The Science of Happiness

The six principles of a happy life and the seven strategies for achieving it

Brendan Kelly

• Éditeur: Gill Books
• Année: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780717190096
• Sujet: Personal Development
• Sous-sujet: Self Improvement

The science of happiness is a new and flourishing area of scientific research that provides us with a clear understanding of what actually makes us happy. In this timely book, leading psychiatrist Professor Brendan Kelly examines the most up-to-date findings to arrive at a comprehensive set of principles and strategies that are scientifically proven to increase happiness levels. Combining research evidence with scientific, psychological and even spiritual advice, it will enable us to chart a happier path through our complex world.

Professor Kelly examines features of the brain that lead us to think the way we do, common misconceptions about happiness, interesting facts about happiness trends around the world and the research that can empower us to create the circumstances for happiness to flourish in our lives.

Does a superb job at tackling that most bedevilling of things – happiness. Reading this book will bring it a step closer in your life.' Professor Luke O'Neill

PART ONE

The Science of
Happiness

ONE

Who We Are

Writing about happiness feels a little like dancing about architecture. We can certainly do it, but why should we? Would it not be better to spend our time being happy rather than researching it? Doing things that will increase our well-being instead of writing books and papers? Eating ice cream rather than trying to figure out why ice cream makes us happy?

The answer to this question is – infuriatingly – Yes and No. Yes, in the sense that we should always make space for the simple things that we enjoy: spending time with family and friends, going for walks, talking to the cat and eating ice cream. These things matter. They increase our well-being. We need more of them.

But the answer is also No because, deep down, we all know that while we enjoy these things, they are not enough to make us happy. No matter how much time we spend with people or cats, no matter how many walks we go on, and no matter how much ice cream we eat, we still need other things to make and keep us happy. For this reason, we need to both eat the ice cream and try to figure out why it makes us happy, how we can increase or share this happiness, and what else we can do to improve our well-being.

The happiness science of recent decades has focused on a wide range of factors that influence happiness. Some of these things, like how we spend our time, are largely under our control. Others, like what kind of childhood we had, appear much less controllable. What the research tries to do, however, is to examine precisely which of these factors truly shape our happiness, how they do so, to what extent, and what we can do about them. The results from the studies to date are sometimes predictable, frequently surprising and never less than fascinating.

This chapter starts our exploration of happiness science, both ancient and recent, by looking at research into some of the factors linked with happiness and related to who we are: our gender, age, genetic inheritance from our parents, upbringing and where we live. Many of these are factors over which we have limited control, but an awareness of how they impact on well-being can help us to navigate our worlds with a little more confidence, a little more insight and – hopefully – a little more happiness.

Let’s start with gender.

Are women happier than men?

It is an age-old question: are women happier than men, or are men happier than women? Recent decades have seen a great deal of research into happiness, depression and suicide in women and men in a determined attempt to shed light on this issue. The results are not always clear-cut, but they present interesting trends, some of which change over time.

To summarise the mental health research first, it is now clear that women are almost twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with depression, but men have a higher rate of suicide. While these findings are well established in relation to clinical depression and suicide, it is not clear what they mean for happiness in the population as a whole. The trends seem to point in different directions, with depression more common in women and suicide more common in men. In the end, these figures offer little guidance about happiness across the general population outside of those who are clinically depressed or experiencing a suicidal crisis. I see many people with these difficulties. They require much care and support if they are to overcome these issues and regain a sense of happiness and fulfilment in their lives, but it certainly can be done.

Looking at the population more broadly, a number of large-scale social surveys have now studied happiness across various populations and provide quite detailed information about the relationship between gender and happiness in the general population.

In the first place, it is important to remember that any statements about ‘women’ or ‘men’ will inevitably be gross generalisations. Both women and men are capable of happiness and unhappiness. Which of these states predominates will depend far more on the person’s individual circumstances than their gender. In addition, there is growing recognition that the division between ‘women’ and ‘men’ is not as crisp as it was once imagined to be, as recent years have seen increased recognition of gender diversity and fluidity of gender identity. These are welcome developments: seeing the world in terms of ‘women’ and ‘men’ was always an oversimplification that obscured important issues just as often as it illuminated them.

