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Insanely happy, extremely happy, incredibly happy — we hear and do not think about whether it is possible to objectively measure happiness. Psychologist Mark Holder shares the different approaches scientists use.
My students puzzled me. They said that another professor had said that happiness could not be measured. And this became a serious problem for me: if this is true, I can be considered unemployed. A researcher cannot study what cannot be measured.
At the same time, professors, researchers and the public have no doubt that it is possible to measure depression, anxiety and stress. But they refuse to admit that happiness is also measurable. And yet it is possible. Five approaches used by psychologists who study happiness.
1.Biological
If you come to my lab and I offer you popsicles, you’d better refuse. Because the freezer is filled with saliva and urine samples from our undergraduates. We examine them for biological markers, such as hormones and neurotransmitters, that are associated with happiness.
Until now, scientists have not made significant progress in identifying markers of happiness. But we do know that happiness and depression have different markers. For example, low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin are a sign of depression, but high levels are not a sign of happiness. It turns out that depression and happiness are not two opposite parts of the same continuum, but separate quantities.
2. Behavioral
Scientists have tried to assess the level of happiness in behavior. They examined the frequency of smiling, laughing, and helping others. A study of emoji in text messages led to the conclusion that Hawaii is the happiest state in the US and Louisiana is the least happy. An analysis of several hundred tweets showed that Monday has the lowest level of happiness, and daylight saving time makes people happier.
3. By indirect signs
The study of circumstantial evidence has proven effective in assessing racism. According to them, you can evaluate the reaction time to positive and negative manifestations. But this approach has proven to be ineffective for measuring happiness.
4. Based on the opinions of others
The approach of asking others to rate how happy a person is has proven to be helpful. For example, parents or teachers are asked to rate their children’s happiness levels.
5.With self-report
The most common way is self-report. We ask people about their level of happiness by filling out a multi-question form. Sometimes we ask you to answer just one question. But there are pitfalls in this approach. For example, you ask a person: «Given your past experience, rate how happy you are.» Respondents’ answers differ under the influence of minor events.
For example, if a person finds a couple of coins near the copier that the researchers put on purpose, he will consider himself happier. It would seem that coins cannot affect the assessment of several decades of life. However, they influence people’s responses. We are disproportionately affected by recent events in our lives. Various approaches allow scientists to measure happiness, but doing so is not easy.