquestion 6 - https://hbr.org/2012/01/the-science-behind-the-smile The World Happiness Report 2013 Happiness & Hardship by Carol Graham and Stefano Pettinato Report: Happiness, Economics and Public Policy The World Book of Happiness by Leo Bormans https://www.gretchenrubin.com https://www.globalhappiness.com http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/08/happinesschildhood-emotional-health-richard-layard http://www.livescience.com/19936-key-happiness-balancedperspective-present-future.html http://mehrensenglish.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/3/9/12399164/the_futu re_of_happiness.pdf 97