1 Attempts to Define Well-Being
1.1 Happiness
Happiness is a loaded term. Here is Jeff Perron’s definition to illustrate its multifaceted nature.
Happiness = an overall (though not constant) sense of well-being characterized by subjective purpose and meaning as well as relative equanimity1 and pleasure. Happiness is positively correlated with a life that is guided by a set of values and principles. It is characterized by respecting the line between what one controls and what one does not. Note that equanimity and pleasure are optional, however doses of these states are often attainable if appropriate habits are integrated. - Jeff Perron
Given that happiness means different things to different people, we’ll use the terms personal well-being instead. Happiness is sometimes reduced to pleasure or peak experiences while well-being is a more encompassing concept. People generally think of well-being as being made up of ingredients. Most psychological or philosophical frameworks claim to have found the “right” ingredients. Let’s explore some of the most popular definitions of human flourishing.
1.2 The Greeks
Aristotle distinguished between two types of happiness; hedonia and eudaimonia.
Hedonism claims that we should maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Aristotle considered this approach to be shallow and claimed that we should use our rationality to pursue things that are worthwhile by cultivating virtues. Values are things we find valuable while virtues are character traits or a tendency to behave in a certain way. For example, one can value truth and not lying is a virtue (habit) they’re trying to cultivate. This pursuit of values via characteristic adaptations is similar to Tiberius and DeYoung’s Cybernetic Value Fulfillment Theory (CVFT). The main difference is that Aristotle and most of the approaches below prescribe a specific set of values that are worthwhile whereas CVFT lets the individuals choose their values.
1.3 In Defence of Pleasure
Many scoff at the idea at purely optimizing for pleasure. Optimizing for pleasure in the short term is simple. Eat the entire tub of ice cream. Maximizing the area under the pleasure curve across a lifetime is much more difficult. Eating too much ice cream will decrease pleasure long term because of its consequences on health down the road. One has to learn moderation and listen to the diminishing returns. “The French know how to do this: They eat many fatty foods, yet they end up thinner and healthier than Americans, and they derive a great deal more pleasure from their food by eating slowly and paying more attention to the food as they eat it. Because they savor, they ultimately eat less. … The French also vary their pleasure by serving many small courses; Americans are seduced by restaurants that serve large portions.”1
One may even engage in temporarily painful pursuits to increase pleasure long term. Exercise and altruism are classic examples of this. Compromising for a friend in the moment is by far outweighed by the pleasure the friendship will bring over a lifetime. My interpretation of Epicurus is that he was trying to optimize for long term pleasure which ends up being not so different than the other approaches2.
1.4 Affect & Emotions
Lisa Feldman Barrett has an interesting take on this subject. She proposes that affect is our brain’s low-resolution summary of our body budget3. In other words, it’s our brain’s beliefs and predictions about the state of our body4. Affect appears to be a fundamental property of consciousness. We always lie somewhere on the valence and energy 2D plane5. Valence (the horizontal bad to good axis) is our brain’s prediction of our metabolic strain while emotions are the stories that the brain tells about the causes of the sensory signals that affect derives from and what to do about them. Uncertainty is metabolically taxing so it tends to feel negative and intense6. Spending quality time with friends and family regulates our nervous system so it tends to feel good7. The body-budget analogy considers some activities as sources of savings and others as taxes. In this light, it makes sense why we say that some people or activities are taxing.
Valence and arousal are constructed to some degree but they are less constructed than emotions. Note that this is inline with the teachings of the Buddha through Vipassana meditation taught by S.N. Goenka. They teach you how to simply observe bodily sensations as they are. I think part of the Vipassana meditation project is to retrain the elephant to not automatically construct valence at the very least to loosen its grip on our psyche. Instead of talking about pain as bad or negative, they encourage the use of more neutral adjectives such as intense, subtle, sharp, dull, and so on.
