Study of Happiness
A college professor rejected his proposed research project, saying it couldn’t be done. Years later, his idea was approved by the leadership of career psychologists.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
ED’s father was a farmer, who wanted his son, ED, to follow him into farming. ED’s mother was a homemaker, who presented ED with books such as Norman Vincent Peale’s “The Power of Positive Thinking” which piqued ED’s interest. “My mother told me that even criticism could be framed in a positive way.”
SCHOOL DAYS
During summers and school vacations, ED worked around the farm, which focused on growing plants and vegetables, not animals, though horses were used to help plow the fields.
Although headed to a life of farming, ED paid attention to all his school courses, achieving above average grades in foreign language, math, science, and writing, sufficient to gain entrance to college, where he intended to focus on a curriculum related to farming.
COLLEGE
After studying agriculture for a year, ED became bored by those courses. While reviewing the college’s curriculum catalogue, he spotted an entry level course in psychology, which he decided to explore. He found the basic psychology survey course sufficiently interesting to take a few more, related courses, including Cognitive Processes (how concepts are learned), Industrial Psychology (related to workplace behaviors), Theories of Personality (ranging from ancient to modern), Abnormal Psychology (studying extreme conditions such as schizophrenia and bi-polar disorders) and Experimental Psychology (designing scientific studies of social behaviors).
CAREER CHALLENGE – ACADEMIC RESEARCH PROJECT REJECTED
Before graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in psychology, ED proposed to the professor, Chairman of the college’s Department of Psychology, that ED conduct a research project exploring the happiness of migrant farm workers, some of whom he knew from his family’s farm. But the professor rejected the idea, declaring that farm workers as a group were unhappy and that there was no way to measure happiness. So, ED chose to research another subject: conformity.
GRADUATE SCHOOL FOR PSYCHOLOGY
A college graduate who has majored in psychology has limited options to proceed with a career in psychology, perhaps as a research assistant or informal (unlicensed) ‘counselor’ where no further education degree is required. But those who wish to be state licensed as a psychologist, in order to counsel individuals in a clinical setting or to lead scientific research projects, need to enroll in graduate school programs to earn a Master’s or Doctorate degree – or both.
ED enrolled in a university’s graduate programs for psychology, earning his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in psychology, later joining the faculty of a prestigious university.
As a graduate student and young professor, ED performed research on ‘deindividuation’ – the loss of self-awareness in groups. He did not study how to measure ‘happiness’ until later in his career, since he was partly influenced by his parents, who he described as always optimistic.
MOST NOTABLE CAREER ACHIEVEMENT – A STUDY OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
While thinking about how he could develop a study in psychology to be helpful to general society, ED noticed that many studies in social psychology dealt with sadness and fear. But ED was convinced that happiness, or ‘subjective wellbeing’ should also be studied and then, if there were any scientifically reliable ways to promote happiness, those ways could be recommended to the general public to implement themselves, to improve their lives.
ED said that “The concept of ‘Happiness’ sounds flaky, kind of frivolous, but what we’re talking about is sustainable happiness – what you get from your family, your work, your purpose, having goals and values. Wellbeing is much, much more than having fun.”
An academic colleague, also a professor of psychology, noted that some psychologists have studied the opinions of classical psychologists Freud and Schopenhauer, who concluded that the best you can do is not be miserable. But the colleague appreciated that ED presented the opposing view – that there is something above zero; there’s happiness and you can measure it.
In about 400 professional articles written on his own or with others, ED became the leading researcher in the science of measuring happiness – or, as he called it, “subjective well-being.” He found that money can bring happiness, but only up to a certain income level: that genetics play a role in one’s satisfaction with one’s life; that having a few strong, intimate social relationships is critical to happiness; and those cultural norms influence what people believe happiness is and how to pursue it.
In a 2002 study of college undergraduates published in the journal ‘Psychological Science’, ED identified 22 students who scored in the top 10 percent on various measures of happiness. The article then compared them with 60 others who had average happiness scores and 24 others who measured as very unhappy.
The happiest students were more social, spent less time alone, had strong relationships with friends, family and romantically, never thought of suicide. However, there was no precise, psychological formula to always predict happiness. So, an extensive social life did not always guarantee happiness and some of the most unhappy students said that they had good social relationships. Even the happiest students had bad days and could be moody, which showed that their emotional systems were working properly.
ED believed that governments needed metrics to guide policies that would improve society, such as a ‘Dow Jones of Happiness’ that tells us how our nation is doing in terms of engagement at work, trust in our neighbors, life satisfaction and positive emotions.
He loved to examine data and said he was content to keep researching without arriving at any final conclusions. He told his son: “Maybe in 100 years, we’ll have a comprehensive theory of happiness. Let’s just observe and try to chart happiness, not rush it.”
By all accounts, ED was a very happy man, known for hosting parties which including carving Spam (ham) into various shapes and for hiding cash in the pages of books for his family to find.
CAREER SATISFACTION
ED brought legitimacy and scientific rigor to the field of social psychology, that had been largely uncharted when he began his research into measuring subjective well-being.
Editor’s note – While ED never publicly discussed any personal satisfaction at having proven his college professor wrong about the possibility of measuring happiness, the common understanding of ‘human nature’ leads to the conclusion that ED must have been happy to note that eventually, his belief in the ability to measure a subjective group of thoughts, was both possible and affirmed by the scientific community.
