Practicing Happiness
Can happiness be measured? Can you become happier than you are now – and stay that way?
According to a study published two weeks ago, the answer to both questions is yes.
When I first heard about the study, I immediately recoiled. Happiness seems precious and mercurial and complicated. The thought of reducing it to a number made me unhappy. The thought of being told, again, how to become happier made me unhappy. Everyone from Aristotle to the life coach who passes out flyers at my gym has got advice, and if you want data, you don't have to look very hard. Yesterday, for instance, Gallup released its annual World Happiness Report, an exercise in superficiality that made me unhappy too.
Then I read the study.
I was surprised by what I found there. The data do have something useful to say about becoming a happier person.
Some context
The study ultimately stems from the so-called "Yale happiness class": Psychology and the Good Life, first offered at Yale in 2018, and still the most popular course in the history of the university.
Since 2018, Coursera has provided a free, 10-week version of the course online, under the name The Science of Well-Being. As of today, more than 4.6 million people have enrolled.
Before I say more, check out the screenshot below. This is from the website of Dr. Laurie Santos, the Yale professor who designed and taught the course for Yale and Coursera, and who co-authored the study I'll be discussing.
Offhand, I can't recall a single image that better illustrates how our society has been statisfied, or transformed by the emergence of modern statistics.
I have not digitally altered this image. That "17% HAPPIER" is indeed enormous. To the left of it is a smaller, explanatory statement: "Students in the Science of Well-Being get 17% happier relative to baseline," and below that "That's an average 1.1 point increase in flourishing on a 10-point scale." The class itself is evidence-based – much of the happiness advice is grounded in scientific data.
Prior to the 20th century, most people would've found this baffling. For thousands of years, writers have discussed happiness, or flourishing, or the good life, or some other more or less synonymous concept, but they didn't put numbers to it. "Happy is the man who finds wisdom", says Proverbs 3, but the woman who finds even more wisdom is not described there as 17% happier. As for average increases in happiness among groups, scholars rarely used the mathematical average to describe anything prior to the 19th century. (If you're historically inclined, I say more about the emergence of happiness research in Appendix B.)
In a sense, the Yale class isn't new. The practice of teaching students about happiness has been around a long time (by the 4th century BC, Plato was already complaining about how others did it). What's new is the statistical underpinnings. Quantifying happiness – speaking of people getting happier on average etc. – is a 20th century innovation, and it rubs me the wrong way.
For this reason, I almost skipped over the new study. Then it struck me: Happiness, however you define it, is an elusive state. For many people, the problem is simply that they're hungry or sick or oppressed or living in a time of war. But even among the privileged few, thousands of years of non-quantitative guidance from the wisest souls don't seem to have kept us very happy. Why not give data a chance?
The new study
The new study, published in Higher Education this March 8, was led by Dr. Catherine Hobbs at University of Bristol along with her colleagues Sarah Jelbert, senior author Bruce Hood, and the aforementioned Yale professor Laurie Santos.
Hobbs et al. explored the impact of Science of Happiness, a University of Bristol course developed from Yale's original class. The course introduces students to scientific research on happiness and includes evidence-based "happiness hacks". These hacks involve much more than just thinking positively. They include avoiding what makes people unhappy (the pursuit of achievement, possessions, perfect bodies, etc.) while employing strategies that promote happiness (expressing gratitude, being kind, connecting with others, savoring positive moments, taking care of one's health, etc.).
In prior research, students were surveyed immediately after finishing the happiness class. That "17% happier" statistic comes from one such study. Hobbs and colleagues decided to see whether the impact of the class would be more enduring. (Kudos to them for doing so. In many studies, post-testing immediately follows intervention, leaving some uncertainty about how long the benefits might last.)
The sample was drawn from students who had taken Science of Happiness during the 2019-20 and 2020-21 academic years. These students had been surveyed immediately before and after taking the class. The new study followed up with 228 students in 2022, which is to say one to two years after the class had ended. Surveys focused on well-being, anxiety, and loneliness.
To recap: Well-being, anxiety, and loneliness were measured on three occasions:
Pretest: Immediately before the class began.
Post-test: Immediately after the class ended.
Long-term followup: 1 to 2 years after the class ended.
