We are happy, but do we know it?

My article on happiness in this column seems prescient. United Nations will on Monday implement Resolution 65/309 adopted unanimously by the General Assembly in July 2011 placing happiness in the global agenda. The resolution empowers the Kingdom of Bhutan to convene a high level conference on happiness at the next UN General Assembly in New York.

The dream started with the current King of Bhutan's grandfather more than 40 years ago, who wanted a Gross National Happiness index for a country other than the commonly accepted universal Gross National Product. He believed, as a growing number of us do, that the aim of life was happiness, and not the sum total of the products manufactured or traded!

A few years ago, when he was still the crown prince, the current King set up a research cell with 9 top level social scientists to figure out how to measure people's levels of satisfaction. They believed that, "Current social indicators can capture phenomena such as crime, divorce, environmental problems, infant mortality, gender equality, etc. Thus, they can capture aspects of quality of life that add to the description drawn by economic indicators.

However, these social indicators fail to capture the subjective well-being of people because they do not reflect the actual experiences such as the quality of relationships, the regulation of their emotions and whether feelings of isolation and depression pervade in their daily life. On the other hand, economic indicators fail to include side effects and the tradeoffs of market production and consumption. For example, the environmental costs of industries certainly are not observed from the national accounts.

Another disadvantage of economic and social measures in terms of their links to psychological well-being is that they are based on models of rational choice, whereby people follow a set of logical rules when making development plans. However, works by Kahneman (1994) in psychology and economics reveal that people do not always make rational choices, and that these choices do not necessarily enhance psychological well-being.

The team came up with a questionnaire that measured attitudes in nine domains. The exhaustive questionnaire aims at making individuals sit down and really think through the kind of factors that really make for a sense of well being, rather like The Happiness Project does for individuals. Questions push individuals into assessing their choices on a scale of ten. These include work-life balance; satisfaction in their daily activities; finding the meaning of life; feeling that one is loved; being able to bank on people when you are in trouble. How many people can you depend on when you are sick? Broke? In financial trouble? The perceived levels of stress over the last year and the causes. And much much  more besides.

The government believes that, "Psychological well-being leads to desirable outcomes, even economic ones, and does not necessarily follow from them. In a very intensive research done by Diener and his colleagues, people who score high in psychological well-being later earn high income and perform better at work than people who score low in well-being. It is also found to be related to physical health. In addition, it is often noticed that what a society measures will in turn influence the things that it seeks. If a society takes great effort to measure productivity, people in the society are likely to focus more on it and sometimes even to the detriment of other values. If a society regularly assesses well-being, people will provide their attention on it and learn more about its causes. Psychological well-being is therefore valuable not only because it assesses well-being more directly but it has beneficial consequences."

If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, then the proof is there for all to see. Bhutan has come in as the happiest country in Asia (though the poorest perhaps) and 8th in the world. Have you launched into your personal happiness project yet? Shall we then start thinking of the India Happiness Project?

The writer is a noted danseuse and social activist

mallika@darpana.com