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Reading list

​The books and articles listed below will help you to deepen your understanding of what happiness is, how to measure it, what affects it, and what can be done to improve it.

Books and policy reports
​
The latest book explaining how much different things affect life satisfaction. Very strongly recommended.


  • The Origins of Happiness : The Science of Well-Being over the Life Course. Andrew Clark, Sarah Flèche, Richard Layard, Nattavudh Powdthavee and George Ward. 2018. 

If you want to learn about the treatment of mental health and the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).

  • Thrive: The Power of Evidence-Based Psychological Therapies. Richard Layard and David M. Clark. 2014. 

The Global Happiness Policy Reports are the state of the art on happiness research applied to policy.

  • The Global Happiness Policy Reports (various editions)

The World Happiness Report, produced annually, is a global survey and analysis of the state of the world’s happiness.

  • World Happiness Report (various editions)

Philosophy

Two entries from the Stanford Encyclopedia for Philosophy.

​
  • Well-being
  • Happiness

Philosophers use ‘well-being’ to discuss the thing that makes your life go well for you, and ‘happiness’ to refer to a psychological state. Well-being and happiness need not be the same thing, hence the common (but mistaken) expression ‘there’s more to life than happiness’.

Measurement

A book-length document, “these guidelines represent the first attempt to provide international recommendations on collecting, publishing, and analysing subjective well-being data.”


  • OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being 

Two general discussions of the measures:

  • Dolan, P. and White, M. (2007). How Can Measures of Subjective Well-Being Be Used to Inform Public Policy? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(1), 71–85
 
  • Diener, E., Inglehart, R. and Tay, L. (2013). Theory and Validity of Life Satisfaction Scales. Social Indicators Research, 112(3), 497–527

​Distinguishing between the “remembering self” (abstract, gist attribution of SWB) and the “experiencing self” (actual affective experience, from moment to moment). 

  • Kahneman, D. and Riis, J. (2005). Living, and thinking about it: Two perspectives on life. In F. Huppert, B. Keverne, & N. Baylis (eds.), The Science of Well-being. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press

A sceptical take on using happiness measures.

  • White, M. (2015). The Problems with Measuring and Using Happiness for Policy Purposes. Mercatus Research, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Arlington, VA

Paper suggesting people make global comparison, suggesting people might be using roughly the same criteria to judge their lives.

  • Becchetti, L., Castriota, S., Corrado, L. and Giachin Ricca, E. (2013). Beyond the Joneses: Inter-Country Income Comparisons and Happiness. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 45, 187–95

Paper comparing Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) to life satisfaction scores.

  • Dolan, P. and Metcalfe, R. (2012). Valuing Health: A Brief Report on Subjective Well-Being versus Preferences. Medical Decision Making, 32(4), 578–82

Advanced paper on cardinality (not recommended as initial reading).

The problem of cardinality is whether increasing my happiness by one unit, i.e. from 8/10 to 9/10, is the same as increasing yours by one unit. A cardinal scale is one where the units are equal distance apart, e.g. to be 1cm taller is the same increase no matter how tall you are. An ordinal scale is a ranking, e.g. Adam throws further than Ben, who is throws further than Charlie. Many worry happiness measures are only ordinal, which means we can’t work out what maximise happiness: if you know ordering of throwing ability is A > B > C you don’t know whether B and C together throw further than A alone. Economists have tended to think happiness comparisons are ordinal, which means we can’t say anything useful about them. Van Praag suggests they’re better understood as cardinal in virtue of how we use language.


  • van Praag, B. M. S. (1993). The Relativity of the Welfare Concept. In: M. Nussbaum and A. Sen (eds.) The Quality of Life. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press

Advanced paper seeing how much difference it makes if you interpret life satisfaction scores as ordinal vs cardinal.