Despite these caveats, the relationship between gender and happiness remains the subject of endless fascination in both the popular media and scientific research. As humans, we have an insatiable and seemingly unquenchable desire to describe all kinds of human behaviours in terms of gender, continually comparing women with men and men with women as if gender was ever the only factor that influences behaviour. Clearly, it is not: human behaviour is complex and multifactorial. Gender, if it is relevant at all, is only one factor among many and it is rarely the most important one.

Even so, gender remains one of the most common ways that we categorise or label each other in order to try to understand what we do, what we think and how we feel. With this in mind, let us look at some of the recent research about happiness and gender to see if it makes any sense. For the most part, it does.

When systematic studies of happiness began, in the middle of the twentieth century, results consistently showed that women rated themselves as happier than men rated themselves. This finding persisted up until the mid-1970s, when the wage gap between women and men began to narrow, educational opportunities increased for women, and various societal changes appeared to increase women’s social freedom and economic possibilities. At that time, there was every reason to believe that these developments, although imperfect and still incomplete, would increase happiness and well-being for women, at least compared to men. But did they?

The best data to answer this question comes from the General Social Survey, which is a nationally representative survey of approximately 1,500 people (between 1972 and 1993) and 3,000 to 4,500 people (between 1994 and 2006) across the United States.¹ This survey, which is still performed today, contains detailed questions about subjective well-being and happiness. Looking at the data collected between 1972 and 2006, it appears that women’s happiness fell substantially during this period, despite there being little change in men’s reported happiness over the same time. Moreover, women’s happiness fell both in absolute terms and relative to that of men, despite the apparent social and economic progress made by women over these decades.

This is a paradox. By most objective measures, the lives of women in the United States improved considerably over these 35 years, and other surveys indicated that women themselves regarded their lives as better too. But the happiness data from the General Social Survey show that happiness, in fact, shifted away from women and towards men over this period. This shift was evident across all industrialised countries, not just the United States.

These findings create an unexpected paradox. In terms of happiness, it seems that the chief beneficiaries of increased opportunities for women were men. Why?

Commenting on this research in the Guardian, Anna Petherick noted that women, despite living longer than men and gaining more political, economic and social freedoms, were not becoming any happier:

So why is this? Evidence supports the idea that women’s rights and roles in the home in the US and Europe have not moved in step with changes in the workplace. Therefore, because women with jobs often do most of the chores and childcare, they shoulder a dual burden that cuts into their sleep and fun. Long commutes are thought to make British women more miserable than British men because of the greater pressure on women to meet responsibilities at home as well as work.²

Social expectations matter too, as this ‘dual burden’ causes working women ‘in Sweden, for example, to feel more miserable than their counterparts in Greece’, owing to greater expectations about gender equality in Sweden.

In summary, then, women’s increased work outside the home has occurred in addition to work inside the home, rather than instead of it. Social expectations of women arguably make the situation even worse in certain countries, with the result that happiness among women in developed countries has decreased rather than increased over past decades, especially compared to men.

These explanations, although dispiriting, appear to be true. This is commonly known as ‘double jobbing’, as women both work outside the home and carry most of the responsibility within the home too: cooking, cleaning, minding children, supporting relatives and looking after other household tasks. It appears that men now spend less time working and more time relaxing, and women spend more time working outside the home.³

These trends are also apparent in Europe. In 2010 the research group I led at University College Dublin used data from the European Social Survey to study happiness in over 30,000 people across 17 European countries.⁴ Happiness was assessed using this question: ‘Taking all things together, how happy would you say you are?’ Each person rated their happiness on a scale from 0 (‘extremely unhappy’) to 10 (‘extremely happy’). We found no relationship between happiness and gender. Mean happiness for both men and women across Europe was 7 out of 10. Our more detailed analysis found that greater happiness was associated with younger age, satisfaction with household income, being employed, high community trust and religious belief. But, just like in the United States, women in Europe no longer rated themselves as happier than men.

