The Measure of Happiness

How can someone measure happiness?  Can it even be measured?  What can we use to measure happiness?  Over hundreds of centuries philosophers have attempted to define the concept of “happiness” and to also locate its source.  Aristotle came close when he revealed that “happiness is the purpose of life, and living in accordance with one’s virtues is how to achieve happiness.”

Aristotle seemed to be on the right track, for a group of psychologists in the United States and Switzerland conducted a survey asking participants to rank characteristics linked to life satisfaction.  The US sample was comprised of over 12,000 people who completed the survey on http://www.authentichappiness.com between September 2002 and December 2005.  The Swiss group, while smaller (less than 500), participated by handing in written surveys that were arbitrarily given to random people.  The findings indicate that both groups ranked love, hope, curiosity, and zest as their top responses.  Not all the rankings were universal, however, as the graph below indicates:

This discrepancy in how Americans and the Swiss view aspects of happiness is indicative of how the characteristics of different cultures plays a key role in how individuals will try to attain happiness.  Americans operate in a highly individualistic environment, which proves to be different from the more collectively-minded countries like Hungary and Switzerland.  If working with people from a different cultural background from you, it is important to keep these thoughts in mind, otherwise the goals and attitudes of those involved will be greatly at odds.

It was uncovered that there are some universalities in the pursuit of happiness, however.  Those that go to Marquette are already knowledgeable about the Jesuit tradition of serving others.  What is interesting is that the traits that are associated with a meaningful life scored highest on both the tests given in the United States as well as in Switzerland.  The next highest group to be scored were the traits characterized as engaging.  Pleasurable traits were the last to be ranked, distinctly at odds with the hedonistic lifestyle that is so heavily advertised in today’s society.

But can happiness really be measured?  The stats given to support these findings cannot be presumed to represent everyone in the two countries.  The participants were all volunteers with an average age of correspondent well into their adult years and females overwhelmingly were represented.  So what is fulfilling for someone of 40 or 50 might not be wholly representative of what I find to be a source of happiness.  For me, I experience happiness in a number of different ways: napping in the sun, reading a book for pleasure alone, singing in the car (poorly), telling someone a historical anecdote I find to be amusing, watching childhood cartoons with friends, or making macramé owls.  While I would not call these hedonistic pursuits per se, they do emerge as a result of the maximization of pleasure and, selfish person that I am, do not result in a meaningful life.  Even if my macramé owls do bring me immeasurable joy.

Even in that vein, when I am at my happiest I do not expect others to illicit that much pleasure from what I am doing.  For example, while I may get a kick out of telling the story of William Fitzwilliam to my flatmates, they may not be as interested in it as I am.  And they are certainly not going to go around telling historic facts to their friends.  So my idea of happiness is not representative of all 21 year old college students, just as the results of the findings do not indicate the goals I find to be most compatible with attaining happiness.

What is important for businesses to uncover—and why the findings of the surveys are so important—is whether the goals of an organization match up with their employees’ ideas of happiness.  Job satisfaction is imperative for a business to run smoothly and if someone does not see the business fulfilling their needs or making them happy then they will not perform to the best of their abilities.  For this reason, non-profit organizations have the advantage since they—more often times than for-profit companies—are providing jobs that perform meaningful tasks.  An employee working for Teach for America, for example, will undoubtedly feel much better about their job than a worker for a big oil company.

By aligning values of a company to appeal to the motivations of the workers, organizations can succeed in creating a work environment for people to thrive in since their needs are being met.  When employees feel they are truly making a difference then they will remain happy in their jobs and perform with enthusiasm, enhancing their organizational commitment.  They will not fall prey to continuance or normative commitments but instead feel a desire to remain at their jobs since they genuinely want to be there.  It will also benefit the company to keep their employees happy, as dissatisfied workers report more psychological and medical problems than their satisfied counterparts.  Values, goals, and happiness attributes must remain in sync for an organization to function well.

Bibliography

Nelson, Debra L., and James C. Quick. ORGB. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2011.

Peterson, Christopher, Willibald Ruch, Ursula Beermann, Nansook Park, and Martin E. P. Seligman. "Strengths of Character, Orientations to Happiness, and Life Satisfaction." The Journal of Positive Psychology2.3 (2007): 149-56.

