Lecture 1: The Science of Well-Being

Question 1

What did Laypersons and other scientists often do?

Answer 1

They used the terms Happiness and Well-Being Interchangeably

Question 2

What does contemporary psychology say?

Answer 2

Happiness and Well-Being are not the same
researchers usually focus on well-being

Question 3

What is the Hedonic view?

Answer 3

Happiness is the individual’s balance of pleasant over unpleasant experiences

Question 4

What is the Emotional state view?

Answer 4

Happiness is more than pleasant vs. unpleasant experiences. It involves discrete episodes of emotion
(neurophysiological responses, behvioral manifestation like facial expressions)

Question 5

What 2 ways can we see happiness as according to the emotional state view say?

Answer 5

Happiness as a positive, acute emotional state or mood (episodic happiness) - Positive emotion vs. Positive mood
Happiness as a positive emotional condition (between emotions/moods & affective traits

Question 6

What is the difference between moods and emotions

Answer 6

Moods are more vague and general than emotions and they last longer

Question 7

What is the Life satisfaction view?

Answer 7

Happiness is having a favorable attitude toward one’s life as a whole.
It’s how u judge your life

Question 8

What is the Hybrid View?

Answer 8

Happiness as affective and cognitive (how you judge your life and how you fell)

Question 9

What are affective traits?

Answer 9

Personality traits, stable across time and situations
these traits influence our tendency to respond to our emotions

Question 10

Where did Haybron place emotional conditions?

Answer 10

Between emotions/moods and affective traits

Question 11

What is Well-Being?

Answer 11

Well-being reflects a value, broader concept but more precise
what benefits/harms us, what makes us better/worse, what makes a good life
Happiness is just a PART of well-being

Question 12

What did ancient moral philosophers believe?

Answer 12

Happiness was the proper goal of human life.
Eudaimonia vs. Hedonia

Question 13

What is the Eudaimonistic Theory?

Answer 13

Route to happiness is virtue (excellence)
Happiness as internal and not external

Question 14

Different versions of the Eudaimonistic theories: Virttue & Exercising it?

Answer 14

Exercising Virtue is identical to happiness
- if you’re courageous and do the right thing even in danger you’re automatically happy)

Question 15

Virtue and Activities?

Answer 15

Happiness is more than just virtue but virtue is the most important. Ex. Plato and Aristotle

Question 16

What was the difference between Plato and Aristotle views?

Answer 16

Plato (Virtuous life) - To be happy, be virtuous (highly intellectual) and do virtuous activities
Aristotle (Virtuous Activity) - anyone can be happy, only have to do virtuous things, u don’t need to be a virtuous person

Question 17

What did Stoics believe?

Answer 17

Virtue is the only means to happiness. Be and do moral virtues

Question 18

What were the 2 Hedonistic theories

Answer 18

Epicureans and Cyrenaics

Question 19

What did the Epicureans believe?

Answer 19

Virtue is the only determinant of happiness
Happiness is the continuous experience of pleasure when there’s no pain/distress - static pleasure

Question 20

What did the cyrenaics believe?

Answer 20

Pleasure is the ultimate goal of life, not happiness
Happiness is the sum of pleasure over the long term (tiresome to pursue)
Goal is short-term particular immediate bodily pleasures (does’t matter what u do to feel them)

Question 21

What was the period of enlightment?

Answer 21

Sovereignty of the individual. People know what’s best for them and tend to act rationally to promote their interests.
- They don’t need enlightment, need freedom and empowerment (liberty & resources to pursue various goals)

Haybron - this is when torch passed from philosophers to economists

Question 22

What are the different Prudential psychologies?

Answer 22

Hedonic - understanding positive experiences
Eudaimonic - How people live well, fluourish and grow to maximize their potential
Abnormal - If we understand psychological disorders and treatments, we can be happy
Positvie - happiness is not just the absence of psychological disorders

Question 23

What are the different ways of cetegorizing contemporary theories?

Answer 23

• Eudaimonic vs. hedonic
• Subjective vs. objective
• Needing vs. wanting vs. liking

Question 24

What is narrow Hedonism? what are the disadvantages of it?

Answer 24

Well-being is the balance of pleasant over unpleasant experience
includes hedonic, subjective and liking
Disadvantage: Too simplistic and reductionist - reduces life, well-being and happiness to just feeling good
- heavility influenced by mood and other variables

Question 25

What is subjective well-being?

Answer 25

well-being reflects hedonic balance of pos affect over neg affect & cognitive judghements of one’s life (life satisfaction)
- hedonic, subjective, liking, most widely used construct
Disadvantage: Too simplistic & reductionist, discriminant validity with psychological well-being
- a lot of overlap with other conceptualization of well-being

Question 26

What are the Desire Theories?

