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Wellbeing: Science and Policy
What produces a happy society and a happy life? Thanks to the new science of wellbeing, we can now answer this question using state-of-the-art empirical evidence. This transforms our ability to base our decisions on the outcomes that matter most, namely the wellbeing of us all including future generations. Written by two of the world's leading experts on the economics of wellbeing, this book shows how wellbeing can be measured, what causes it and how it can be improved. Its findings are profoundly relevant to all social sciences, including psychology, economics, politics, behavioural science and sociology. A field-defining text on a new science that aims to span the whole of human life, this will be an invaluable resource for undergraduate and graduate students, policy-makers and employers, who can apply its insights in their professional and private lives. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
350 pages, Paperback
Published March 2, 2023
12 people are currently reading
133 people want to read
About the author
Richard Layard
71 books46 followersPeter Richard Grenville Layard, Baron Layard FBA, is a British labour economist, currently working as programme director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics.
His early career focused on how to reduce unemployment and inequality. He was Senior Research Officer for the famous Robbins Committee on Higher Education. This committee's report led to the massive expansion of UK university education in the 1960s and 1970s.
Following research on happiness begun in the 1970s by economists such as Richard Easterlin at the University of Southern California, he has written about the economics of happiness, with one theme being the importance of non-income variables on aggregate happiness, including mental health.
His main current interest is how better mental health could improve our social and economic life. His work on mental health, including publishing The Depression Report in 2006, led to the establishment of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme in England. He is co-editor of the World Happiness Report, with John F. Helliwell and Jeffrey Sachs.
His early career focused on how to reduce unemployment and inequality. He was Senior Research Officer for the famous Robbins Committee on Higher Education. This committee's report led to the massive expansion of UK university education in the 1960s and 1970s.
Following research on happiness begun in the 1970s by economists such as Richard Easterlin at the University of Southern California, he has written about the economics of happiness, with one theme being the importance of non-income variables on aggregate happiness, including mental health.
His main current interest is how better mental health could improve our social and economic life. His work on mental health, including publishing The Depression Report in 2006, led to the establishment of the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme in England. He is co-editor of the World Happiness Report, with John F. Helliwell and Jeffrey Sachs.
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August 5, 2025
Since the Ancient Greeks, many have endorsed that the overarching goal of society is the happiness or well-being of the people. But because there was no method of measuring well-being in the 18th Century, income (i.e., GDP per capita) became the measure of a successful society. But things are different now. We can now measure well-being in a valid and reliable manner and policy-makers around the world are turning towards measures of success that go ‘beyond GDP’. This is important because massive research has shown that within countries, income—holding all others constant—explains only 2% of the variance in well-being.
If you are a utilitarian like me who thinks that happiness is the only intrinsic good that should be maximised impartially, or if you think happiness is important, then this textbook will be incredibly illuminating for you. It consolidates decades of research on well-being to help you understand what truly makes humans happy, what we mistakenly believe brings happiness (but actually does not). It’s not only for policy-makers because this knowledge will help inform you what to pursue, or not pursue, to be happy for your own life. I will attempt to summarise the key findings in this textbook.
Part 1 (Chapters 1 and 2) covers fundamental concepts about well-being science. Many things are good in the world such as health, education, income, and freedom. But many, including me, think they are only good because of how they affect well-being. Thus, well-being can be said to be the only intrinsic good and all others are instrumental.
There are two main ways to measure well-being:
1. Evaluative (life-satisfaction)
e.g., Cantril Ladder
2. Hedonic (how people feel at each exact moment)
e.g., Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) via Experience Sampling Method
These measures have been shown to be psychometrically valid and reliable as they correlate with objective brain activity in MRIs and third-party reports, are able to predict future consequences, and move in tandem with plausible causes of well-being. Due to the established findings from Daniel Kahneman’s research on human biases—the “experiencing self” and the “remembering self”— hedonic well-being is more reliable than evaluative well-being. Nevertheless, both well-being measures are highly correlated.
Part 2 (Chapters 2 to 5) covers briefly on the philosophical underpinnings of well-being (including trolley problem and Nozick’s experience machine), and the individual factors that shape well-being — our behaviour, thoughts, genes and physiology.
Regarding behaviour, traditional economic theory assumes humans to be rational agents that will reveal their preferences in the market, leading to an efficient system that maximises well-being. However, “externalities,” such as air pollution and climate change, have to be corrected by society. But there are way more problems that stem from the false assumption that humans are perfectly rational — an idea that Kahneman’s Nobel Prize–winning work disproved.