Bad news, good news
The findings weren't strong, but instead of massaging the data or glossing over its weaknesses, as researchers often do, Hobbs and colleagues were pretty straightforward about what they found. And, in the end, they did have some good news to share.
At first glance, the class seemed to only have short-term benefits. Here's how the researchers put it:
"[P]articipants showed greater well-being and reduced levels of anxiety and loneliness at post- versus pre-course timepoints.... However, we found only weak evidence that these benefits were sustained at long-term follow-up."
In other words, students benefitted from the class, but those benefits mostly faded within a year or two.
Now for some of the good news:
1. At long-term followup, 52.5% of students strongly agreed or agreed with the statement "Overall, the Science of Happiness had a positive effect on my mental well-being." (Another 39% responded neutrally to this statement, while 8.5% disagreed or strongly disagreed.) So, about half of the students felt that they benefitted from the course.
2. At long-term followup, half of the students (50.67%) said that they still used happiness hacks they learned in the class. These students showed a significant increase in well-being from pre-test to long-term followup. Students who no longer used the happiness hacks showed no significant changes across this time period.
The figure below illustrates these findings. The x-axis is time (pre-test, post-test, and long-term followup – LTFU). The y-axis is scores on the measure of well-being. (You can see the actual measure here.) The dotted red line represents the students who continued to use the happiness hacks. The dotted turquoise line represents the other students.
The red line shows that students who continued to use the happiness hacks continued to benefit from them. Although the effects are small (and exaggerated somewhat by the scaling of the y-axis in the figure), findings like this speak well for the class.
On not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good
Studies are never perfect, methodologically speaking. In this case, for instance, not all students chose to take Science of Happiness, and among those that did, only about 25% agreed to participate in the long-term followup. The new study may only represent the students who are most highly motivated to become happier. If so, they might not have needed an entire 14-week course. Perhaps if you just gave them simple advice (relax, breathe, remember to be grateful) they'd end up happier.
It's hard to address a criticism like this. You can't force people to take happiness classes or respond to surveys. And it's practically impossible to break complex interventions down into components and test their individual effectiveness – in the case of Science of Happiness, there's a ton of content, and numerous methods of delivery.
In the end, I find the data credible on the grounds of converging evidence.
Students like the happiness course. The senior author of the new study. Dr. Bruce Hood, noted in an email to me this week that the University of Bristol version has a "consistent 95%+ approval rating".
The Yale and Coursera versions are also popular (although, as the Yale Daily News notes, interest in the course may outstrip student ratings). Meanwhile 25% is not an unusually low response rate for survey studies. As of today, the Coursera version of the class had 4,672,782 enrollees and 37,266 reviews, a response rate of just under 1%. (Average rating: 4.9 out of 5.)
Most importantly, prior studies, as well as the new one I've shared here, suggest that at least some students experience short-term and even long-term benefits. As for other students, there's no evidence of harm. Expectations for the class do appear to be managed. As Dr. Hood noted in his email to me
"We do not guarantee that everyone will benefit, and we are very clear that this is neither mass therapy nor a substitute for anyone with a serious mental health issue."
Dr. Hood also alluded to research underway to figure out "why students take the course, and why some students persevere with the activities that continue to benefit them." I see this as a very promising followup to their followup.
On ignoring commercialization
A cynic might say: What they're really doing here is selling happiness.
That's not completely unjustified. When you register for the Coursera version of the class, your first option is to purchase it for $49, so that you can earn a certificate described as "a trusted, shareable way to showcase your new skills". (The free version is described as merely allowing you access to all course material.)
In other words, registrants hoping to become happier are invited to do one of the very things the course would discourage: Buy a certificate so you can show off your achievements. That seems crass and counterproductive. But you can take the free version if you wish. Dr. Santos also offers a free curriculum for high school students Creating these resources takes time and effort. We pay for medicines, gym memberships, psychotherapy, massages, and expert advice on just about everything related to well-being. Why should happiness be any different?
On ignoring elitism
Not everyone can attend college and take a happiness class. Frankly, not all adults have the reading skills to follow Dr. Santos's welcome letter in Coursera's free version ("During this course, you’ll have the opportunity to enhance your own well-being by implementing a few simple research-based methods to your own life.") I think we have to view these classes as valuable for only some people, at least for now, and hope that through the high school version and other iterations, the message can reach a broader audience.
