“Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product.”
Jigme Singye Wangchuck, Bhutan’s fourth Dragon King, 1972
As a psychotherapist and life coach, much of my work is geared to “positive psychology:” guiding people to develop the best in themselves and to thrive.
This blog will be about governmental attempts to assess the level of happiness perceived by populations from diverse nations and to assess trends.
Although Wangchuck’s neologism “gross national happiness (GNH)” was intended as a casual remark, the Centre for Bhutan Studies valued his concept enough to develop a sophisticated instrument to survey the Bhutanese people’s general sense of well-being. Michael Pennock, a Canadian epidemiologist, collaborated with Karma Ura, the head of the Centre for Bhutan Studies at the time, to design that tool; Pennock then applied a similar one for surveying Canadians in British Columbia. The two men went on to develop screening instruments used to evaluate the potential impact of various projects and programs on GNH.
The central premise of the Bhutanese meaning of GNH, based on Buddhist ideals, is that societies flourish when material and spiritual development are interwoven. Four primary, transcultural aspects of GNH have been articulated: 1)genuine efforts to establish and maintain “good governance” 2)preserving and fostering cultural values 3)conservation of the nation’s natural environment 4)implementing practices that promote sustainable development. Despite its Buddhist origins, these GNH principles and corollaries (which I won’t elaborate on here) are strongly supported by empirical research concerning positive psychology, with its focus on well-being and happiness. Later indices have been developed to assess the composite average per capita regarding measures of a nation’s physical and mental/emotional health.
Essentially, the surveys measure what individuals regard as a quality life, rather than what experts or governments maintain are the main characteristics of a good life. An example of a general item concerned with subjective well-being is, “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole nowadays?”
As you may suspect, the many surveys that have since been developed consider numerous variables and analysis of the results is highly complex. Among the multitude of variables are: gender, marital status, family size, educational level, job satisfaction, retirement age, personality, personal values, socioeconomic conditions, religious freedom, political scenario (e.g. lack of government corruption), etc.
In view of the scope and complexity of the data, I will only attempt to site a few key findings. Firstly, no surprise, vast differences in life-quality evaluations exist amongst global regions. For example, a cluster of industrial nations offered much higher ratings of happiness and well-being than did a proximate group of African countries. Physical health was shown to be a major determinant of perceived life quality and the experience of happiness proved a solid predictor of future health. Furthermore, marriage emerged as one of the strongest, most universally positive and statistically-significant correlates of life satisfaction, even over cohabitation.
Given the sizable, cumbersome task of identifying GNH factors or indicators, I applaud global efforts to conduct and promulgate such research, which obviously extends well beyond the traditional computation of gross national product (GNP) and demonstrates regard for people’s subjective sense of their welfare. In the process, governments and various program-providers that serve their populace are becoming more sensitized to what is most meaningful and vital to their constituents.
