Friday, August 05, 2011
Parameters for measuring happiness : Wharton : Nic Marks interview
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Idea of happiness : various measuring parameters. Limitations of GDP as an index of happiness
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http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2818
Recent book by Author Mr.Nic Marks, " Happiness Manifesto " is becoming very popular and selling millions of copies all over the world. In an interview with a Wharton Professor, Mr.Nic Marks says, there are 5 keys to increase our happiness in life. And they don't cost us anything or very little. Felt like sharing part excerpt ....
CVR
Knowledge@Wharton: What are some of the other things that contribute to happiness? You talked about community relations and family relations. Those are important measures in the way that you look at things, are they not?
Marks: Yes. Every piece of well-being research will say that human relationships are the most important thing.Our relationships are absolutely key to our survival. From a biological perspective, our happiness is tied in with that.There are lots of things outside of the economy that are really, really important.
At the New Economics Foundation, we talk about there being 5 things that really generate people's happiness and well-being.
The first is "Connect," which is your social relationships.
The second is "Being Active," which is physical activity. It is great for our well-being. The fastest way out of a bad mood is to go outside, go for a walk, run or whatever it is you like doing.
Third thing is - "Taking Notice" is about allowing yourself to be moved by things around you, noticing them, noticing what is going on with other people, noticing the changing seasons -- beauty. Noticing what is coming up from within you. Listening to those sorts of doubts or those suppressed joys in your life and actually starting to act them out.
The fourth is to "Keep Learning." Curiosity is great for well-being. [That means] understanding things -- less about knowledge [and] more about an engagement with the world and actually wanting to learn new things, right through the life course. Older people who keep learning have much better health outcomes.
And then, finally, the last one is "Give." Be compassionate." I think there is actually a huge hunger in the West to give again. I think it is what people fear had been suppressed. In a way we have become quite individualistic and selfish as a society. I think there is a huge potential there for unlocking that.
In a classic experiment, people were given money at the beginning of the day. One half was told to go and spend it on themselves. . And the other half was told to spend it on someone else. At the end of the day, [the experimenters looked at] happiness and how [people] have enjoyed the day. It was measured. The ones who gave to other people were significantly happier than the ones who spent it on themselves. That is very, very interesting. One of the best ways to spend your money -- if you want to spend it for happiness -- is to think about giving away a portion of it.
Marks: Starting with GDP and what's wrong with it: There is a long list probably. But the first one is that it makes no differentiation between whether expenditures are for a good thing or for a bad thing. We call these "defensive expenditures" when they are for bad things, things that are basically done to defend quality of life rather than to promote it. So, for example, the big oil slick down off Florida (from the BP oil rig blowout) would have cost an awful lot of money to clear up. That would be added as a positive to GDP, but obviously it is an extremely negative situation.
It(GDP) does know how to do it with financial capital. It has ways of adjusting it, but not with natural capital. It just treats it as a free good altogether. There is also the fact that lots of things happen outside the economy, which are of value, but they are not valued. This is one of the things that Simon Kuznets -- the original architect of GDP -- was well aware of. Household labor, parenting, community work and volunteering ... are the core economy in many ways, and yet they are not valued. So GDP has many, many problems when you think about quality of life.
There is a tension between good lives now and good lives in the future, according to the Stiglitz Commission. That is something we totally agree with. That is actually why it is such a political issue because we often are trading off the future for the now with some of our decisions about consumption patterns and how much CO2 we are pumping into the atmosphere, and things of that nature. So that is a really, really important issue !
Wharton : I don't know that you mean to separate a level of affluence from happiness, but can you talk about that dynamic? Perhaps there is a minimum level of affluence that one needs to become satisfied -- after which further affluence doesn't make you much happier?
Nic Marks : Marks: Definitely. All the well-being research suggests that there is the classic falling marginal utility of income -- that basically a thousand dollars in the pocket of a rich person is worth much less than a thousand dollars in the pocket of a poor person -- and that's clear [even at] the country level. It is the same everywhere. The idea of GDP growth is that a rising tide lifts all boats and that everyone [becomes] better [off economically]. The problem is that most GDP growth has been extremely unequal, so it is actually tipping the boats in lots of ways. Secondly, the things that are really, really critical for well-being simply don't cost so much.
So I don't agree with Wolfers' argument that you have to have rising GDP. We can see nations [that are examples] -- Costa Rica's average life expectancy is longer than the United States' -- or very, very similar. Some years it is higher and some years it is not. They have a great healthcare system there. They are much happier than people in the United States and they have a quarter of the GDP.
Knowledge@Wharton: That is a good example. Didn't they come up number one in your happiness index?
Marks: Yes. They actually come out as the happiest nation on the planet, which is a surprise result. But actually I have since been to Costa Rica -- the beginning part of this year. You can see it is very, very relational. They feel quite free, and they also have very strong family relationships, very strong community relationships. They have their problems. They have unemployment. They have rising income inequality and they have rising crime. So they are not without problems. But they are a very, very different society than several. Latin American countries also are blessed with a sort of life philosophy, which is quite vibrant and of course,
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