Love to hear that there is important work being done in that area! Are there approaches to measure SWB as a function of “objective” well-being (OWB)? And what are their shortcomings? For instance, to me it feels that SWB could be a weighted sum of OWB the recent change in OWB and how one’s own (x) OWB compares to the OWB of others (x_i):
The weights are probably person specific parameters. Persons with low w1 and w2 might be resilient, persons with high w2 might like status symbols, etc.
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “objective well-being”. Here are two options.
One thing you might have in mind is that well-being is constituted by something subjective, eg happiness or life satisfaction, but you then wonder how objective life circumstances (health, wealth, relationship status, etc), positional concerns, etc. contribute to that subjective thing. In this case, health, etc are determinants of well-being, not actually well-being itself. This approach is pretty much exactly what the SWB literature does: you see how the right-hand side variables, many of which are objective, relate to the left-hand side subjective one. I’m not sure what the shortcomings of this approach are in general—if you think well-being is subjective, this is just the sort of analysis you would want to undertake.
An alternative thing you might mean is that well-being is properly constituted (at least in part) by something objective. One might adopt an objective list theory of well-being:
All objective list theories claim there can be things which make a person’s life go better which are neither pleasurable to nor desired by them. Classic items for this list include success, friendship, knowledge, virtuous behaviour, and health. Such items are ‘objective’ in the sense of being concerned with facts beyond both a person’s conscious experience and/or their desires
If one had this view, your question would be about how well-being, which is objective, relates to how people feel about their well-being. It’s not clear what the purpose of this project would be: if you already know what well-being is, and you think it’s something objective, why would you care how having well-being causes people to feel about their lives? So, I assume you mean the former!
On a similar note, how does HLI relate to Seligman’s well-being concept and PERMA measurement? In Flourish, he argues: “Well-being theory denies that the topic of positive psychology is a real thing; rather the topic is a construct—well-being—which in turn has several measurable elements [PERMA], each a real thing, each contributing to well-being, but none defining well-being (...) By contrast, life satisfaction operationalizes [=”defines exhaustively”] happiness in authentic happiness theory [measured by life satisfaction]”
I am aware that life-satisfaction is currently a more realistic thing to incorporate as a measurement into intervention and that PERMA is covered in the Positive Education paper. Thank you very much in advance!
And thank you for the transparency regarding HLI’s work both when it comes to research and organisational strategy. I found them highly useful for my own work and aspirations.
Finally, a slightly random question: Which part of Layard’s book did HLI contribute to? I just finished it a month ago. :)
I’m not really sure what Seligman means in the above quote, sorry. Perhaps it would make sense in a wider context.
Re PERMA, I’m not a fan of the concept and it strikes me as unmotivated. It’s something like a subjective list theory of well-being, where Seligman takes well-being to consist in a bunch of different items, each of them subjective in some way. However, I don’t see the justification for why he’s chosen those 5 items (positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishments) rather than any others. It seems to be the most plausible re-interpretation of PERMA is that those 5 items are major contributions to happiness, and well-being consists only in happiness.
I’m glad you like our transparency! We hope it helps us improve our decision-making and better allows others to see how we think.
Re Layard’s book, Richard asked me to read a draft and I gave him extensive comments, primarily on the philosophical aspects, which were mostly in the earlier chapters. I also attended a conference he put on to discuss the book.
Love to hear that there is important work being done in that area! Are there approaches to measure SWB as a function of “objective” well-being (OWB)? And what are their shortcomings? For instance, to me it feels that SWB could be a weighted sum of OWB the recent change in OWB and how one’s own (x) OWB compares to the OWB of others (x_i):
SWB(x,t)=OWB(x,t)+w1dOWB(x,t)dt+w2n∑i=1OWB(x,t)−OWB(xi,t)The weights are probably person specific parameters. Persons with low w1 and w2 might be resilient, persons with high w2 might like status symbols, etc.
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “objective well-being”. Here are two options.
One thing you might have in mind is that well-being is constituted by something subjective, eg happiness or life satisfaction, but you then wonder how objective life circumstances (health, wealth, relationship status, etc), positional concerns, etc. contribute to that subjective thing. In this case, health, etc are determinants of well-being, not actually well-being itself. This approach is pretty much exactly what the SWB literature does: you see how the right-hand side variables, many of which are objective, relate to the left-hand side subjective one. I’m not sure what the shortcomings of this approach are in general—if you think well-being is subjective, this is just the sort of analysis you would want to undertake.
An alternative thing you might mean is that well-being is properly constituted (at least in part) by something objective. One might adopt an objective list theory of well-being:
If one had this view, your question would be about how well-being, which is objective, relates to how people feel about their well-being. It’s not clear what the purpose of this project would be: if you already know what well-being is, and you think it’s something objective, why would you care how having well-being causes people to feel about their lives? So, I assume you mean the former!
On a similar note, how does HLI relate to Seligman’s well-being concept and PERMA measurement? In Flourish, he argues: “Well-being theory denies that the topic of positive psychology is a real thing; rather the topic is a construct—well-being—which in turn has several measurable elements [PERMA], each a real thing, each contributing to well-being, but none defining well-being (...) By contrast, life satisfaction operationalizes [=”defines exhaustively”] happiness in authentic happiness theory [measured by life satisfaction]”
I am aware that life-satisfaction is currently a more realistic thing to incorporate as a measurement into intervention and that PERMA is covered in the Positive Education paper.
Thank you very much in advance!
And thank you for the transparency regarding HLI’s work both when it comes to research and organisational strategy. I found them highly useful for my own work and aspirations.
Finally, a slightly random question: Which part of Layard’s book did HLI contribute to? I just finished it a month ago. :)
Hello!
I’m not really sure what Seligman means in the above quote, sorry. Perhaps it would make sense in a wider context.
Re PERMA, I’m not a fan of the concept and it strikes me as unmotivated. It’s something like a subjective list theory of well-being, where Seligman takes well-being to consist in a bunch of different items, each of them subjective in some way. However, I don’t see the justification for why he’s chosen those 5 items (positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishments) rather than any others. It seems to be the most plausible re-interpretation of PERMA is that those 5 items are major contributions to happiness, and well-being consists only in happiness.
I’m glad you like our transparency! We hope it helps us improve our decision-making and better allows others to see how we think.
Re Layard’s book, Richard asked me to read a draft and I gave him extensive comments, primarily on the philosophical aspects, which were mostly in the earlier chapters. I also attended a conference he put on to discuss the book.