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Culture > Books > Reviews
Happiness by Design by Paul Dolan, book review: A work in progress with some
way to go
* Peter Carty
* Sunday 5 October 2014 00:00
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Click to follow
The Independent Culture
What is happiness?
Traditionally the most we can say with confidence is that it is both
indefinable and wilfully elusive. But research into happiness is a
burgeoning branch of psychology and the Government takes it seriously.
David Cameron launched the UK’s regular National Well-being survey in
2012.
Dolan helped to design the Well-being survey, which gives this
self-help volume clout. Interestingly, his background is in economics
rather than psychology. Accordingly, he trades in scarcity. Our time is
limited, he says, so we should focus our attention on those things that
make us feel happier.
This sounds unremarkable, but Dolan emphasises the experiential: how we
feel about what happens to us at the time matters more than our
subsequent evaluation of it. His theory is that happiness consists of
experiences of pleasure and purpose over time. While this juxtaposition
of the enjoyable and the meaningful has roots in Aristotle, Dolan
claims that – in particular – his discovery that we require feelings of
purpose in order to be happy marks a departure.
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His main example is parenting. Why do we choose to have children, he
asks? Dolan had a strong sense that, despite the daily grind, his
parenting activities would feel purposeful. Fortunately, they have and
his new balance of pleasure and purpose suits him, but drawing wider
implications appears dubious. If the purposeful nature of child rearing
can produce positive ongoing emotions, the flipside is responsibilities
that can feel burdensome, if not crushing. And, away from the school
run, it’s apparent that any optimal balance of pleasure and purpose
will fluctuate wildly between us all.
Dolan goes on to scrutinise various prompts to happiness: music,
volunteering and so on. His discussion of money is interesting.
Research shows that income above a certain level does not make us feel
happier on a daily basis (with the caveat that the income threshold
seems to vary considerably between studies; Dolan cites a US figure of
$75,000). He explains that higher -income individuals place more value
on their time, which makes it feel scarcer, and so they find it harder
to relax.
Studiously, he avoids obvious political implications. Shouldn’t all
income above the happiness threshold be removed through taxation?
Instead, Dolan focuses on personal transformation through “nudgeâ€
strategies. If you want to spend less time looking at emails, for
example, then you could change your password to “don’tcheckmeagainâ€.
Some of Dolan’s ways of making himself happy appear novel for a sober
social scientist. He’s a keen bodybuilder and he chats with a
fun-loving friend in Ibiza, Mig, at 9am each Thursday (though one has
to wonder exactly what Mig makes of these rigidly scheduled early
morning exchanges).
Back at the academic coalface, Dolan’s theory of happiness is a work in
progress with some way to go. There’s no doubt that Happiness by Design
does offers constructive advice for making ourselves at least a little
bit happier. Unfortunately, there’s a longer, more searching book to be
written to explain why we’re not about to act on much of it.
More about Paul Dolan
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