The problem with ‘happiness’

If you ask someone what makes their life good, many people might respond with a list of things that make them happy. But not everyone measures their lives with happiness, and some people value happiness more than others. Humans have struggled to define the ingredients for a good life or for well-being in terms beyond simple happiness for millennia.

Aristotle famously distinguished between hedonia, which refers to pleasure, and eudaimonia, which refers to a deeper, longer-lasting form of happiness. Eudaimonia is the “idea of a truly flourishing life being about using your strengths in line with a valued pursuit and having virtue which is different than being happy,” says David Yaden, a psychedelics and well-being researcher at Johns Hopkins University. 

Today, the most popular model of well-being builds on this dichotomy between hedonia and eudaimonia. It involves both fluctuations in mood and life satisfaction. But researchers still debate whether happiness is at the core of well-being across the world. While the question might seem more philosophical than practical, answering it could drive broader social policies that influence the well-being of not just individuals but also communities and even countries.

(What is “flourishing”—and is it a better framework for a living a fulfilling life?)

How researchers study well-being

Because mood can be more difficult to accurately measure in one sitting, many studies of well-being simply use the Satisfaction With Life Scale, which includes five simple statements including “In most ways my life is close to my ideal” and “I am satisfied with my life.” Respondents rate their agreement with each statement on a scale of one to seven. 

People likely consider a host of factors in their responses. “There’s work showing that emotional well-being tracks social resources, like how often you’re socializing, how good are your relationships,” explains Yaden. “And then life satisfaction is more tracking material circumstances, like status and salary.”

The World Happiness Report, which ranks over 140 countries each year based on happiness levels, uses an even simpler version of the Satisfaction With Life Scale consisting of one question. The researchers behind the report tell participants to imagine a ladder where the top of the ladder represents the best possible life, and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life. They then ask respondents to say where on the ladder they stand.

Criticisms of this measure abound. A paper published last year claimed that the ladder imagery elicits thoughts about hierarchies that may unintentionally sway responses. The team found that when the question is phrased without the ladder, participants focused more on health, relationships, and family rather than on power and wealth.

Well-being beyond happiness

Other biases in happiness survey data may come from how different cultures value happiness. In Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies, the pursuit of happiness often takes center stage. But for others, it’s less important.

Psychologist Kuba Krys of the Polish Academy of Science and his colleagues have delved into this phenomenon, analyzing data from 61 countries. Their research suggests that the idealization of maximum happiness is most predominant in WEIRD cultures. When asked what the ideal would respond to the Satisfaction With Life Scale, participants from non-WEIRD countries gave lower scores than those from WEIRD countries.

“In Western cultures and in academia that is dominated by Western values, we frequently treat subjective well-being and happiness as equivalent,” says Krys. “But if you go beyond western way of thinking, it is just simply clear that a good life or well-being is more than just being happy. Happiness is important, happiness is fundamental…but it’s not the full story”

While the data suggest that non-WEIRD countries think about happiness differently, it’s unclear if they prioritize other factors that go into well-being—or what those other factors might be.

“I think it’s interesting that people do have different definitions of terms than researchers do. And it I think it points to the importance of defining one’s terms just in general, whether you’re a researcher or a non-researcher,” says Yaden.

Another study from Krys and his team suggests that well-being could be divided into components. While happiness was still the strongest component of well-being in their UK-based sample, meaning, harmony, and love also appeared as common responses when participants explained their vision for a good life. The team expects that if done in a more culturally diverse sample, the components of well-being would multiply and the emphasis on happiness would decrease.

(Can religion make you happy? Scientists may soon find out.)

Sharing happiness with others

In studying the different possible components of well-being, Krys and his team found that community made a difference. Components like happiness tended to be more associated with small communities, where personal interactions and immediate social networks dominate. In contrast, meaning, spirituality, and harmony were linked to broader community well-being, reflecting a collective sense of purpose and interconnectedness. He hopes to build on these community-focused findings in future work on a more diverse group of participants.

“Let’s think about how to build communal attitudes, communal approaches to build well-being,” says Krys.

In pursuit of a communal approach to studying well-being, a few years ago, Krys and his team used a measure called the Interdependent Happiness Scale in 49 different countries. This scale includes statements like “I believe that I and those around me are happy” and “I believe that my life is just as happy as that of others around me.” Meant as a measure of interpersonal harmony and connection to the collective’s well-being, the Interdependent Happiness Scale did elicit higher responses from collectivist societies like China and Japan. 

Moving toward a more complete picture of well-being

Non-WEIRD cultures are underrepresented in psychological research, which means our understanding of global well-being is likely incomplete—and one country’s policy changes to improve global well-being might not work for every country. By broadening the scope of well-being metrics to study these cultures, researchers might uncover a whole new set of components to well-being. Or they may need to simply change their wording while keeping happiness at the core.

With so many possible responses to the question of what makes a good life, Jonas Schöne, a computational social psychologist at Stanford University, encourages researchers to continue to “look at open text questions. You might find something in there that is really worth your time.” With the growing set of tools to analyze text, it would be easier than ever to use open-ended questions to get at the differences in well-being between countries and regions. 

Some experts maintain that happiness will remain a central and useful metric. Sonja Lyubomirsky, a social psychologist at the University of California, Riverside, acknowledges the value of distinguishing between happiness and other well-being components but emphasizes their interconnectedness. “They almost always go together,” she says. “It feels good to have meaning, it feels good to be engaged or absorbed, or all those other good things that are part of eudaimonic well-being.”