In a New York Times Op-Ed on Saturday, Sonja Lyubomirsky wrote that subjective well-being has remained high during the recession. But she’s dead wrong.
Here’s the gist of her piece, titled “Why We’re Still Happy” :
Research in psychology and economics suggests that when only your salary is cut, or when only you make a foolish investment, or when only you lose your job, you become considerably less satisfied with your life. But when everyone from autoworkers to Wall Street financiers becomes worse off, your life satisfaction remains pretty much the same …
So in a world in which just about all of us have seen our retirement savings and home values plummet, it’s no wonder that we all feel surprisingly O.K.
Unfortunately the claim she’s making — that we’re all O.K., thank you very much — isn’t one for theory, it is a factual claim. Let’s see how it checks out, updating my earlier analysis of daily data on life satisfaction through 2008, courtesy of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index (and see that earlier post for the details on this chart):
We’re still happy? No way. Life satisfaction has plummeted during the recession. Of course there remain important issues about how best to measure well-being. So here’s my challenge to Lyubomirsky: Find a single indicator of subjective well-being that hasn’t gotten worse through 2008. I’ll be happy to write about it, if she finds one.
Not only has happiness declined during this recession, it has declined through every U.S. recession for which we have data. Here’s a chart from a paper of mine (with Betsey Stevenson), documenting the clear correlation between the U.S. business and happiness cycles:
I’m optimistic that research into subjective well-being can be useful. But careful science is about replacing conjecture with facts, and right now, happiness research could use a bit more empirical rigor.
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@8, Marc, “Personally, I am down in all three – and not very happy about it.” – but are you unhappy in general? I am sure most people are not happy about their 401(K) and House value being smashed, but the question is how it has affected their overall happiness. If your financial situation is the only thing that indexes your happiness, then the answer is obvious. But, if your happiness is more impacted by family and other factors, then it likely has not had much effect.
I would argue that there is a point where financial situations affect happiness, although it can be counter intuitive: the person who is worrying about being foreclosed on and checking their mailbox each day is probably more unhappy than when it is over (assuming they land on their feet). In other cases, it is as we expect: suddenly being drastically poorer (such that every aspect of your lifestyle is destroyed) will likely affect your happiness level a lot. Being poorer indexed to the economy (so likely will bounce back when the economy recovers) will not affect your overall happiness. That is likely a big part of what she meant: your examples of #2 and #3 are also indexed to #1. Your parents were worse off in recessions no doubt, but they bounced back. If you are old enough to have gone through one before, then your memory of yourself will contain that shift and return.
This problem of personal wealth and happiness bothered Solomon in 250 BCE, too. Ecclesiastes looks into the heart of a king who understands that wealth ultimately means nothing and does not make him happy. All is vanity. What then does one do?
We have all benefitted from the cultural, architectural, scientific, creative wealth that others have left us. Abe Lincoln read library books by firelight and worked out math problems on the back of a shovel with a piece of charcoal. Now we live in a cyberworld of unimaginable riches that is growing exponentially. The Enlightenment defined ‘wealth’ as simply living as a human being in a just and functional society. Oh, would that it were…
The economics of Star Trek speaks of a world where the acquisition of riches has become banal: (Picard speaking here from two different episodes) “A lot has changed…. People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of ‘things’. We have eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions…. The economics of the future is somewhat different. You see, money doesn’t exist in the 24th century…. The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of Humanity.”
I haven’t a clue if this will become true, but I suspect it will trend in that direction– after battles, tyrants and brutalities come and go.
“For ye have the rich always with you….” But it may be that becoming just rich will be a path that is not worth pursuing.
Now just watch somone call me a commie.
Eric, I do not know about calling you a communist, but the communists have learned the problem with this mindset. The problem is that a large portion of the human population is motivated by things and/or power/control. Any system that does not allow people to be “rewarded” for their efforts will end up with most people not putting in any effort.
As much as people talk about the “happy poor”, many of the poor want to better their lives or that of their children. Being held from doing that leads to hopelessness and anger. Hopelessness and anger tends towards crime and militancy. In Muslim countries, we have seen the effects of that.
As to making everyone “equal” or creating “workers paradises”, these just do not work because of human nature. It does not take an economist to see that some will always try to get the better of others. This leads to lack of motivation in the “oppressed” and greed in those with power.
Sad, but true.