Happiness hacks
What were those "happiness hacks" that helped students? The one most commonly mentioned at long-term followup was the intentional practice of gratitude (writing letters of gratitude to others, listing things that one feels grateful for, etc). Other hacks included mindfulness/meditation, exercise, journaling, and deliberately being kind.
Gratitude and kindness strike me as especially important. Some evidence suggests that the most influential determinant of happiness is staying connected to others – family, friends, partners, etc. I think it's reasonable to assume that practicing gratitude and being kind to people will help foster those connections.
What this study tells us
I think you can see now why I called this newsletter "Practicing Happiness" and why I believe the new study has a valuable message.
Whatever happiness is exactly, we have to work at acquiring and maintaining it. It's not something you simply attain.
Once you've forgiven an ex, or accepted the fact that your boss is unfair, or discovered that you enjoy Taylor Swift's music, you've attained something. Over time, feelings like this may change, but for the most part they're fairly stable and typically won't require much effort to maintain.
In contrast, happiness is more like physical fitness. It's something that requires ongoing effort. Not every moment necessarily, but regularly.
In short, the study doesn't just tell us that hacks like expressing gratitude make people happier. We probably knew that anyway. The study also reminds us that we should practice those hacks. You don't just "become" happy. Rather, by practicing, you can stay more or less happy.
Conclusion
Here's a thought often attributed to George Carlin:
"Trying to be happy by accumulating possessions is like trying to satisfy hunger by taping sandwiches all over your body."
Even before you heard the joke, you knew the basic idea: Possessions won't satisfy that inner craving for happiness any more than sandwiches will satisfy an inner craving for food.
We already know a lot about what will or won't make us happy. Most of the hacks bubbling up from happiness research do seem pretty familiar. But simply knowing what to do isn't enough. As Dr. Santos emphasizes at the beginning of her course, knowing isn't half the battle – it's barely the beginning.
What most of us need is not another list of "how to be happy" strategies. Rather, we just need to remind ourselves, every morning, to practice what we already know. And then practice.
I realize that's not a very sophisticated conclusion, but sometimes you don't need a computer to turn a screw.
Thanks for reading!
Appendix A: Two newsletters I'm grateful for
In the spirit of practicing gratitude, I want to acknowledge two newsletters I've discovered recently:
deepculture offers a curated, weekly list of 10 interesting things from the internet. It's highly eclectic, and, coincidentally, the March 19 edition contains a link to an especially well-written essay on flourishing.
Five Things is another curated weekly list, in this case composed of annotated links to five interesting articles from around the web. There's also a Five Things Tech and Five Things Running.
Appendix B: A (very) brief history of happiness research
An old Russian saying, recently updated, holds that "a person who smiles a lot is either a fool or an American." Apparently we have a reputation for projecting happiness – and for obsessing about how to attain it. No surprise then that happiness research is mostly an American invention.
The origins of this research depend on how you define "happiness" and what terms you consider synonymous with it. 1998 marks the beginnings of positive psychology and, thanks to psychologists Martin Seligman, Ed Diener, and others, studies in which "happiness" is explicitly measured. But research on life satisfaction, well-being, and other states of mind that one might equate with happiness dates back to the early decades of the 20th century and the rise of public opinion surveys, as described by Sarah Igo in her 2007 book "The Averaged American".
Particularly noteworthy among the early work is the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which began in 1938 and continues to follow the children of the original participants. A key message from this 85+ year old study is that happiness is promoted by connections with family, friends, and community (for more details, see the 2023 bestseller "The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Study of Happiness."). In recent decades, research on happiness-related constructs has been increasing in fields such as psychology, sociology, economics, and public health.
The study I discussed in this newsletter is an example of positive psychology research, but as you can see it has roots in earlier lines of inquiry.
Ironically, although new happiness advice seems to appear every day, much of that advice isn't new, because philosophers and others have been discussing it for centuries, and because what they've said is grounded in anecdote and common sense (or, if you will, "wisdom"). What's truly new is the 20th century practice of quantifying happiness, and saying that such-and-such can make you happier because that's what the data shows. (I still rankle a bit at assigning happiness a number, but why not give data a place at the table too?)