I’m not convinced of the feasibility of this endeavor. The construction of valence appears to be hard wired into us from birth. A baby removes their hand from the hot stove because it hurts (negative valence = moves away from). A baby moves towards food and a warm soft mother because it feels good to be safe and secure (positive valence). Many other species (maybe the vast majority if not all) appear to have to have this move towards or away from mechanism built into them. It makes sense from an evolutionary perspective that most things associated with positive valence happen to be conducive to survival and reproduction. Even though meditation may never completely eradicate the valence instinct, it may allow us to separate ourselves from living a life purely driven by craving and aversion. It can definitely anchor us to our sensations and therefore allow us to discern whether we agree with the automatically generated stories. In short, meditation would allow us to live a value-based life8. Simply consider the monk who burned himself alive as a form of peaceful protest during the Vietnam war. The man didn’t flinch9.
One may consider affect as the outcome variable worth optimizing for. It’s not as simple as filling one’s life with body-budget net-positive activities. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Furthermore, many of us need to engage in taxing activities out of necessity and score higher on a well-being scale than some rich folks who bathe in pleasure. Perhaps the miserable rich are taxing their body-budget through a lack of meaningful relationships and so on. From this point of view, affect is a catch-all metric that encompasses psychological well-being.
1.5 Factor Models of Psychological Well-Being (PSW)
1.5.1 The Happiness Hypothesis
In his masterpiece, The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt argues fo the following equation:
H(appiness) = S(etpoint) + C(onditions) + V(oluntary activities)
Martin Seligman argued in Authentic Happiness that the happiness set point determined roughly 50% of our happiness while circumstances only determined 10% and voluntary activities constituted the other 40%.
1.5.1.1 Set Point
As far as we know, “30-40% of the differences in happiness between people is accounted for by genetic differences between people”10.Some argue that this number may be even higher when we take into account the gene-environment correlations. For example, a child with predisposed to score high on a well-being scale most likely has parents who would score similarly and they are likely to create a warm and happy home. Regardless, much of the variation in well-being is left unexplained. This set point is best taught of as a range or a probability distribution.
Figure 1.2 displays a hypothetical probability distribution of well-being scores. The y axis represents the likelihood of obtaining a particular well-being score. Although, the scores can vary quite a bit, this individual is likely to experience higher well-being than average (the middle). The actual “set point” is denoted by the dashed lines as their are many ways to define the center of a skewed distribution11. This is why it’s wiser to think of set points as propensity to experience a certain level of well-being. Perhaps we like a thermostat with a pre-determined wellness temperature range. Some folks may have to work harder to maintain a certain level of well-being while others can just go about their day.
1.5.1.2 Conditions
Let’s explore the other half of the variation in well-being not explained by our genes. “Conditions include facts about your life that you can’t change (race, sex, age, disability) as well as things that you can (wealth, marital status, where you live). Conditions are constant over time, at least during a period in your life, and so they are the sorts of things that you are likely to adapt to.”12 Human beings are extremely resilient to predictable circumstances like the ones listed above. “Of course, it’s better to win the lottery than to break your neck, but not by as much as you’d think. … Within a year, lottery winners and paraplegics have both (on average) returned most of the way to their baseline levels of happiness.” Haidt’s persepective echoes Seligman’s 10% estimate for the influence of static circumstances on one well-being. It’s worth emphasizing that the transition period after “breaking your neck” or a divorce is likely to decrease well-being in the short term. The analysis of my mood data confirms this result.
1.5.1.3 Voluntary Activities
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle
Voluntary activities are the habits we engage in such as socializing on a regular basis, sleep routines, meditation, exercise, learning a new skill, seeing a therapist, or taking a vacation. It’s self-evident that many of these behaviours increase our level of well-being. Or is it?
My own research in part 2 of the book and many others challenge this assumption. Some critique the effectiveness and lasting effects of interventions such as writing three things we’re grateful for each morning13. Others such as Robert Sapolsky argues that we don’t have as much control as we think we do over our choice of habits14. My insight after tracking my mood for thousands of days is that increasing affect past a certain threshold is unlikely which supports the set point hypothesis. My mood hovered around 3.7 on a scale of 1 to 5 for years now. Even major events such as the pandemic related lock downs in 2020 resulted in a minor dip with a subsequent bounce back to baseline.
