HAPPIER LIVES INSTITUTE
  • About
    • Our strategy
    • Our story
    • Our team
  • Research
    • Research agenda
    • Theoretical research >
      • Philosophy of well-being
      • Measuring happiness
      • Life satisfaction theories
      • Subjective scales: comparability
    • Intervention reports >
      • Cash transfers
    • Mental health programme evaluation
    • Problem area reports >
      • Pain
      • Mental health
      • Positive education
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​Our strategy

There are many ways to improve people's lives. If we want to find the best ways, we need to be able to measure and compare the impact of these different approaches. Of fundamental importance is the choice of metric: what can we measure that reflects the values that we, as individuals and societies, care about? 

A common approach is to measure the impacts on people’s health or wealth and use these as proxies for life improvement. However, health and wealth aren't the only things that matter. At HLI, we believe that they are valuable to the extent that they increase well-being. Although closely linked, it is people’s well-being, and not their health and wealth, which is intrinsically valuable.

We think the best available approach is to use subjective well-being (SWB): individuals' own reports of their happiness and life satisfaction. Social scientists - mostly economists and psychologists - have been collecting data on subjective well-being for the last few decades. The field has recently grown dramatically, with 175,000 books or articles published within the previous decade. 

Subjective well-being data is a powerful tool to incorporate into our assessments of how to help others. We aim to conduct research that looks into this in greater depth: building on the theoretical foundations of the SWB literature and applying this to the question of how resources can most effectively be used to improve worldwide well-being. 
​

In the talk below, HLI’s Founder and Director, Michael Plant, sets out some of his current thoughts on how best to increase global happiness.

About

Our strategy
Our story
​Our team

Research

​Research agenda
Philosophy of well-being
Measuring happiness
Life satisfaction theories
Subjective scales: comparability
Cash transfers: systematic review
Mental health: programme evaluation
Mental health: problem area report
Pain: problem area report
Positive education: research plan

Take action

Reading list
Donation advice
​Career advice
​
Vacancies
Contact us at:
hello@happierlivesinstitute.org

​
Support our work
© COPYRIGHT 2019-2020.
​ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
The Happier Lives Institute (“HLI”) is operating through a fiscal sponsorship with Players Philanthropy Fund (Federal Tax ID: 27-6601178), a Maryland charitable trust with federal tax-exempt status as a public charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions to HLI are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law.
  • About
    • Our strategy
    • Our story
    • Our team
  • Research
    • Research agenda
    • Theoretical research >
      • Philosophy of well-being
      • Measuring happiness
      • Life satisfaction theories
      • Subjective scales: comparability
    • Intervention reports >
      • Cash transfers
    • Mental health programme evaluation
    • Problem area reports >
      • Pain
      • Mental health
      • Positive education
  • Blog
  • Take action
    • Reading list
    • Donation advice
    • Career advice
    • Vacancies
  • Donate