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The term "quality of life" is commonly used to refer to one's personal experience of happiness, freedom from pain, stress, and worry, etc.

In this sense, "quality of life" is a subjective feeling not absolutely tied to material possessions or objective experiences -- one person might be very happy living in a small apartment and not owning a car, while another who owns several luxurious homes and a yacht might be desperately unhappy.

Happiness research

What really works

Martin Seligman and his students examined a number of techniques for being happier:

The three that worked were "three blessings" - writing down three things that went well today and why; "the gratitude visit" - writing a gratitude testimonial and delivering it personally; and "using your signature strength in a new way" - taking the signature strength test[1] and using your highest strength in a new way.[2]


Daniel KahnemanW has found that:[verification needed]

  • People's happiness tends to revert to a mean, i.e. that they become accustomed to new circumstances, good or bad.
  • A small number of things do make a difference to happiness in more than just the short term. These are:
    • Quality of sleep, and to a less extent amount of sleep.
    • Meditation? (example of Tibetan monks)[verification needed] (unclear if this was an example of one particular monk, or if it is relevant to the average person who meditates.)
    • Sex

Other researchers have found that happiness is affected by:

  • Life experiences. You are better off spending your money on a holiday than on a new car or extension to your house.[verification needed]
  • Where you live. People who move from close to the city out to the suburbs (to own their own home) on average become less happy as they are more socially isolated and spend less time with friends.[verification needed]

Making better choices

We think a new car or house will make us happy - but will it? It turns out that humans are bad at predicting happiness, and bad at making decisions about what will make us happy. Being aware of this may help us avoid bad decisions, most importantly those which involve us using more resources while making us less happy than other possible choices.

If Daniel Gilbert is right, then you are wrong. That is to say, if Daniel Gilbert is right, then you are wrong to believe that a new car will make you as happy as you imagine. You are wrong to believe that a new kitchen will make you happy for as long as you imagine. You are wrong to think that you will be more unhappy with a big single setback (a broken wrist, a broken heart) than with a lesser chronic one (a trick knee, a tense marriage). You are wrong to assume that job failure will be crushing. You are wrong to expect that a death in the family will leave you bereft for year upon year, forever and ever. You are even wrong to reckon that a cheeseburger you order in a restaurant -- this week, next week, a year from now, it doesn't really matter when -- will definitely hit the spot. That's because when it comes to predicting exactly how you will feel in the future, you are most likely wrong.
..."what our research shows -- not just ours, but Loewenstein's and Kahneman's -- is that the real problem is figuring out which of those futures is going to have the high payoff and is really going to make you happy.
"You know, the Stones said, 'You can't always get what you want,'" Gilbert adds. I don't think that's the problem. The problem is you can't always know what you want."[3]

Questions/more study needed

Relative social status is believed to strongly affect health,[verification needed] perhaps by affecting a sense of competitiveness and stress levels - factors closely related to happiness. (Unless lower status people just have poorer health care - looking at studies/data from societies with good public health care may shed light).[expansion needed]

Happiness economics

"The belief that high income is associated with good mood is widespread but mostly illusory... People with above-average income are relatively satisfied with their lives but are barely happier than others in moment-to-moment experience, tend to be more tense, and do not spend more time in particularly enjoyable activities."[4]


The research suggests that richer countries do tend to be happier than poor ones, but once you have a home, food and clothes, then extra money does not seem to make people much happier.
It seems that that level is after average incomes in a country top about £10,000 a year.[5]

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State of mind

"Flow"W may be associated with wellbeing and happiness. Flow is a mental state in which the person is fully immersed in what they are doing, with an energized focus, full involvement, and success/achievement in the process of the activity. Being so absorbed means a loss of self-consciousness, and drawing of attention away from other matters which may be less pleasant. The effectiveness we may experience in flow may give a great sense of satisfaction.

States of mind which work against happiness and quality of life include stress, frustration and anger - all of which can be associated with a fast-paced modern lifestyle and the pusuit of wealth. But these problems are not as new as we sometimes think.

One response is on EpicureanismW or other approaches to simple living.

The fact that such responses have existed for thousands of years show that this is a constant human concern that won't be solved by simply rolling back the clock.

Objective measurements

Since some correlation between objective consumption and subjective happiness is frequently observed in practice, researchers sometimes use the term "quality of life" to refer to objective measures of diet, housing, health, etc. In this sense it is close to the more objective economic measure standard of living.

In recent years attempts have been made to measure and compare happiness in useful ways. This has been an important part of work by, for example, Daniel Kahneman (mentioned above).

These include:

  • measurement of the level of activity of right and left neocortexesW
  • subjective life satisfactionW

Studies must beware of the "focusing illusion": when asked about certain factors contributing to their happiness, people tend to attribute a greater importance to a factor once it has been brought to mind:

"For example, when people were asked to describe their general happiness and then asked how many dates they had in the past month, their answers showed little correlation. But when the order of the questions was reversed for another group, the link between their love lives and general happiness became much greater."[4]

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Health and quality of life

Health workers also compare patients' quality of life under different circumstances - for example with one treatment a patient might expect many years of additional life, but with reduced mobility and high levels of pain, while another treatment might offer a much shorter life expectancy, but with excellent mobility and little pain.

Notes

  1. VIA Signature Strengths Questionnaire - register (free) to do the test.
  2. Authentic Happiness - Using the new Positive Psychology - from the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, directed by Martin Seligman.
  3. The Futile Pursuit of Happiness, Jon Gertner, September 7, 2003
  4. 4.0 4.1 Link between income and happiness is mainly an illusion, News at Princeton, June 29, 2006
  5. The science of happiness, BBC News, 30 April 2006.

See also

Interwiki links

External links

Being happy

Further reading

Interwiki links

Current research

  • NEP-HAP a weekly report on new working papers in the area of Economics of Happiness. Archive and subscription link.
  • The science of happiness, BBC News, 30 April 2006. Interesting summary of research, & interesting links. Part 1 of a 6-part series.
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