Does this imply we should give up on trying to be happier? In a sense, yes. Is a 3.7 out of 5 enough? Perhaps, attempting to shift our affective style past its comfort zone can result in more harm than good. Most interventions follow some kind of hormetic curve. Most of the benefits of exercise lies in being generally active a few spurts of intense activity. Working out 24 hours a day would be dangerous15. The can be said for most if not all other positive psychology interventions such as socializing, sleep, meditation, learning a new skill, seeing a therapist, or taking a vacation.Diminishing returns are real. Not only that but down sides can emerge past a certain dosage.
Meditation may be an exception with regards to well-being. Of course, one needs to eat and sleep. But monks appear to live a happy life with those three ingredients.
Happiness appears to be a side effect or an emergent phenomenon rather than something we can work towards directly. All we can do is tilt the odds in our favour by creating the right soil or us to flourish. The good news is that we can find ways to pursue most of the happiness habits in a way that is inherently meaningful to us. By pulling on the right levers, we can hope to shift our probability distribution in the right direction. Jonathan Haidt recommends focusing on meditation, psychotherapy, and medication to change our affective profile in the long term. Change is difficult but doable. See the elephant rider metaphor and Atomic Habits for more the subject. see atomic habits. Elephant rider video with the book.
1.5.2 PERMA+ Model
The PERMA model is a classic in the field of positive psychology. Martin Seligman discovered five factors16 that independently contribute to well-being. They are:
Positive emotion
Engagement
Relationships
Meaning
Accomplishments
These factors are also pursued for their own sake. In Khant’s language, they’re not means to an end, they’re an end in themselves. You don’t pursue flow or meaningful relationships because they increase the abstract notion of well-being. Those things are worthwhile in it of themselves. It’s akin listening to music or playing sports. The benefits of those activities are a side-effect and not the main reason we pursue them. From this perspective, well-being is an emergent phenomenon and it’s constituent parts are the five factors.
Their are serious criticisms of the PERMA model and the field of positive psychology in general17. Paul Wong’s main criticism is that the model is based on western individualistic values and is full of elitism. From his perspective the PERMA approach focuses only Stephen R. Covey’s independence stage or Maslow’s self-actualization while we ought to aim for interdependence and self-transcendence.
1.5.3 Ryff’s 6-Factor Model
Ryff’s 6-factor psychological well-being model “probed the extent to which respondents felt their lives had meaning, purpose, and direction (purpose in life); whether they viewed themselves to be living in accord with their own personal convictions (autonomy); the extent to which they were making use of their personal talents and potential (personal growth); how well they were managing their life situations (environmental mastery); the depth of connection they had in ties with significant others (positive relationships); and the knowledge and acceptance they had of themselves, including awareness of personal limitations (self-acceptance)”.
Although this widely used model uses psychometrically validated scales, what guarantees that other important factors are not missing? What about physical health and spirituality? Perhaps those are not important and one can thrive under any health condition. Perhaps spirituality falls under the meaning and purpose umbrella terms. Note that the name of a factor can be misleading which is why it’s important to look at the scale items and how they’re scored.
1.5.4 The Fundamental Limitation of Factors
Another flaw to the factors approach is the list just keeps getting longer. The PERMA+ model now includes optimism, nutrition, physical activity and sleep. Jordyn Feingold added a V for vitality to PERMA and calls it REVAMP. There are many factors such as life satisfaction, self-efficacy and spirituality to name a few that could added to the list. The idea that there is a finite list of factors that all people should value equally to increase their well-being is clearly limited.
1.6 Self-Actualization & Self-Transcendence
Abraham Maslow formalized the theory of basic needs.
The humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow postulated that human beings share basic needs. Even though Maslow never drew a pyramid18, these needs tend to complement each other with some holding priority over others. More sophisticated needs such as self-actualization and self-transcendence relying on a strong foundation of met basic needs. He considered these two as the primary vectors of human well-being. Below are some characteristics of self-actualizing people:
Continued Freshness of Appreciation (Sample item: “I can appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy, however stale these experiences may have become to others.”)