Answer 26

Well-being as the actual satisfaction of the individual’s desires
- dominant account of contemporary economists and philosophers
- subjective, wanting

Question 27

What are the advantages of Desire Theories?

Answer 27

• obv link between individual’s welfare and their motives
• Flexible enough to accomodate all the diff things that people seek out & want in life
• consistent with modern sensibility

Question 28

What are the disadvantages of Desire Theories?

Answer 28

• Desires can be self-sacrificial or hostile to one’s own interests or have no bearing on one’s life (to gain 1 desire, u may need to sacrifice another - move for dream job)
• not all desires are equally weighted
• Desires adapt to the possibilities that people face (adaptation theory - people adapt to their acutal life circumstances)
• Miswanting can occur - overestimate how much something we desire will actually make us happy

Question 29

What is the Monetary desire-fulfillment theory (desire theory extension)?

Answer 29

• Ppl r rational and choose best available option to max well-being
• increase well-being by increasing available options
• Money allows one to increase available options
  
  • wealth is indirect indicator of well-being

Question 30

What is the Affective desire-fulfillment theory (desire theory extension)?

Answer 30

Pleasant/unpleasant feelings reveal desire fulfillment
- Objectively ex. Pain as an indicator of health problems
- Subjectively ex. my life is going the way I want it too

Question 31

What are the problems with affective desire-fulfillment theory?

Answer 31

• problems with reliance on self-reported feelings
• can have pos affect without changes in desire fulfillment
• not all desired fulfillment is linked to strong emotion
• emotion and cognitive evolutions are made by diff neural systems

Question 32

What is the Cognitive desire-fulfillment theory (desire theory extension)?

Answer 32

Based on judgements of whether desires are fulfiled. Can choose what info to use as basis
Self-report judgements of desire fulfilment
Problem: How valid r people’s judgements of all domains of their lives

Question 33

What are List theories? What is an advantage?

Answer 33

Identify well-being with some list of things that we need to have (friendship, knowledge, accomplishment, pleasure)
-Eudaimonic, Objective, Needing
- they argue it needs to be universal
Advantages: Items of the list have intuitive appeal & seem to encompass the full rnage of our intuitions about well-being

Question 34

What are disadvantages of list theories?

Answer 34

How does one decide what goes on the list? Must have some principled basis for what goes on that list
- Little agreement on items across diff lists

Question 35

What are examples of list theories?

Answer 35

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs
- can only have those self-fulfillment lists once u satisfy the lower level needs
Capabilities Approach - core list of 10 capabilities (life, bodily health, senses etc.)

Question 36

What are Eudaimonic theories?

Answer 36

Well-being as Well-functioning
- similar to list theories but more guided by theory (Eudaimonic, objectivist, needing)

Advantages: offers distinction between subjective happiness & well-being, locates role of value in well-being

Disadvantages: How can what benefits me depend on what human beings in general r like?
- link between virtue & well-being is weaker than posited.
- Ex. ruthless CEO, who is quite satisfied

Question 37

What’s the difference between Eudaimonic and List Theories?

Answer 37

Eudaimonic theories has a basis of what goes on the list, well-being is a person that lives up to that. Lists are subjective. Objective vs. Subjective

Question 38

What are Authentic Hapiness theories?

Answer 38

Sumner: Well-being is being informed about the conditions of one’s life and being autonomous
- happiness reflects values that are one’s own & not those that r a result of manipulation or oppressive social conditioning
- subjectivist

Advantages: Attempts to rectify the problems of hedonic & desire fulfillment theories
- involves both hedonistic feelings & cognitive evaluation of life

Diadvantages: People can’t be authentically happy ??

Question 39

Can we integrate these different conceptualizations of well-being?

Answer 39

PERMA Model
P - postive emotions - high levels of pos affect and low neg affect
E - engagement - activities that lead to deep involvement & flow
R - relationships - good quality relationships with family/friends, others
M - meaning - pursuing experiences that r meaningful or allows for connecting with something greater than yourself
A - accomplihment - achieving goals, leads to experiencing pride & fulfillment

Question 40

What is Positive Psychology

Answer 40

• scientific & applied approach to uncovering people’s strenghts & promoting pos functioning
• deals with pos experiences, dispositions, contexts & processes in individuals and groups that facilitate well-being, achievement ans harmony
• pos psych wants us to learn what’s good about us instead of focusing on the bad

Question 41

Which ancient Greek schools of Moral Philosophy proposed that pleasure was important for well-being?

Answer 41

The Cyrenaics and Epicureans

Question 42

Which of the following proposed that Virtue was important for well-being

Answer 42

Plato, Aristotle and Stoics

Question 43

Nozick’s “experience machine” thought experiment was proposed as a challenge to:

Answer 43

Hedonic thoeries of well-being

Question 44

Which theory proposed tha well-being derives from getting what you want?

Answer 44

Desire theories of well-being