Measuring Happiness: The Concept Of Measuring Happiness

Undoubtedly, the concept of measuring happiness comes with certain methodological challenges that must be adressed until we proceed further. What is happiness, even? No easy answer exists, and definitions may vary. However, a common definition of happiness is that it is the "degree to which an individual judges the overall quality of his life-as-a-whole positively", or in other words, "how well one likes the life one lives“ (Kalmijn, 2006). On the other hand, Harvard professor David Gilbert (2006: 3) – world renowned for his research – argues that happiness is a phenomenon that cannot be properly defined through words. Rather, happiness is a “you-know-what-I-mean feeling“. All human beings recognize the feeling of happiness when they are faced with it, even though they may not be able to pinpoint the exact source of the feeling. Fortunately, this insight makes life easier for happiness researchers everywhere, since it means that people all over the globe – no matter which country they live in – know what it is like to feel happy. Thus, a

As Graham (2012: 3) makes clear, economists have traditionally attempted to measure a country’s level of happiness by focusing on the income of its inhabitants. In doing this, however, one risks leaving out key elements affecting the welfare of individuals, since people‘s preferences for material and non-material goods may differ substantially from one country to the other. For instance, one person may prefer a job with lower pay if it is more personally rewarding. Psychologists, on the other hand, are much more concerned with general life satisfaction questions, which may be as straightforward as "how satisfied are you with your life“? (Graham, 2012: 4). Based on Gilbert's (2006) recommendations, the psychologist understanding of how to measure happiness properly is the method of choice for this