Acceptance (Sample item: “I accept all of my quirks and desires without shame or apology.”)
Authenticity (Sample item: “I can maintain my dignity and integrity even in environments and situations that are undignified.”)
Equanimity (Sample item: “I tend to take life’s inevitable ups and downs with grace, acceptance, and equanimity.”)
Purpose (“I feel a great responsibility and duty to accomplish a particular mission in life.”)
Efficient Perception of Reality (“I am always trying to get at the real truth about people and nature.”)
Humanitarianism (“I have a genuine desire to help the human race.”)
Peak Experiences (“I often have experiences in which I feel new horizons and possibilities opening up for myself and others.”)
Good Moral Intuition (“I can tell ‘deep down’ right away when I’ve done 0 something wrong.”)
Creative Spirit (“I have a generally creative spirit that touches everything I do.”)
These characteristics stood up to Scott Barry Kaufman’s psychometric validation19. You can assess your degree of self-actualization using Kaufman’s scale. It’s not uprising that being safe, well fed, rested, competent and connected increases the probability of displaying some of these characteristics. Furthermore, the presence of the word “self” in self-actualization may lead to a naive conclusion that one’s flourishing is the only important metric. On the contrary, self-actualization appears to be a prerequisite to self-transcendence. In other words, you have to be someone to become no one. The function of self-actualization is to erase itself.
The apparent paradox resides only at the surface. Self-actualization of one’s character strengths and potentialities allows one to better serve their community. Self-actualization and self-transcendence are best conceptualized as dancing partners instead of opposite ends of a spectrum. There’s evidence to support this claim. David Yaden and his colleagues developed a scale that measures two aspects of self-transcendence:
Decreased self-salience
Increased feelings of connectedness
“While self-actualization diplayed no relationship to decreased self-salience, it did show a strong positive correlation with increased feelings of oneness with the world”20. It’s not clear why achieve zero self-salience (total ego dissolution) should be our goal. Given that we are social creatures, doesn’t it make more sense to develop a strong sense of self in service of ourself and the community. After all, the good life doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Our well-being is contingent on the sustainable flourishing of the whole.
Kaufman expanded on Maslow’s work and came up with the sailboat metaphor to update the strict hierarchical structure of the pyramid. “A dynamic sailboat is a better metaphor for life than a pyramid because the key is not which level you reach, but the harmonious integration that you have within yourself, and how that interacts with the world. You are a whole unit moving around in this world, and part of becoming a whole person requires this higher level integration of your security and growth needs.” He expands on the sailboat metaphor in his book Transcend.
With these models in mind, it is time we explore a model that integrates all of these approaches while incorporating the latest insights of neuroscience.
Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis↩︎
I would recommend the Philosophize This podcast or reading How To Be Perfect for people who are interested in philosophy.↩︎
See How Emotions Are Made for more details or watch her appearance on the Huberman Lab podcast at this timestamp.↩︎
These beliefs may not be accurate. Systematic errors can lead to psychopathology.↩︎
I use the How We Feel app to measure my affect at least 4 times per day. Note that the Android version doesn’t allow data exportation yet. I’m excited to dive deep in the analysis of these richer data and see how they compare to my Daylio data.↩︎
See How Emotions Are Made for more details or watch her appearance on the Huberman Lab podcast at this timestamp.↩︎
See How Emotions Are Made for more details or watch her appearance on the Huberman Lab podcast at this timestamp. The Heart Math Institute also conducted a lot of research on the topic. Not sure how legit it is however. I’d have to look into it more and ask knowledgeable folks.↩︎
See Jeff Perron on schema’s.↩︎
See the World Happiness Report or this article published in Nature↩︎
The green line on the left represents the mean, the blue line in the middle is the median, and the purple line on the right is the mode.↩︎
See The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt.↩︎
He actually argues that we have zero control in his book Determined.↩︎
Even the assumption that elite athletes will live longer is in question (see this paper.↩︎
See Paul Wong’s criticisms.↩︎
See Kaufman’s blog article on the subject.↩︎