In a further analysis of European Social Survey data from 2018 performed for this book, I found that mean happiness is still equal among almost 17,000 men and 19,000 women across Europe, at an average of 7.4 out of 10.⁵ The increase in happiness from 7.0 in 2010 to 7.4 in 2018 is attributable to the economic recovery after the global Great Recession that took place between 2007 and 2009. The fact that women’s happiness remains at the same level as men’s, however, bears continued testament to the relative decline in women’s happiness compared to men’s since the 70s.

So what is the solution? Is there any way to arrest the relative decline in happiness among women and ensure greater happiness for all?

There is now strong evidence that achieving greater gender equality is the key to both addressing the decline in happiness among women in developed countries and attaining greater happiness for men.⁶ Advancing gender equality has been a key value in many societies for a long time, but progress is too slow. This is a pity. Not only is gender equality a vital goal in its own right, but happiness science adds yet another reason to pursue it with renewed vigour: gender equality will make everyone happier, women and men alike.

For the purpose of our exploration of happiness science here, the take-home message about gender and happiness is that women and men are now just as happy – or unhappy – as each other. But happiness is always multifactorial and these trends change over time. Just as women used to rate themselves as happier than men, men might soon rate themselves as happier than women. And, of course, there are many factors other than gender that are linked with happiness. One of these is age.

Why is 47 the age of greatest unhappiness?

Who are happier, the young or the old? In many cultures, childhood is regarded as a time of innocence and happiness. In other cultures, later life is seen as a period of wisdom and well-being. Who is right? Does the pattern of happiness across the life-course differ between people, across countries or over time? Is there a pattern? And, if there is, what does it mean?

Some people struggle deeply with ageing. They avoid revealing how old they are. They wish they were younger. Birthdays upset them. They become less happy as they grow older. My age has never bothered me in the slightest, but maybe that will change in the future. Will I become happier or less happy as I age? To what extent do I decide this myself and to what extent do other factors decide it for me?

In the first place, it is important to emphasise that everyone’s experience of happiness and unhappiness over the course of their lifetime is different. Some people have deeply unhappy childhoods owing to poverty, neglect, abuse and various adverse circumstances. Other people describe blissful childhoods but experience difficult periods in later life owing to life events, illness, loss, misfortune and random bad luck. Each person’s trajectory is different, so any research about happiness and ageing will inevitably be general, focused on the ‘average’ human experience (which does not really exist) and challenging to apply to our own lives at any given point in time.

Despite these issues, and somewhat against the odds, it turns out that certain patterns are evident across many people’s lives and it is interesting to think about these in relation to our own lives. For example, a great number of people find that their priorities change over the course of their lifetimes, often shifting from short-term happiness in the moment when one is younger to quieter, sustained pleasures that increase well-being in later life. We tend to mellow as the years fly past, becoming less interested in hectic late-night clubbing and more taken with gardening, walking and – in my case – sitting quietly, talking to the cat.

Two main conceptions of well-being are relevant here. The first is ‘hedonic’ well-being, which refers to seeking out experiences that maximise pleasure in the moment; e.g. taking an impulsive trip to Las Vegas rather than saving up for a new garden shed. The second concept is ‘eudaemonic’ well-being, which refers to a sense of fulfilment in life or a feeling of quiet satisfaction in progressive achievements over time; e.g. patiently contributing to a pension fund rather than following your favourite band on tour across Europe for the summer.

Both approaches to well-being are necessary in order to achieve a reasonable balance between living in the moment and feeling secure about the future. But the balance we achieve between these two ends of the well-being spectrum varies greatly both between people and within the same person over time. Everyone’s trajectory is different. Not everyone abandons nightclubs in later life and many young people enjoy gardening.

So what does all of this mean for well-being and happiness over the course of a lifespan? Does a growing emphasis on life satisfaction rather than heedless hedonism mean that well-being and happiness diminish over time? Or does the opposite occur, as greater age brings enhanced focus on the pre...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: What is Happiness?
• Part One: The Science of Happiness
• Part Two: Strategies for Happiness
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Acknowledgements
• Copyright
• About the Author
• About Gill Books