The Pursuit of Happiness

The Pursuit of Happiness

Rationale:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” ~Preamble to the Declaration of Independence

For the founders of the United States, government was a means to protect and promote human happiness. Consistent with the enlightenment philosophy on which they drew so heavily, they insisted in their writings that happiness is of such import that a government failing to protect its pursuit is to be rejected and replaced with one more likely to do so. John Adams wrote “Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it. “[1] For the American revolutionaries, happiness was something worth fighting for.

Yet the happiness espoused by the founders and their intellectual heroes is not just feeling good, nor is it the result of simple hedonic pleasure-seeking. While it did include, as John Adams put it “ease, comfort, security”[2], it also consisted of the application of virtue, of attaining excellence, and being of service to one’s community. As Thomas Jefferson said, happiness “is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation and freedom in all just pursuits.”[3] Carol Hamilton noted that “Properly understood, therefore, when John Locke, Samuel Johnson, and Thomas Jefferson wrote of ‘the pursuit of happiness,’ they were invoking the Greek and Roman philosophical tradition in which happiness is bound up with the civic virtues of courage, moderation, and justice. Because they are civic virtues…The pursuit of happiness, therefore, is not merely a matter of achieving individual pleasure. That is why Alexander Hamilton and other founders referred to ‘social happiness.’” [4] Hamilton and his contemporaries, it seems, would wonder why it took psychologists so long to come around to their views on the subject.

Casual talk of happiness in modern America is commonly hedonic in nature, and the pursuit of happiness is often equated with the pursuit of wealth, status or pleasure. Yet research in the relatively young field of positive psychology is returning our understanding of happiness to that shared by the minds that constructed our government and vowed that it would work for the “safety and happiness” of its citizens.

Christopher Peterson (University of Michigan) and Martin Seligman (University of Pennsylvania), two of leading minds in the positive psychology field, argue (much like the founders) that happiness derives from identifying and applying one’s signature character strengths and virtues. Further, among the main findings of positive psychology are that money has very little impact on human happiness, at least once one exceeds the poverty level. In fact, researchers find that sharing and giving money are surer paths to happiness than accumulating it. Happiness seems more a function of strong social bonds, engaging in activities that one finds purposeful and meaningful and developing optimism and gratitude than of self-gratification.

If the founders were correct, then there are important links between governance, civic life, and human happiness. The findings of modern psychological research open new avenues for investigating those links.

Planned Approach:

To understand the extent to which the American experiment is bearing the fruit so devoutly hoped for by its creators, I believe that it is imperative to investigate the interplay of civic life, governance, public policy and human happiness. These are the areas of inquiry I intend to explore if awarded the study grant:

·  How did the framers of the United States Constitution and their intellectual influences define happiness, and what connections did they draw between government and happiness?

·  How do scholars on the cutting edge of psychological research define and measure human happiness and wellbeing?

·  What does the research from the field of positive psychology show are the drivers of happiness and wellbeing? What role do the civic virtues important to the founders (community service, meaningful work, charity, etc) play in fostering happiness?

·  What patterns emerge from cross-national and cross-state studies of happiness? How do the United States and Texas in particular rank on such studies and why?

·  How might the psychological research on positive leadership and studies of social and psychological capital inform the development of citizen leaders, improve the performance of political leaders and facilitate better choices of leaders?

·  How can the research on happiness and wellbeing inform the creation of better public policies, and how can public policy help promote the conditions in which people thrive?

·  What can we learn from the experience of Bhutan, the only country on earth to shift focus away from traditional measures of economic growth to measures of “Gross National Happiness”?

Weeks 1 &2: The Founders (and their heroes) on Happiness

Franklin, Benjamin, (1785) On True Happiness

Jefferson, Thomas (2005) Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness. Eric Peterson, editor. New York, NY: Random House

Adams, John (1776) Thoughts on Government

McMahon, Darrin (2006) Happiness: A History. New York, NY: Atlantic Monthly Press

Schwartz, B. & Sharpe, K. E. (2006). Practical wisdom: Aristotle meets positive psychology. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7, 377-395.

Weeks 3&4: Positive Psychology - The Science of Wellbeing and Happiness:

Lomas, T., Hefferon, K., Ivtzan, I., (2014)Applied Positive Psychology: Integrated Positive Practice,SAGE Publications Ltd

Boniwell, Ilona (2012) Positive Psychology in a Nutshell: The Science of Happiness, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill

Haidt, Jonathan (2006) The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, Cambridge, MA: Basic Books

Weeks 5&6: Defining and Measuring Happiness

C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology (pp. 187-194). New York: Oxford University Press.

