Analysing and modelling wellbeing: psychological, bodily, social, and

environmental dimensions

Neil Thin

School of Social and Political Science

University of Edinburgh

Main messages • Wellbeing is ineffable: statistical reports don’t make the

uncertainties disappear.

• With or without stats, the ‘wellbeing’ rubric helpfully tilts policy conversations towards positivity and ultimate values

• The ‘happiness lens’ adds: empathy; holism; and narrativity - but only if we transcend numerical reductionism.

• It also helps to consider implicit and explicit models, visualizations, and analytical frameworks.

First, three famous Scots to bear in mind…

Francis Hutcheson1694-1746

What matters is ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest

numbers’

John Sinclair(1754-1835)

Coined the term ‘statistics’;

governments should assess the ‘quantum of

happiness’

Samuel Smiles

(1812-1904)Sparked the mass-market

‘self-help’ movement

Wellbeing policy as a drive towards positivity

Where does wellbeing occur? Where are the causes?Where can/should policies make a difference?

Commissioned by UK DFID and World Bank for UN conference on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg 2002

Fights back against pathologism and residualism in social monitoring

Positive social qualities: justice, solidarity, participation, security

Policy Press, BristolPart One: Introductory overview and critique of happiness in policy discourse and research

Part Two explores actual and potential applications of “happiness” in various policy domains: intimacy; parenting; schooling; gender reform; old age; workplace; business.

A dynamic and interpretive AIEOU model of happiness

AnticipationAnticipation

UnpleasantnessUnpleasantness

InterpretationInterpretation

ExperienceExperience OutcomesOutcomes

Key features of the “happiness lens”

Wellbeing assessment takes us ‘beyond GDP’ and ‘beyond profit’.

Good, but what if pathological numerophilia is the problem?

Why is measurement neurosis dangerous?

• ‘Statistics’ has been reduced to numerical data; this is bad science

• What matters is what matters (forget ‘what can’t be counted doesn’t count’).

• Happiness and social progress are elusive and uncertain: we need mixed learning methods, because numerical proxies are distortive.

Another warning about stats:

• Subjective ‘data’ aren’t just ‘given’ facts: they might be better termed ‘elicitata’

• To interpret any human-response survey, we need to know about the context and process of elicitation

• E.g. how did Oxfam Scotland end up weighting ‘feeling good’ self-reports as the least important evidence of wellbeing? (weighted less than one-fifth of the importance of housing satisfaction! One-third of the importance of money?)

Positive Social Planning• Beyond GDP, beyond measurement (avoid economism

and statistical reductionism, promote robust qualitative assessment)

• Be assertively positive about social goods

• Develop analytical tools, concepts, and approaches for envisioning and planning really good societies

Four SQ domains (Thin, 2002)

• social justice (equal opportunity, fair and transparent rewards, procedural justice, rights and duties)

• solidarity (cohesion, empathy, co-operation, and associational life)

• participation (opportunities for meaningful engagement)

• security (job security, physical safety, trust in colleagues and management)

models and visual metaphors of personal and social value

A 20 x 20 Pecha Kucha show

‘Three pillars’ model of sustainable development

Wellbeing Wales: a ‘wellbeing’ variant of the 3 pillars SD model

Example of a confusing attempt to use the three pillars

Sustainable Livelihoods Framework

Gough and McGregor wellbeing framework, 2007:337

Sarah White et al, 2011: a model for wellbeing analysis

Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness assessment

ENIQ Social Quality model

Social Model of Health – Dahlgren & Whitehead (1991)

Urie Bronfenbrenner’s systems model of development

Bronfenbrenner, Urie (1979) The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

Urie Bronfenbrenner. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’ diagram

Body-mind-spirit-heart (another common source of confusion)

Domains of Wellbeing (Williams and Robinson, 2006:100

NEF (2011) Model of well-being

Sonja Lyubomirsky’s happiness pie

Table: the happiness lens in various policy domains National

governance Business Health Education

Ultimate positive values

from GDP to wellbeing; from expenditures and activities to outcomes from social harms to social goods

beyond profit to workplace social quality, and worker and customer wellbeing from harm avoidance to social value

From illness and medication to positive health promotion

From academic performance to pupil wellbeing and positive life outcomes

Subjectivity (empathic respect for feelings and evaluations)

Citizen happiness Worker and customer happiness

Subjective health Pupil and teacher happiness

Holism (inter-domain interactions)

Looking for positive synergies between domains and key actors

Work-life harmonizing Healthy for what? Interactions between health, activities, education, environment

Education for what?

Life narratives Using life course data and narratives to learn about cross-temporal wellbeing

Linking present worker/customer wellbeing with past and future

Lifecourse approaches to health promotion

Lifelong learning, transferable skills

Suggested matrix for analysing social goods

Justice Solidarity Participation Security

Mental (Intra-personal)

Inter-personal

(relationship quality)

Organiz-ational (communal quality)

Societal/ Global (social quality)