  • Ferrer‐i‐Carbonell, A. and Frijters, P. (2004). How Important Is Methodology for the Estimates of the Determinants of Happiness? The Economic Journal

Determinants of life satisfaction

  • Dolan, P., Peasgood, T. and White, M. (2008). Do We Really Know What Makes Us Happy? A Review of the Economic Literature on the Factors Associated with Subjective Well-Being. Journal of Economic Psychology, 29(1), 94–122​

Hedonic adaptation

  • Luhmann, M., Hofmann, W., Eid, M. and Lucas, R. E. (2012). Subjective Well-Being and Adaptation to Life Events: A Meta-Analysis on Differences Between Cognitive and Affective Well-Being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(3), 592–615
​
  • Diener, E., Lucas, R. E. and Napa-Scollon, C. (2009). Beyond the Hedonic Treadmill: Revising the Adaptation Theory of Well-Being. In: E. Diener (ed.) The Science of Well-being. Springer

Social comparison

  • Alderson, A. S. and Katz-Gerro, T. (2016). Compared to Whom? Inequality, Social Comparison, and Happiness in the United States. Social Forces, 95(1), 25–54
 
  • Yudkin, D. A., Liberman, N., Wakslak, C. and Trope, Y. (2016). Measuring Up to Distant Others: Expanding and Contracting the Scope of Social Comparison. SSRN Electronic Journal​

The Easterlin Paradox

The Easterlin Paradox is the finding that raising GDP doesn’t raise aggregate life satisfaction over the long-term.


  • Stevenson, B. and Wolfers, J. (2008). Economic Growth and Subjective Well-Being: Reassessing the Easterlin Paradox. Cambridge, MA.
​
  • Easterlin, R.A. et al. (2010). The Happiness-Income Paradox Revisited. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(52), 22463–68
​
  • Easterlin, R. A. (2016). Paradox Lost? SSRN Electronic Journal

Poverty and life satisfaction

  • Biswas-Diener, R. and Diener, E. (2001). Making the Best of a Bad Situation: Satisfaction in the Slums of Calcutta. Social Indicators Research, 55(3), 329–52
​
  • Fleche, S. and Layard, R. (2017). Do More of Those in Misery Suffer from Poverty, Unemployment or Mental Illness? Kyklos, 70(1), 27–41

A study on Give Directly that suggests adaptation and comparison effects.

  • Haushofer, J., Reisinger, J. and Shapiro, J. (2015). Your Gain Is My Pain: Negative Psychological Externalities of Cash Transfers, Working Paper.

Another study on Give Directly.

  • Haushofer, J. and Shapiro, J. (2016). The Short-Term Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers to the Poor: Experimental Evidence from Kenya. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 131(4), 1973–2042

Paper suggesting that making people wealthier didn’t decrease depressive symptoms.

  • Green, E. P., Blattman, C., Jamison, J. and Annan, J. (2016). Does Poverty Alleviation Decrease Depression Symptoms in Post-Conflict Settings? A Cluster-Randomized Trial of Microenterprise Assistance in Northern Uganda. Global Mental Health (Cambridge, England)

Paper discussing the fact that China became less satisfied despite economic progress.

  • Graham, C., Zhou, S. and Zhang, J. (2017). Happiness and Health in China: The Paradox of Progress. World Development, 96, 231–44

Effective treatments 

Study shows the effects of psychotherapy last five years


  • Uher, R. and Pavlova, B. (2016). Long-Term Effects of Depression Treatment. The Lancet Psychiatry, 3(2), 95–96

Affective forecasting

Paper on the fact we’re not very good at predicting how we or others will feel.


  • Wilson, T. D. and Gilbert, D. T. (2005). Affective Forecasting. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(3), 131–34

Videos

  • On measuring and maximising what matters
    Michael Plant (EAGxAustralia 2019)
​
  • Philosophical issues related to maximising happiness
    Michael Plant (Four-part lecture series, Oxford University, 2018)
 
  • What are the best ways to improve world happiness?
    Michael Plant (EA Global: London 2017​)​

About

Our strategy
Our story
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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
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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