Declining US Happiness Correlates With Populism; Well-being Metrics Offer Solutions

Key Quotes

"Well happiness is feeling good overall but um in the science of well being there are quite a few different measures of happiness so the sort of standard one is life satisfaction how do you feel about your life overall so you're probably familiar with the idea that the nordic countries are the happiest on earth that's based on this measure of life satisfaction and then there's a kind of experiential measure that's what we tend to mean in happiness in ordinary language that's how good or bad you feel those are the main two"

Michael Plant explains that happiness can be measured in different ways, primarily through overall life satisfaction and immediate experiential feelings. Plant highlights that while life satisfaction is often used in global rankings, the everyday understanding of happiness relates to how good or bad one feels moment to moment.

"Actually researching happiness is much easier than people think it turns out that if you want to find how happy someone is you just ask them how happy are you zero to 10 it's the sort of solution hiding in plain sight and this contrasts with how we often try and work out how people's lives are going which is effectively we look in their wallets and then we tell them how their lives are and this is this generalizes to our approach to um social welfare where we think that what makes a society going well or badly is just its level of gdp"

Michael Plant points out that assessing happiness is straightforward, often as simple as asking individuals to rate their happiness on a scale. Plant contrasts this direct approach with societal metrics like GDP, which he suggests are indirect and potentially misleading indicators of a society's well-being.

"America has been getting steadily less happy since records began where records began was 1972 the us general social survey and i think i would be bold enough to say that probably part of the reason that you have your current president is because happiness has been going down over that time period so there's new research that came out this year in the world happiness report which finds that when people are dissatisfied with their lives they're more likely to vote for populist presidents"

Michael Plant suggests a correlation between declining happiness in the U.S. and the rise of populist presidents. Plant references research indicating that dissatisfaction with life can lead individuals to support populist political movements, regardless of their ideological leaning.

"So if you remember the us declaration of independence what are some of the key words that we have these inalienable rights life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and then um thomas jefferson said in 1810 that human happiness and the care of life are the only legitimate objects of good government so i think we should get back to happiness we got sidetracked in the 20th century where we focused on gdp and the economy but now there is a new happiness of science that really started in the 70s"

Michael Plant argues for a return to prioritizing happiness as a governmental objective, referencing historical American ideals. Plant notes that the focus shifted to GDP and economic growth in the 20th century, but a growing field of happiness science, emerging in the 1970s, offers a different perspective.

"So the things we think are important are borne out by happiness research so there's differences between how important we think these things are so income has a surprisingly low effect in happiness research compared to things like mental health and you can capture better the impact of the human aspects of life than you would do if you were just looking at sort of standard economic measures like gdp"

Michael Plant states that common beliefs about what contributes to happiness are largely supported by research, with some surprising findings. Plant highlights that income has a less significant impact on happiness than factors like mental health, and that happiness research can better quantify the importance of human connections than economic indicators alone.

"Our lives are happier if we feel useful to other people and if we feel connected we feel part of something larger than ourselves you can think about volunteering participating in political activity in work where you feel like you're making a difference so so jane you probably feel like you're doing a job which matters so you can have jobs which matter"

Michael Plant asserts that a sense of purpose and connection to others significantly enhances happiness. Plant suggests that activities like volunteering, political engagement, or work that feels meaningful contribute to this sense of usefulness and belonging, which are crucial for well-being.