John F. Helliwell, “Understanding and Improving the Social Context of
Well-Being.” NBER Working Paper No. 18486, October 2012.
• Social and pro-social behaviors greatly contribute to well-being; that is, “social engagement …makes people happy [p. 3].”
• People tend to be happier on weekends than on weekdays, and much of the improvement can be traced to more social activities on weekends. Viewing your boss as a partner in a joint enterprise adds to happiness at work.
• In a donor-recipient transaction, the donor tends to receive the greater share of happiness gains.
• People underestimate how much their happiness will increase through pro-social activity, just as they overestimate how much happiness more income or consumption will bring.
• Social behavior improves happiness which improves health which improves happiness… [Recall the Ifcher and Zarghamee article that documented many benefits of positive affect.]
• If trust is low but not negligible, an external threat can induce social interactions that allow trust to be built.
• Happiness at work is much more closely tied to trust than to pay.
• Elderly people saw substantial health benefits when they created a water club to fight dehydration. It was later learned that the health gains came not from changes in water availability, but from the social interactions connected with the club.
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