"Happiness"

[fiefoe]

The title promises sappy things, but the book doesn't deliver. Richard Layard is a respectable economist, after all.

Of the many research findings cited in the book, these raised my eyebrows a little:

• A survey on 'happiness in different activities': praying/meditating is ranked 4th, while computer/email/Internet is ranked bottom 4th.
• The proportion who say "Yes, most people can be trusted" varies from 5% in Brazil (!) to as high as 64% in Norway.
• A sample of people were asked first their Social Security number and then how many doctors there were in California. It turned out that on average the higher a person's Social Security number, the higher the number of doctors he thought there were in California. This illustrates the influence of the "frame" within which a question is considered.
• By upping financial incentives, we diminish a person's internal incentives to give of his best and to live up to the name of his profession.
• So most people are not rivalrous about their leisure. But they are rivalrous about income, and that rivalry is self-defeating.
• Looks make little difference. Likewise , IQ is only weakly correlated with happiness, as are physical and mental energy (self-rated). Finally, education has only a small direct effect on happiness.

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Happiness is a sack of Gritty Kitty Litter.
posted by NinjaPirate at 6:31 AM PST on April 20