Ethics in the Workplace

Just as Calvin is discussing with Hobbes the merits and pitfalls of compromising one’s ethics to succeed in life, Ann De Graff and Joost Levy proclaim that the simple act of opening a dialogue about ethics is perhaps more important than the ultimate decision reached.  The topic of ethical behavior is dangerous since many people will either succumb to the other person’s point of view to put an end to the discussion or the two sides will fail to concede to any point and the dialogue will amount to nothing.  The arrival of the 21^st century has brought many issues to light, and, as Calvin so brilliantly points out, “In the real world, people care about success, not principles.  Then again, maybe that’s why the world is in such a mess.  What a dilemma!” So what can an organization hope to learn from considering the point ethics play in everyday life?

Case in point: in 1995 the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum made plans to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.  The exhibit was called The Crossroads: The End of World War II, the Atomic Bomb and the Cold War and would center around the fuselage of the Enola Gay, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima.  Immediately, protesters from the American Legion and the Air Force Association stirred up controversy, accusing the Smithsonian of placing too much emphasis on the destruction of the Japanese city and not taking into account the WWII veterans and how beneficial the decision was.  Feeling it was an attempt to disparage those that were involved in the bombings, numerous veteran groups rallied against the exhibit.  With enough negative attention focused on the exhibit, the Smithsonian decided to cancel the proposed project. The controversy also prompted the Air and Space Museum Director, Martin Harwit, to resign.

The museum’s decision to retract the exhibit, and whether it can be viewed as ethically right or wrong to present a war exhibit as anything less than jingoistic, was a way for the Smithsonian to save face.  True, they were met with heckling from groups who felt that showcasing a war for all its atrocities was justified, they were ultimately defeated by the politically stronger organizations that felt the exhibit was an affront to World War II veterans.

Organizations will face dilemmas when determining what action is morally right or wrong.  De Graff and Levy maintain that every organization will have at least three ethically loaded dilemmas when considering courses of action.  They are:

     1) The dilemma of time: short-term versus long-term interventions cause time blindness; this results in seeing something as an answer for today and not what will be affected in the long-term as a result.
     2) The dilemma of interest: personal interest versus group interest causes relational blindness; seeing the cause-and-effect as only pertaining to one’s organization is flawed as everything is connected to the whole.
     3) The dilemma of scope: a limited, clear scope versus a wide, more complete and complex scope causes spatial blindness; while organizations may see parts of a system they are unable or unwilling to piece it together as a whole.

In order for organizations to flourish, they need to be able to ask—and expect ongoing debate—the question of “Whatever I do, is it good for us, is it good for others, and is it good for the greater good?”  If careful thought is given to the answers of this question, then an important ethical question can be discussed in a meaningful way.  Integration of the three kinds of ethics—egoistic ethics (consideration for the self is both the first and last priority), mutualistic ethics (giving as much as is being received), and altruistic ethics (giving and expecting nothing in return)—will result in a thought-provoking discussion resulting in a decision not hastily made towards a delicate question.

While the topic of ethics in the workplace is generally limited to an individual’s behavior (ie, stealing, lying, abuse, etc.) there can, and often are, ethical dilemmas faced by the organization as a whole.  Properly identifying these instances and opening a thoughtful dialogue is the first step and, regardless of whether or not a decision is reached, the mere thought of attention being paid to such an unpopular topic is a victory in and of itself.  As to the question of solving the ethical problem, there are ways in which organizations can weigh the options and reach a reasonable conclusion.  For the most part this consists of answering the question of who will benefit from a proposed solution and how it will affect people not directly associated with the process.  If enough organizations can put the subject of ethics into their business practices then perhaps we can avoid the fate that Calvin has pinpointed.

Bibliography

De Graff, Ann, and Joost Levy. "Business as Usual?: Ethics in the Fast-Changing and Complex World of Organizations." Transactional Analysis Journal 41.2 (2011): 123-28.

Nelson, Debra L., and James C. Quick. ORGB. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning, 2011.

"The Enola Gay Controversy - About - Overview." History on Trial http://digital.lib.lehigh.edu/trial/enola/>.