CONTEMP DEBATE Myers and Diener (1995) on happiness Flashcards
What was the aim of Myers and Diener (1995) “Who is happy?” research article?
They wanted to know whether people are happier due to the gender, race, age, or wealth and to check whether happiness is related to having particular job, religion, or close friends.
What were the procedures in Myers and Diener’s 1995 research?
To study individuals subjective well-being, they conducted studies between 1985 and 1991 in a variety of countries.
They used a variety of self report techniques to gather data about subjective well-being including a common question “how satisfied are you with your life as a whole?”
They used questionnaires, with rating scales, as well as clinical interviews.
They also compared participants ratings with how their peers and relatives rated them.
What were the findings of Myers and Diener’s 1995 reserach
Happiness is a stable factor.
People going through changes in life circumstances still refer to themselves as being happy.
The researchers found that consistently happy people add four personality traits:
- high self esteem: value who they are, able to get on with others, sense of fun and intelligent (NB there are many areas of intelligence, not just being able to do exams, which are weird - ed)
- sense of control over their lives - not feeling helpless in situations
- optimistic - positive attitude and expectation of being able to do well or prosper
- extrovert: happy both in their own company and with others
Other factors: having a network of close friends that they could rely on.
Having a sense of fulfilment in their job,
Feeling that they are part of a community and having a purpose, and also
Being able to enter a state of flow with their work as it is challenging or engaging
Haivng a religious of spiritual practice compared to those with low sense of spirituality
Wealth does not bring happiness - beyond being able to take care of basic needs,
Age/sex/race do not affect happiness
Evaluate Myers and Diener’s 1995 reserach
As with all self report techniques, they are subjective, giving only a personal view, which means the data can be unreliable.
This research tried to circumvent that by asking participants to explore subjective well-being and to take into account a person’s own view of their happiness.
Much of the findings are correlational, meaning the researchers found a link between personality traits and happiness. Correlation does not mean causation, so we can ask is an extrovert happier because they naturally find more people to create a social network, or does a happier person seek social company as a natural tendency?
The relationship between subjective well-being and having a faith is also vague and would require further exploration. E.g. is it the participation in formal religious ceremonies, or a sense of connectedness with something bigger than the self that participants are referring to?
What are the ethical issues involving Myers and Diener’s 1995 research?
Although reviewing ppts from many different countries, sensitivity towards people’s understanding of well-being needs to be taken into consideration.
It was found for instance that collectivist cultures reported a lower ratings of subjective well-being compared to individualist cultures.
This may be inaccurate and misleading for it does not represent the notion of collective happiness, in which individual happiness is not seen as important by participants compared to group well-being. It would therefore be a cultural bias implying that individualistic cultures tend to be happier..
What are the social issues involving Myers and Diener’s 1995 research?
Interestingly, the commonly held conception that teenagers experience high levels of stress and that adults go through a midlife crisis was not supported by the findings.
Teenagers may experience short extreme moods, but their general sense of well-being was no different to adults.
Adults in their 40s showed little evidence of empty nest syndrome when their children left home for work or university, and generally welcomed the release from the stress of raising children!
The research found that people do experience times of crisis but these can happen at any time and age
They found that access to basic necessities were central to a feeling of well-being, but after they were secured increasing wealth did not lead to a marked differences in happiness.
There was a slight positive correlation with higher earnings and increase satisfaction of life.
They noted that relative poverty does not imply unhappiness, nor does relative wealth imply happiness.
Members of a society who are perceived to be discriminated against due to race or disability or poverty were just as happy as people perceive not to be discriminated against for whatever social issue.
* Crocker and Major (1989) noted that people in disadvantage groups maintain self-esteem by comparing themselves within their groups and focusing on their own strengths..