There are at least 5 major ways in which humans do not maximise their well-being:
1. Addiction and lack of self-control
2. Unforeseen adaptation —humans pursue things that they ‘think’ will make them happy, without factoring in adaptation.
3. Framing — humans are significantly influenced by how decisions are framed (e.g., advertising)
4. Loss-aversion —humans evolved to be loss-averse (losing X amount of something causes pain that is twice the amount of pleasure you would gain if you otherwise won X amount of that something)
5. Unselfishness — humans sometimes help others for unselfish reasons.
Thus, there is a need for government intervention to Nudge behaviours to produce efficient outcomes.
Regarding thoughts, massive research in clinical and positive psychology, consisting of high-quality RCTs, have shown that:
1) Our thoughts affect our feelings
2) We can manage how we feel by choosing to think differently.
This is the basis of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Mindfulness, gratitude exercises, and acts of kindness have also been experimentally shown to improve well-being.
Regarding our physiology, it is clear that:
1) the mind affects the body (e.g., stress >> excessive adrenaline and cortisol > >overactive immune system)
2) body affects mind (e.g., psychiatric or recreational drugs).
Regarding genes, genetic twin studies and GWAS reveal that genes have significant influences on our personality traits and well-being, even after controlling for the environment (e.g., adopted twins studies). However, just as with most things, genes and the environment interact in their effects on well-being. Thus, it is not possible to neatly separate the effects of genes and the environment.
Part 3 (Chapters 6 to 15) is the meat of the book, covering the societal factors that influence well-being. I will select the key findings out of the many in this review. These findings are taken from global longitudinal studies, laboratory experiments, natural experiments, field experiments, and quasi-experiments—with proper controls.
Overview:
Over a sixth of the world has a well-being of 3 or below (out of 10). Another sixth has a well-being of 8 and above.
80% of the variance in well-being worldwide is WITHIN countries, and 20% is BETWEEN countries.
General Factors that Explain Well-being:
Within an advanced country, main factors that explain the variance in well-being are in rough order of importance
1. Mental illness
2. Physical Illness
3. Having work, and the quality of that work
4. Having a partner
5. Family income
6. Education
Between countries, variance of well-being in rough order of importance are due to the following factors:
1. Income
2. Health
3. Social Support
4. Personal Freedom
5. Trust
6. Generosity
Regarding childhood predictors of individual well-being at adulthood (after controlling for family variables), emotional health of a child is the strongest predictor, followed by academic qualification, and then child behaviour as the weakest.
Effects of Parenting and Social Media on Children’s Well-being:
The way our parent behaves significantly influences our well-being. Out of the 4 parenting styles, Authoritative parenting (high demandingness and high responsiveness) is the most beneficial compared to authoritarian, neglectful, and permissive. Parents must prioritise building secure attachment with their children.
Mother’s mental health is a major predictor of the child’s well-being at 16.
A meta-analysis of 253 Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programmes—which cover topics such as understanding and managing their own emotions, as well as understanding and responding well to other people— show that they are effective in enhancing children’s emotional well-being, behaviour, and academic performance. Effect sizes ranged from 0.23 to 0.28 SDs. This highlights the need for more SEL programmes in the educational curriculum if governments intend to enhance the well-being of children and adolescents, which translates to higher adult life satisfaction.
Correlational and controlled experimental evidence show that social media negatively impacts mental health of adolescents and children. This effect is mediated through social comparison. Thus, there is a need for greater policies to safeguard adolescents and children from the harms of social media. I recommend “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt if you are interested in this topic.
The Effects of Mental and Physical Health, Unemployment, and Quality of Work on Well-being:
The key thing is that mental health is the biggest predictor of well-being. The lifetime prevalence of mental health conditions like depression and anxiety is 20%. Yet, only a third of them ever receive treatment (mostly medication). Despite various effective psychotherapy treatments available (like CBT), high stigma prevents people from seeking help.
Involuntary unemployment’s effect on one’s life satisfaction is equivalent to suffering the death of a spouse (drop of 1 point), and this is without factoring the effect of lost income. Why? Because employment is not simply a pathway to income, but something that contributes to well-being through three channels: (1) routine, (2) social network outside the family, and (3) identity and purpose. Thus, countries should employ greater Active Labour Market Policies (ALMPs), which have shown to be effective (e.g., subsidised hiring, training programmes, and job-seeking assistance for the unemployed).
