Adler, Dolan, and Kavetsos (2018) on Choosing to be Happy

Matthew D. Adler, Paul Dolan, and Georgios Kavetsos, “Would You Choose to be Happy? Tradeoffs between Happiness and the Other Dimensions of Life in a Large Population Survey.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 139: 60-73, July 2017 [pdf].

• Measures of subjective well-being (SWB) come in three different varieties: (1) life satisfaction; (2) happiness (positive/negative affect); and (3) meaningfulness. These varieties are termed, respectively, (1) evaluative; (2) affective; and (3) eudaimonic components of SWB. 

• Decision utility (perceived when making a choice) and experience utility (the quality of lived experience) may differ; SWB seems to be a measure of experience utility. People might purposely choose an option that they know will not maximize their SWB. People might choose options in which their health is good, for instance, even if their SWB is lower than what they could achieve with alternative options.

• Adler, Dolan, and Kavetsos present pairs of options that trade-off SWB with some other characteristic, such as health. These options are presented in “choice” (which of two possible lives would you choose) and “judgement” (which of two possible lives is better) mode. The options are presented as either brief scenarios or (less brief) vignettes; the vignettes are intended to increase the salience of the trade-off presented between SWB and some other life dimension. The three different varieties of SWB are tested separately, and each arrayed against five life characteristics: income, health, family, career, and education. n≈13,000

• The US sample indicates a slightly higher average SWB than the UK sample, though the Americans are more anxious. (And higher anxiety lowers the likelihood of choosing the high SWB option.)

• About 60% of respondents choose the high SWB option. They also seem to be drawn somewhat more to the affective component of SWB. 

• Judgement questions lead to a slightly larger pro-SWB vote than do choice questions, as does presenting the options as vignettes. 

• People possessing higher SWB are more likely to choose the high SWB option. 

• People with children and more education and people who are male are less likely to be seduced by SWB. 

• People often choose good health over high SWB; they rarely choose career success over high SWB.

[John Stuart Mill comes to mind: "Whatever is desired otherwise than as a means to some end beyond itself, and ultimately to happiness, is desired as itself a part of happiness, and is not desired for itself until it has become so." -- from Chapter 4 of Utilitarianism; and the happiness that utilitarianism invokes is the happiness of all interested parties (Chapter 2 of Utilitarianism).] 

[For a related article, see here.]