Snyder, C.R. & Lopez, S.J. (2006).Positive Psychology: The Scientific and Practical Explorations of Human Strengths. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Peterson, C., Park, N., & Seligman, M.E.P. (2005). Orientations to happiness and life satisfaction: The full life versus the empty life. Journal of Happiness Studies, 6, 25-41.

Kahneman, D., Krueger, A.B., Schkade, D.A., Schwarz, N. & Stone, A.A. (2004). A survey method for characterizing daily life experience: The day reconstruction method. Science, 306, 1776-1780.

Gallup-Healthways Wellbeing Index: http://www.well-beingindex.com/

Diener, Ed (200) Subjective well-being: The science of happiness and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist, Vol 55(1), 34-43

Weeks 7&8: Civic Virtue and Happiness

Post, S. & Neimark, J. (2007). Why good things happen to good people: The exciting new research that proves the link between doing good and living a longer, healthier, happier life. New York: Random House.

Dunn, E., Aknin, L.B. & Norton, M.I. (2008). Spending money on others promotes happiness. Science, 319, 1687.

Steger, M. F., & Dik, B. J. (2010). Work as meaning. In Linley, P. A., Harrington, S., & Page, N. (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology and work (pp.131-142). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Grant, A.M. & Gino, F. (2010). A little thanks goes a long way: Explaining why gratitude expressions motivate prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 946-955.

Duckworth, A.L., Peterson, C., Matthews, M.D., & Kelly, D.R. (2007). Grit: Perseverance and passion for long-term goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 1087-1101.

Ryan, R.M. & Deci, E.L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68-78.

Weeks 9&10: Happiness and Wellbeing in the United States

Gallup Healthways: State of American Wellbeing – full report http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/162029/file-610480715-pdf/WBI2013/Gallup-Healthways_State_of_American_Well-Being_Full_Report_2013.pdf?t=1424385434424

Gallup Healthways: State of Global Wellbeing – full report http://info.healthways.com/hs-fs/hub/162029/file-1634508606-pdf/WBI2013/Gallup-Healthways_State_of_Global_Well-Being_vFINAL.pdf

Diener, E. & Seligman, M.E.P. (2002). Very happy people. Psychological Science, 13, 81-84.

Yang, Yang (2008) Social inequalities in happiness in the United States, 1972 to 2004: An age-period-cohort analysis, American Sociological Review

Stevenson, B., & Wolfers, J. (2008).Happiness inequality in the United States (No. w14220). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Weeks 11 &12: Happiness, Wellbeing and Public Policy

Diener, E., Lucas, R., Schimmack, U., & Helliwell, J. (2009).Well-being for Public Policy. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hamalainen, Timo & Michaelson, Juliet (2014) Well-Being and Beyond: Broadening the Public and Policy Discourse (New Horizons in Management series)

Huppert, Felicia & Cooper, Cary (2014) Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide, Interventions and Policies to Enhance Wellbeing: Volume VI London: Wiley Blackwell

Dolan, P. & White, M.P. (2007). How can measures of subjective well-being be used to inform public policy? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 71-85.

Ryan, Tim. (2012).A mindful nation: How a simple practice can help us reduce stress, improve performance, and recapture the American spirit. Hay House, Inc.

Weeks 13&14: Bhutan’s Experiment with “Gross National Happiness”:

Ura, Karma (2005) Gross National Happiness, Sociological Bulletin

Esty, Amos (2004) The New Wealth of Nations: Does Bhutan have a better way to measure national progress? American Scientist Vol 92

Bates, Winston (2009) Gross National Happiness, Asian-Pacific Economic Literature

Marujo & Neto: Positive Nations and Communities, New York, NY: Springer

Weeks 15&16: Positive Leadership, Developing Social and Psychological Capital

Cameron, K.A. (2012). Positive leadership: Strategies for extraordinary performance. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Rath, T. & Conchie, B. (2009). Strengths-Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams and Why People Follow. New York: Gallup Press.

Loehr, J. & T. Schwartz. (2003).The Power of Full Engagement.New York: Free Press

Luthans, F., Youssef, C., & Avolio, B. (2007)Psychological capital: Developing the human competitive edge. NewYork: Oxford University Press.

Halpern, David (2004) Social Capital, Cambridge, UK: Polity Press

Castiglione, Dario (2008) The Handbook of Social Capital, Oxford University Press

Conclusion:

This course of study combines areas of inquiry about which I am passionate and have for years hoped for the time and resources to investigate more fully: the founding principles of the United States, human happiness and wellbeing, public policy, democratic governance, and the links between all of those things. I intend not only to read, but to develop this into a research program that will result in conference presentations, and potentially a book. I also believe that this will inform and improve my classroom teaching.

[1] John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

[2] John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

[3] Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1784

[4] Carol V. Hamilton “Why did Jefferson change ‘property’ to the ‘pursuit of happiness’?” George Mason University History News Network. January 27, 2008