Quality of work significantly influences well-being. Out of 13 workplace characteristics, the top 2 predictors of job satisfaction are interpersonal relationships (particularly with managers), and whether the job is interesting. This is followed by pay, job security, opportunities for advancement, independence, etc.
Income on Well-being:
This is probably the one that most people are interested in. What does the research say? There are 3 main points.
Within every country, richer people are on average happier than poorer people. However, this is only on average and there is a huge overlap (based on the above factors mentioned).
In high income countries, despite rising GDP per capita for the past decades, well-being has remained stagnant (i.e, the Easterlin Paradox)
Income—holding all else equal—explains only 2% of the variance of well-being within the population.
The TOTAL (indirect and direct) effect of additional income gets smaller, the richer you are . This is known as the diminishing marginal utility of income and it is observed both within a country and across countries
All current evidence shows that across high income countries, a unit increase in Log Income (corresponding to nearly a tripling of income)—holding all else constant— produces only + 0.3 points of well-being (out of 10).
Why does well-being remain stagnant for a country despite rising GDP per capita? An obvious explanation is social comparisons—a deeply ingrained tendency rooted in our evolutionary psychology.
Research shows that it is not absolute income that predicts well-being, but relative income. So if someone’s income doubles, and the national average stays the same, their well-being increases. But if the national average doubles along with their own income, their well-being remains the same. This is a major negative externality from a policy point of view since a rise in income of an individual imposes a cost on others, leading to an endless rat race. To correct this and maintain efficiency, high rates of marginal tax is required.
Countless research have shown that people who make fewer comparisons are happier, adding empirical support to the notion that “comparison is the thief of joy”
Also, due to human’s adaptation and loss aversion (losses hurt twice more than gains of a same amount), governments across the world should no longer pursue long-term growth if this results in economic fluctuations (expansions and recessions). Economic stability is enormously important and should be prioritised.
The rest of the book touches on how social networks, volunteering, and exposure to nature contributes to our well-being. Additionally, climate change is a clear threat to the well-being of future generations. Only international agreement can overcome this public good problem. Also, strong evidence shows that unhappy people vote for populist parties and identify with populist ideologies. Therefore, if governments want to win votes, they should base policy-making on how cost-effective they are in increasing the well-being of its people. For such cost-benefit analysis, the common metric for well-being should be wellbeing-adjusted years (WELLBYs). 1 WELLBY is the equivalent of a 1-point change on a 0-10 SWB measure in a year. This is similar to how QALY is used in health economics.
My personal takeaways from the vast research is that the key to happiness is to:
1. Keep yourself physically and mentally healthy (eat healthy and exercise frequently)
2. Understand that numerous meta-analyses lend support to the cognitive model of CBT (i.e., by changing your thoughts, you change how you feel and act)
3. Take on a job you find interesting
4. Work in a place where you have good interpersonal relationships and can enjoy autonomy
5. Forge strong social connections with your family and friends
6. Have a partner if you can, but being single tends to be better than being divorced so choose wisely. Alternatively, invest in strong friendships.
7. Spend time in nature.
8. Find meaning in the things you do, and set goals as you progress through life (e.g., engaging in a new hobby)
9. Practice gratitude for the things you have (there’s a lot people take for granted like the temperature of their showers)
10. Understand human biases such as loss-aversion, being vulnerable to framing, and unforeseen adaptation, so that you do not pursue things that you only “think” will make you happy.
11. Understand that comparison is the thief of joy. Constant comparison is a misfiring of an evolutionary impulse, just like the craving for sugar. They used to be vital for survival when our ancestors lived in the African savannah. But in our current modern environment, both of these impulses are often unhelpful, leading you to be unhappy or unhealthy.
12. Know that only 15% of the world earn more than 30 USD per day, even after accounting for currency exchange and cost of living. Guess what percentile of earners are you in globally if you earn the median pay of Singapore and LIVE in Singapore? Most of my friends guessed 30 to 40%. The answer? 1 to 2%. This just shows how the comparisons of Singaporeans (like my friends) are gravely distorted. If you want to compare, do it objectively and compare globally. Half the world (4 billion) earn below 10 USD per day (accounting for currency exchange and standard of living).
13. Understand that income has diminishing returns so you do not step on an endless treadmill to earn and consume, with little to no gains in your well-being.
14. Drill in your head that the end goal is well-being, not income. Income is instrumental to well-being. Most people mistakenly conflate the two and it is a major mistake. The factors above (like mental health, social support, etc.) predict well-being to a far greater extent than income itself. Invest in those.
