Happiness and a grumpy economist

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Is it worth reading more on the pscyhology of well-being? In preparation for my next book, I've been reading around in the psychological literature on happiness. This week I polished off Mihaly Csikszentmilhalyi's Flow and Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener's Happiness. They were both modestly illuminating, not least because of their insistence that more money does buy happiness, albeit with diminishing marginal happiness returns. But not much more than that.

The Diener/Biswas-Diener book put me off to start out with by its repeated description of the latter co-author as 'The Indiana Jones of positive psychology', but the occasional sidelight on his research methods which include having been branded in a Masai initiation ceremony and eating microwaved cockroaches eventually persuaded me the title might well be justified.

However, my main gripe about both books is the apparent methodology of psychology. The typical pattern is that a generalisation is made, followed by 'For example,…' and the description of a single experiment. The conclusion drawn in most cases seemed to me much more than the specifics of the experiment could support. I appreciate that eventually enough experimental results pointing in the same direction can provide strong support to more general conclusions, but in neither book do the references include the kind of meta-survey articles of experimental results that one comes across in the medical literature. And there is very little of the statistical analysis of cross-section or time-series data sets that I'm familiar with as an econometrician.

Of course these are both pretty popular books, so it might well be that the evidence is simply submerged in the interests of attracting readers – although if so I would still have liked some references to wherever it can be found. Am I being too grumpy? Are there better overviews of the positive psychology relevant to an economist's take on well-being. If so please tell me, as I've read plenty of these books by now and at the moment think they've added not much to the excellent survey articles by Daniel Kahneman and his co-authors.

9 thoughts on “Happiness and a grumpy economist”

  1. Hi Diane
    Yes it's definitely worth reading more on the psychology of well-being. Try Richard Layard's Happinesss – Lessons from a New Science. He's an economist, so speaks your language. Or Alan Carr's Positive Psychology – The Science of Happiness and Human Strengths. Both are straightforward reads, with no mention of Indie that I can recall. Also look up the work of Andrew Oswald – he has written a lot on economics and well-being. But watch out – the definitions of happiness and well-being are not used in the same way in all studies. if you want any more recommendations let me know – I've just finished the MSc on Applied PP at UEL.
    Best wishes
    Bridget

  2. Bridget, thank you for the recommendations. I've read the economics lit on this eg Oswald, Layard, Frey, so it's more the psychology I'd like to follow up, & I'll check out Alan Carr. What is still unclear to me is how systematic the psychological evidence is and therefore how amenable to the kind of modelling done in economics. I think it will be a matter of working through references in these books but would be very happy to take a reading list from you. Best wishes, Diane

  4. Hi Diane,
    You have picked a 'fashionable' subject so the books for popular consumption are devoid of references and specifics on research. All in the aid of not scaring 'ordinary' readers. However, you should get the true reference work by Prof Dr Chris Peterson and Prof Dr Martin Seligman 'Character Strengths and Virtues' to get the real depth of the work that has gone into recasting the focus of psychology. Do not be put off by its size- you can dip into it easily and it reads well.
    Like you, I have searched for the evidence-based practical books and papers. I would recommend only a few. First of these is the book by Prof. Dr. Barbara Fredrickson’s 'Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive'. Second is the book by Dr Sonja Lyubomirsky 'The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach'. I would also recommend you look at Prof Dr Chris Peterson's 'A Primer in Positive Psychology'. New York: Oxford University Press.
    Finally, there is always the original website http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx which provides extensive links and also tests for all to try.
    Good luck with your project. Do let me know if you need a diligent reader.
    Lilly

  6. Hi all
    I second Lilly's book suggestions. The Character Strengths & Virtues book is great if that's your main interest, otherwise the Carr & Peterson books are good Pos Psych all-rounders. There's not much to choose between the more 'popular' books mentioned.
    I would also add the following:
    The Handbook of Positive Psychology (Snyder & Lopez, Eds)
    Positive Psychological Assessment – A Handbook of Models & Measures (Lopez & Snyder, Eds)
    Positive Psychology in Practice (Linley & Joseph, Eds)
    Oxford Handbook of Methods in Positive Psychology (Ong & Van Dulmen, Eds).
    Enjoy your reading!
    Bridget

  7. Thanks very much Bridget. When I've had chance to read some of these I'll reflect a bit more on the methodological differences. Modelling and abstraction are central to economics and I haven't figured out yet if that happens at all in positive psychology. Anyway, I have plenty of reading suggestions now!

  9. There's a cool paper by Dan Haybron a philosopher from the Saint Louis University who asks 'Do we know how happy we are?' and says no, not always, a lot of the time. Vagueness makes some nice points here too, where Tim Williamson at Oxford makes it clear that there are cases where we just don't know whether we're happy or not when it's a marginal case of being happy. Not only that, you can't know whether you're in a marginal case of happiness either, so not only do you not know whether you're happy or not but you don't know that you're not knowing that. Ah, the wonders of good old Analytic philosophy!!!! How I know you love it Diane!!!

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