Happiness is defined as ‘the overall appreciation of one’s life-as-a-whole. In other words, how much one likes the life one lives. In this definition, happiness is something you are aware of. You may have a disease without knowing, but you cannot be unhappy without knowing.  In this definition, happiness is also an overall appraisal of life. Hence you can be happy with life-as-a-whole, but be dissatisfied with specific domains of life or feel down now and then.

Can happiness be measured?

Because happiness is something we are aware of, it can be measured by asking people. Questions must be precise and responses must be made anonymously. Lengthy questionnaires are not required; mostly single questions do such as:

Taking all together, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?

Dissatisfied                                                             Satisfied
1         2        3        4        5        6        7        8        9        10
 
In some cases, happiness can better be measured using multiple moment assessment, for instance by asking hundred times over a period of a month “How do you feel right now?” This is called ‘experience sampling and this method is used for children and mental patients who cannot estimate too well how they feel most of the time.

How happy are we?

In rich nations, the average response on the above 10-step question ranges between 8.1 (Switzerland) and 6.6 (Japan). Much lower rates are observed in the former communist nations (4,9 in Russia) and in some African countries (3.9 in Zimbabwe). The average in the present day world is about 6,5.

 When expressed in the number of years lived happily, Switzerland is at top with an average of 63 happy life years and Zimbabwe at the bottom with only 13 happy life years.
 
Average happiness has risen slightly in most of the rich nations over the last 30 years, but remained at the same level in Japan and the USA. When expressed in happy life years we see an upward trend in all developed nations. Time trends of happiness in poor nations are not available as yet.

How do we assess how happy we are?

Philosophers assume typically that happiness results from comparison between notions of how-life-should-be, with perceptions of life-as-it is. By implication they believe that happiness depends on culturally variable standard of the good life and hence that one can get happier by lowering standards. Yet, psychological research suggests that we rather ‘infer’ happiness from how we feel generally; ‘I feel mostly fine, so I must be happy’.

 In what conditions do we live happiest?

 Happiness depends first of all on the quality of society. People live much happier in rich and democratic countries than in poor and dictatorial nations. Average happiness is also higher in countries where the government functions well and where a climate of tolerance prevails. Together, such variables explain about 75% of the differences in happiness across nations.

Average happiness is also linked to the density of voluntary organizations in the country. One of the reasons is that these organizations give voice to peoples needs and add to interest representation by the parliamentary system. Another reason is that they do often better than state institutions.

When we compare within nations, it appears that happiness does not depend very much on socio-economic position. Income and education explain only about 5% of the differences. Happiness depends more on socio-emotional positioning, loners being typically unhappy. Being married, having friends and participating in voluntary organizations explain some 15% of the differences. Personality explains another 25% of the differences and among the traits that correlate strongly with happiness are sociability and altruism. Sheer good or bad luck explains another 10% of the differences and the other 45% is unexplained as yet.

Most of this research is correlational and does not inform us about cause and effect. Still in the case of voluntary work there is evidence for both. Experimental studies have shown that happy people are more inclined to help others and are more concerned about social problems. There is also evidence of positive effects of volunteering, at least among the aged but among middle-aged full time workers extra volunteering seems to involve a slight sacrifice in personal happiness.

Is it good to be happy?

Most people find feel that is good to be happy but many moral philosophers have reservations. One of their qualms is that it that one can only be happy if one disregards the misery in this world, and hence that happiness depends on a distorted rosy outlook. Another misgiving is that happiness spoils and makes us lazy, uncritical and egocentric. Yet again, empirical research shows otherwise. Happy people appear to be more concerned with social problems and to be more apt to do something about that. There is also evidence that happiness activates and that it encourages social involvement.

Why do we feel happy or unhappy?

We assess how happy we are on the basis of how well we feel affectively. Our affects are largely intuitive and seem to reflect the gratification of basic needs. Affects function as a biological compass and inform the organism of how it is doing in an environment. We share that orientation system with many other animals and in evolution it developed earlier than the human ratio. In this view, happiness works as a signal system. It is comparable to the red and green lights on some machines, where red means that something is wrong and green indicates smooth functioning. Likewise, the experience of unhappiness signifies that there is something wrong, though it not always clear what precisely. Seen in this light it understandable that unhappiness leads to withdrawal mostly, while happiness fuels openness and involvement. Happiness works as a ‘go signal’.

By Professor Ruut Veenhoven, Erasmus University