If you want others to be happy:
15. Give to others (i.e., volunteering and donating) to increase their well-being and your own well-being. Donate globally to poor countries for greater impact per dollar (this is due to diminishing marginal utility once again).
16. Care about climate change because you are harming billions in the future; reduce your carbon emissions and vote for sustainability policies.
17. If you're a parent and you want your kid to be happy, ensure your mental health is not compromised, healthily resolve family conflict, prioritise the socio-emotional health of your child, use authoritative parenting, foster secure attachment, let your child play and learn, and regulate their social media use.
Lastly, to know which activities produce the highest/ lowest hedonic well-being at that point in time, have a look at Figure 12.2. They are fixed-effects regressions gathered through the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). I’ll leave you to guess what tops the list =) Note that there are some activities on the list that may bring pleasure in the short term but harm you in the long term (smoking etc.) Lastly, it also appears that to be happy, frequently engaging in activities that trigger the “flow” state where you are fully immersed in the moment is your best bet. I certainly experienced that when I wrote this book review and the research supports this. As such, I would add a final point that it is crucial that one adopt hobbies or interests that get them in this flow state if they desire a happy life.
If you are a utilitarian like me who thinks that happiness is the only intrinsic good that should be maximised impartially, or if you think happiness is important, then this textbook will be incredibly illuminating for you. It consolidates decades of research on well-being to help you understand what truly makes humans happy, what we mistakenly believe brings happiness (but actually does not). It’s not only for policy-makers because this knowledge will help inform you what to pursue, or not pursue, to be happy for your own life. I will attempt to summarise the key findings in this textbook.
Part 1 (Chapters 1 and 2) covers fundamental concepts about well-being science. Many things are good in the world such as health, education, income, and freedom. But many, including me, think they are only good because of how they affect well-being. Thus, well-being can be said to be the only intrinsic good and all others are instrumental.
There are two main ways to measure well-being:
1. Evaluative (life-satisfaction)
e.g., Cantril Ladder
2. Hedonic (how people feel at each exact moment)
e.g., Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) via Experience Sampling Method
These measures have been shown to be psychometrically valid and reliable as they correlate with objective brain activity in MRIs and third-party reports, are able to predict future consequences, and move in tandem with plausible causes of well-being. Due to the established findings from Daniel Kahneman’s research on human biases—the “experiencing self” and the “remembering self”— hedonic well-being is more reliable than evaluative well-being. Nevertheless, both well-being measures are highly correlated.
Part 2 (Chapters 2 to 5) covers briefly on the philosophical underpinnings of well-being (including trolley problem and Nozick’s experience machine), and the individual factors that shape well-being — our behaviour, thoughts, genes and physiology.
Regarding behaviour, traditional economic theory assumes humans to be rational agents that will reveal their preferences in the market, leading to an efficient system that maximises well-being. However, “externalities,” such as air pollution and climate change, have to be corrected by society. But there are way more problems that stem from the false assumption that humans are perfectly rational — an idea that Kahneman’s Nobel Prize–winning work disproved.
There are at least 5 major ways in which humans do not maximise their well-being:
1. Addiction and lack of self-control
2. Unforeseen adaptation —humans pursue things that they ‘think’ will make them happy, without factoring in adaptation.
3. Framing — humans are significantly influenced by how decisions are framed (e.g., advertising)
4. Loss-aversion —humans evolved to be loss-averse (losing X amount of something causes pain that is twice the amount of pleasure you would gain if you otherwise won X amount of that something)
5. Unselfishness — humans sometimes help others for unselfish reasons.
Thus, there is a need for government intervention to Nudge behaviours to produce efficient outcomes.
Regarding thoughts, massive research in clinical and positive psychology, consisting of high-quality RCTs, have shown that:
1) Our thoughts affect our feelings
2) We can manage how we feel by choosing to think differently.
This is the basis of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Mindfulness, gratitude exercises, and acts of kindness have also been experimentally shown to improve well-being.
Regarding our physiology, it is clear that:
1) the mind affects the body (e.g., stress >> excessive adrenaline and cortisol > >overactive immune system)
2) body affects mind (e.g., psychiatric or recreational drugs).
Regarding genes, genetic twin studies and GWAS reveal that genes have significant influences on our personality traits and well-being, even after controlling for the environment (e.g., adopted twins studies). However, just as with most things, genes and the environment interact in their effects on well-being. Thus, it is not possible to neatly separate the effects of genes and the environment.
