Top

How Our World Can Become Happier
By George Ortega

Since the 1960's when such comprehensive research began, there have been over 3,000 published papers on SWB, and the number of publications is increasing exponentially (Veenhoven, in press). During these last forty years, however, less than a dozen published studies have attempted interventions to increase happiness (see Fava, 1999; Fava, Rafanelli, Cazzaro, Conti & Grandi, 1998; Fava & Ruini, 2003; Fordyce 1977, 1983; Lichter, Haye & Kammann, 1980; Sheldon, Kasser, Smith, & Share, 2002). {Note: Fava, 1999 and Fava et al., 1998 citations are from Sheldon, Lyubomirsky, & Schkade, 2003} This scarcity is highly anomalous considering that initial SWB increase experiments were highly successful, (Fordyce, 1977, 1983; Lichter, et al., 1980).

Happiness is commonly understood to be a fundamental goal in life. In fact, respondents in England have rated happiness as their most important component of Quality of Life; even more important to them than money, health, and sex (Skevington, MacArthur, & Somerset, 1997). However, the average American is only 69 percent happy, and happy only 54 percent of the time (Seligman, 2002). Also, at any given time, one in every four Americans is suffering from mild depression (Seligman, 1994). While the happiness level of over one quarter of the American population falls between 57 and 71 percent, and one twelfth are even less than 57 percent happy, one fifth of Americans are over 85 percent happy, (Andrews & Withey, 1976) suggesting that much greater happiness is also quite possible for less happy individuals.

While we might be inclined to attribute this greater happiness to greater wealth, or related advantages, Diener, Horwitz, and Emmons (1985) found that Americans with a net worth of over $125 million were only trivially happier than randomly selected controls, and that 37 percent of the people on Forbes' list of wealthiest Americans were less happy than the average American. Also, personal wealth in the U.S. has more than doubled since W.W.II, however, Americans are no happier today than they were in 1945 (Myers, 2000). In fact, Nigeria is now the happiest nation in the world, followed by Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador, and Puerto Rico, with the U.S. ranked 16th. (World Values Study Group, in press).

There are three basic reasons why happiness increase research has been neglected. Firstly, hedonic adaptation theory (Headey and Wearing, 1989; Frederick & Lowenstein, 1999) and genetic "set point" studies (Lykken & Tellegen 1996) have predicted that long-term happiness increase is not possible. However, recent demographic data coauthored by the leading SWB researcher, Ed Diener, (Lucas, Clark, Georgellis, & Diener, 2003) has shown long-term happiness increase to be a matter of fact. Secondly, SWB has historically been greatly undervalued by psychology, and clinical psychology in particular.

For example, published psychological articles on negative emotions outnumber those on positive emotions by a ratio of 17 to 1 (Myers, & Diener, 1995), and SWB is generally not used as an outcome variable in therapy effectiveness studies, (Veenhoven, in press). Thirdly, funding happiness increase research has been difficult because there has been no industry wide vested interest in these findings, as there has been in, for example, research to demonstrate the effectiveness of anti-depressant medications, (R. Veenhoven, personal communication, June 3, 2003).

The psychologist most actively promoting happiness increase applications is former American Psychological Association president, Martin E. P. Seligman who last year published a book on happiness (Seligman, 2002), and currently offers extensive happiness coaching instruction through his website -  http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/ . Giovanni Fava, Sonja Lyubomirsky and Ken Sheldon are the researchers most involved in happiness increase experimentation. "Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change" by Sheldon, Lyubomirsky, & Schkade (Manuscript submitted for publication), provides a general review of happiness increase research.

Happiness is supremely important to us, yet we marginally succeed in achieving it largely because we seek it in many ways that are either totally ineffective, or just slightly effective (For reviews, see Argyle, 2001; Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith, 1999; Myers, 1992). When, however, over the course of four weeks, Fordyce (1977) instructed subjects in 14 fundamentals of happiness, and Lichter, Haye & Kammann (1980) asked some subjects to discuss happiness-relevant issues, and others to recite happiness increasing affirmations for ten minutes each morning, all groups experienced an average 25 percent happiness boost.