The problem with the author’s analysis is that he has come to equate emotional states with subjective assessments of wealth and economic prosperity (how else are we to interprete thriving, struggling, and suffering – these are not words we generally use to describe our happiness and satisfaction). When you assume that these two separate conditions are the same, and then compare them, you will obviously find a strong correlation.
To properly assess the correlation of these two ideas, we need to take the datasets or charts above, and compare them to data of population happiness or satisfaction.
I can be struggling personally in the job market or stock market, and still be happy or satisfied with life. Indeed some of my happiest memories and experiences have been from times of great struggle and hardship.
A follow up to my earlier comment…
Some of the happiest people I’ve known have been very poor subsistence farmers from my time in the Philippines. Happiness is a complicated state, which is only partially influenced by prosperity, and then only with limited duration (the exception being those who truly suffer due to extreme hardships – which also tend to be culturally relative).
Also, the pursuit and expectation of prosperity can bring more pleasure than the achievement of it, just as the thrill of Christmas Eve for a child can dwarf the excitement of the following morning.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading all the above posts and the article that spawned these responses. I wonder where to begin in a witty retort or a ponderous enflame on such a small, yet large issue.
For starters, the article shows measurements of the general well being of society, or more aptly, those who were poled, responded, and could be trusted with an honest response. Hence some of the barrier I can’t seem to get past with a “measurement” of a general “well-being”. All responses a of the assertion of this general well being yet introspectively respond for the commonwealth regarding their own mirth. I, for one, Am mirthless in general, yet don’t remember being polled so can’t be counted among the general feeling. I could see this equivocating measuring the amount of fresh and salt water on earth. Meaningless and irrelevant.
See, I am married. Not physically, or really spiritually. I’d like to introduce my wife, Ms. Anthropy. Why? This is MY view on society, my outlook on the general happiness of our country’s populous. The disdain I hold for the marketing and subjugation of people to advertising makes it hard to find the line where free thought exists and our lives are manifest by this capitalist nightmare. Truly, can anyone identify where the self begins and the lust for all things in life inherent due to years upon years of irradiated images, sound bites, cardboard cutouts, banners, billboards… ends? Do we identify ourselves based on the level of materialism we’re at or judge our happiness based on what we’ve already achieved?
I can never see a 24th century where want of consumption ceases to dominate our forethought. Technology prohibits this by segregating the parts of society that cannot compensate for the desire within for the new, shiny, perceived improvement by compounding the level of intensity of each new invention. Those of us who can’t learn how to operate a computer, create an html web page, open a pdf file and send it to our phones, subscribe to an rss link, open an xml link in the correct browser, operate our Dyson, program the thermostat on our HVAC system, turn the car alarm off, program the digital answering machine, and so many other common place things for those of us who can keep up, will be inevitably left behind.
So, the point of this rambling. To each of us who reads an article like this stops to ponder our own happiness, the judges that level against this, or our friends or family, whatever. I would say that’s the entire point of this, to stop and realize “Hey, I’m not as symptomatically affected by the economy as the rest of these people.” And if enough of us read this and realize that, then more and more of us will be happier. Thus continuing the chain of unidentifiable self and identifiable clothing label.
I, for one, have had my happiness go up in this recession.
I had been struggling, off and on, with freelancing, being self-employed, having left the corporate world.
Suddenly, when everyone is supposed to be struggling, it’s OK to ring others and ask for work, to admit that you could use some help finding it.
So I did. And work has been forthcoming : This year looks like it will be better for me than the past 3
So, my happiness and wealth are increasing (despite the economy) because the general perception of recession meant I could reach out and ask for help more easily.
The “Aha” moment for me happened when I rang a colleague and said I was a bit slow – did she know of any work. She said a lot of people had been ringing her and yes it was a bit slow.
I suddenly felt a lot better. Letting go of high expectations has, paradoxically, freed me up to enjoy more of what I have and to cease trying to keep up appearances.
It’s great. That said, Keith Ng’s post on the human consequences of recession in China (it’s on publicaddress.net) shows a different side of things.
Following Sonja’s logic, we will all be much unhappier in 2009. It will become clearer that “just about all of us” have NOT seen the value of our house go down in a way that affects us. Some will be foreclosed, some will be house poor, some will find they are now able to afford housing, and some really won’t care because falling house prices mean they sell for less but their next house can be bought for less.
Right now, we’re in the early stages and the winners/losers are less clear.