Part 3 (Chapters 6 to 15) is the meat of the book, covering the societal factors that influence well-being. I will select the key findings out of the many in this review. These findings are taken from global longitudinal studies, laboratory experiments, natural experiments, field experiments, and quasi-experiments—with proper controls.
Overview:
Over a sixth of the world has a well-being of 3 or below (out of 10). Another sixth has a well-being of 8 and above.
80% of the variance in well-being worldwide is WITHIN countries, and 20% is BETWEEN countries.
General Factors that Explain Well-being:
Within an advanced country, main factors that explain the variance in well-being are in rough order of importance
1. Mental illness
2. Physical Illness
3. Having work, and the quality of that work
4. Having a partner
5. Family income
6. Education
Between countries, variance of well-being in rough order of importance are due to the following factors:
1. Income
2. Health
3. Social Support
4. Personal Freedom
5. Trust
6. Generosity
Regarding childhood predictors of individual well-being at adulthood (after controlling for family variables), emotional health of a child is the strongest predictor, followed by academic qualification, and then child behaviour as the weakest.
Effects of Parenting and Social Media on Children’s Well-being:
The way our parent behaves significantly influences our well-being. Out of the 4 parenting styles, Authoritative parenting (high demandingness and high responsiveness) is the most beneficial compared to authoritarian, neglectful, and permissive. Parents must prioritise building secure attachment with their children.
Mother’s mental health is a major predictor of the child’s well-being at 16.
A meta-analysis of 253 Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programmes—which cover topics such as understanding and managing their own emotions, as well as understanding and responding well to other people— show that they are effective in enhancing children’s emotional well-being, behaviour, and academic performance. Effect sizes ranged from 0.23 to 0.28 SDs. This highlights the need for more SEL programmes in the educational curriculum if governments intend to enhance the well-being of children and adolescents, which translates to higher adult life satisfaction.
Correlational and controlled experimental evidence show that social media negatively impacts mental health of adolescents and children. This effect is mediated through social comparison. Thus, there is a need for greater policies to safeguard adolescents and children from the harms of social media. I recommend “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt if you are interested in this topic.
The Effects of Mental and Physical Health, Unemployment, and Quality of Work on Well-being:
The key thing is that mental health is the biggest predictor of well-being. The lifetime prevalence of mental health conditions like depression and anxiety is 20%. Yet, only a third of them ever receive treatment (mostly medication). Despite various effective psychotherapy treatments available (like CBT), high stigma prevents people from seeking help.
Involuntary unemployment’s effect on one’s life satisfaction is equivalent to suffering the death of a spouse (drop of 1 point), and this is without factoring the effect of lost income. Why? Because employment is not simply a pathway to income, but something that contributes to well-being through three channels: (1) routine, (2) social network outside the family, and (3) identity and purpose. Thus, countries should employ greater Active Labour Market Policies (ALMPs), which have shown to be effective (e.g., subsidised hiring, training programmes, and job-seeking assistance for the unemployed).
Quality of work significantly influences well-being. Out of 13 workplace characteristics, the top 2 predictors of job satisfaction are interpersonal relationships (particularly with managers), and whether the job is interesting. This is followed by pay, job security, opportunities for advancement, independence, etc.
Income on Well-being:
This is probably the one that most people are interested in. What does the research say? There are 3 main points.
Within every country, richer people are on average happier than poorer people. However, this is only on average and there is a huge overlap (based on the above factors mentioned).
In high income countries, despite rising GDP per capita for the past decades, well-being has remained stagnant (i.e, the Easterlin Paradox)
Income—holding all else equal—explains only 2% of the variance of well-being within the population.
The TOTAL (indirect and direct) effect of additional income gets smaller, the richer you are . This is known as the diminishing marginal utility of income and it is observed both within a country and across countries
All current evidence shows that across high income countries, a unit increase in Log Income (corresponding to nearly a tripling of income)—holding all else constant— produces only + 0.3 points of well-being (out of 10).
Why does well-being remain stagnant for a country despite rising GDP per capita? An obvious explanation is social comparisons—a deeply ingrained tendency rooted in our evolutionary psychology.
Research shows that it is not absolute income that predicts well-being, but relative income. So if someone’s income doubles, and the national average stays the same, their well-being increases. But if the national average doubles along with their own income, their well-being remains the same. This is a major negative externality from a policy point of view since a rise in income of an individual imposes a cost on others, leading to an endless rat race. To correct this and maintain efficiency, high rates of marginal tax is required.