Also, Fordyce (1983) measured subjects' SWB 9-18 months after 10 weeks of training and found them 12 percent happier than controls, demonstrating the lasting effectiveness of his happiness increase course. These and several other successful happiness increase methodologies could be used in happiness training programs, however, because this body of research is so small, it has been largely ignored by business and government (Notable exceptions are Bhutan, which has officially declared itself more concerned with its citizens' happiness than the country's GDP (Bond, 2003), and Great Britain, who recently commissioned and published an extensive report on why and how their government should develop policies designed to raise the SWB level of its citizens.

A more extensive and authoritative body of happiness increase experiments would likely encourage businesses to take notice and offer happiness increase instruction as a product, in a manner similar to how health spas offer fitness as a product, and governments to use published methodologies as blueprints by which to develop happiness increase courses for school curriculums. These two vehicles alone could produce substantial and lasting happiness increases for many millions of individuals throughout the world.   

Andrews, F. M., & Withey, S. B. (1976). Social indicators of well-being. New York: Plenum Press.

Argyle, M. (2001). The Psychology of Happiness. (Rev. ed), East Sussex, Great Britain: Routledge.

Bond, M. (2003, October 4). The Pursuit of Happiness, New Scientist, 179, 40-43

Diener, E., Horowitz, J., & Emmons, R. A. (1985). Happiness of the very wealthy. Social Indicators Research, 16, 263-274.

Diener, E., Suh, M., Lucas, E. & Smith, H. (1999). Subjective well-being: Three decades of progress, Psychological Bulletin, 125, (2), 276-302.

Fava. G (1999). Well-being therapy: Conceptual and technical issues. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 68, 171-179.

Fava, G. A., Rafanelli, C., Cazzaro, M., Conti, S., & Grandi, S. (1998). Well-being therapy: A novel psychotherapeutic approach for residual symptoms of affective disorders. Psychological Medicine, 28, 475-480.

Fava, G. A. & Ruini, C. (2003). Development and characteristics of a well-being enhancing psychotherapeutic strategy: well-being therapy. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 34, 45-63.

Fordyce, M. W. (1977). Development of a program to increase happiness. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 24, 511-521.

Fordyce, M. W. (1983). A Program to increase happiness: Further studies. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 30, 483-498.

Frederic, S., & Lowenstein, G. (1999). Hedonic adaptation. In D. Kahneman, E. Diener, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 302-329). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Headey, B., & Wearing, A. (1989). Personality, life events, and subjective well-being: Toward a dynamic equilibrium model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 731-739.

Lucas, R. E., Clark, A. E., Georgellis, Y., & Diener, E. (2003). Reexamining adaptation and the set point model of happiness: Reactions to changes in marital status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84 (3), 527-539.

Lichter, S., Haye, K., & Kamman, R. (1980). Increasing happiness through cognitive retraining. New Zealand Psychologist, 9, 57-64.

Lykken, D., & Tellegen, A. (1996). Happiness is a stochastic phenomenon. Psychological Science, 7, 186-189.

Myers, D. G. (1992). The Pursuit of Happiness. New York: Avon Books.

Myers, D. (2002). The funds, friends, and faith of happy people. American Psychologist, 55, 56-67.

Myers, D. G., & Diener, E. (1995). Who is Happy. Psychological Science, 6, (1), 12-19.

Reich, J. W., & Zautra, A. (1981). Life events and personal Causation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 1002-1012.

Sheldon, K. M., Kasser, T., Smith, K., & Share, T. (2002). Personal goals and psychological growth: Testing an intervention to enhance goal attainment and personality integration. Journal of Personality, 70, 5-31.

Sheldon, K. S., Lyubomirsky, S., & Schkade. (2003) Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Veenhoven, R. (in press), The greatest happiness principle; happiness as an aim public policy in Linley, A. and Joseph, S. (Eds.) Positive Psychology in Practice. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons.

World Values Study Group (in press), World Values Surveys, 1999-2001, Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research.