Countless research have shown that people who make fewer comparisons are happier, adding empirical support to the notion that “comparison is the thief of joy”
Also, due to human’s adaptation and loss aversion (losses hurt twice more than gains of a same amount), governments across the world should no longer pursue long-term growth if this results in economic fluctuations (expansions and recessions). Economic stability is enormously important and should be prioritised.
The rest of the book touches on how social networks, volunteering, and exposure to nature contributes to our well-being. Additionally, climate change is a clear threat to the well-being of future generations. Only international agreement can overcome this public good problem. Also, strong evidence shows that unhappy people vote for populist parties and identify with populist ideologies. Therefore, if governments want to win votes, they should base policy-making on how cost-effective they are in increasing the well-being of its people. For such cost-benefit analysis, the common metric for well-being should be wellbeing-adjusted years (WELLBYs). 1 WELLBY is the equivalent of a 1-point change on a 0-10 SWB measure in a year. This is similar to how QALY is used in health economics.
My personal takeaways from the vast research is that the key to happiness is to:
1. Keep yourself physically and mentally healthy (eat healthy and exercise frequently)
2. Understand that numerous meta-analyses lend support to the cognitive model of CBT (i.e., by changing your thoughts, you change how you feel and act)
3. Take on a job you find interesting
4. Work in a place where you have good interpersonal relationships and can enjoy autonomy
5. Forge strong social connections with your family and friends
6. Have a partner if you can, but being single tends to be better than being divorced so choose wisely. Alternatively, invest in strong friendships.
7. Spend time in nature.
8. Find meaning in the things you do, and set goals as you progress through life (e.g., engaging in a new hobby)
9. Practice gratitude for the things you have (there’s a lot people take for granted like the temperature of their showers)
10. Understand human biases such as loss-aversion, being vulnerable to framing, and unforeseen adaptation, so that you do not pursue things that you only “think” will make you happy.
11. Understand that comparison is the thief of joy. Constant comparison is a misfiring of an evolutionary impulse, just like the craving for sugar. They used to be vital for survival when our ancestors lived in the African savannah. But in our current modern environment, both of these impulses are often unhelpful, leading you to be unhappy or unhealthy.
12. Know that only 15% of the world earn more than 30 USD per day, even after accounting for currency exchange and cost of living. Guess what percentile of earners are you in globally if you earn the median pay of Singapore and LIVE in Singapore? Most of my friends guessed 30 to 40%. The answer? 1 to 2%. This just shows how the comparisons of Singaporeans (like my friends) are gravely distorted. If you want to compare, do it objectively and compare globally. Half the world (4 billion) earn below 10 USD per day (accounting for currency exchange and standard of living).
13. Understand that income has diminishing returns so you do not step on an endless treadmill to earn and consume, with little to no gains in your well-being.
14. Drill in your head that the end goal is well-being, not income. Income is instrumental to well-being. Most people mistakenly conflate the two and it is a major mistake. The factors above (like mental health, social support, etc.) predict well-being to a far greater extent than income itself. Invest in those.
If you want others to be happy:
15. Give to others (i.e., volunteering and donating) to increase their well-being and your own well-being. Donate globally to poor countries for greater impact per dollar (this is due to diminishing marginal utility once again).
16. Care about climate change because you are harming billions in the future; reduce your carbon emissions and vote for sustainability policies.
17. If you're a parent and you want your kid to be happy, ensure your mental health is not compromised, healthily resolve family conflict, prioritise the socio-emotional health of your child, use authoritative parenting, foster secure attachment, let your child play and learn, and regulate their social media use.
Lastly, to know which activities produce the highest/ lowest hedonic well-being at that point in time, have a look at Figure 12.2. They are fixed-effects regressions gathered through the Experience Sampling Method (ESM). I’ll leave you to guess what tops the list =) Note that there are some activities on the list that may bring pleasure in the short term but harm you in the long term (smoking etc.) Lastly, it also appears that to be happy, frequently engaging in activities that trigger the “flow” state where you are fully immersed in the moment is your best bet. I certainly experienced that when I wrote this book review and the research supports this. As such, I would add a final point that it is crucial that one adopt hobbies or interests that get them in this flow state if they desire a happy life.
February 28, 2024
A very important book that summarizes the science of wellbeing to date and the way it can be applied to policy decisions.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews