Read more: 鈥�How to be happy: Putting well-being on the agenda鈥�
If we want a happier society, we must take explicit action based on science, says the architect of the Action for Happiness project
The Action for Happiness project is based on two simple ideas: if we want a happier society, we must make it an explicit objective of how we live; and the science of happiness now gives us the tools for the job.
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The sad fact revealed by surveys is that despite big increases in income, UK and US citizens are no happier now than in the 1950s. The reasons are fairly clear. While people care about their income, they value more how income relates to the prevailing norm. But since it is impossible for a society to improve relative income, long-term economic growth is not a feasible route to a happier society.
Moreover, if we want to explain the variation of happiness, income is not the main driver. For that we need to look at the quality of people鈥檚 relationships and their mental health. Compared with the past, people are less happy with their marriages and, in most countries, job satisfaction has fallen. There has also been a collapse of trust in the UK and the US. In the 1960s, around 60 per cent considered that 鈥渕ost other people can be trusted鈥�; now it is around 30 per cent.
Health problems
Mental health is, if anything, worse today than in the 1960s. For young people in the UK it has certainly deteriorated: twice as many adolescents have emotional or behavioural problems as in the 1970s, with similar trends seen in students in the US and Australia.
The good news is there is much we can do about the bad news. Science used to be about control of nature, but in recent decades, social science, psychology and neurology have given us a new ability to manage our inner selves and social structures so as to increase happiness.
So is there a conflict between making others happy and becoming happier yourself? Sometimes. But we have evidence that people who care more about others are happier than more selfish people. And brain-scanning studies show that someone cooperating in a prisoner鈥檚 dilemma game (a problem that shows why two people might not cooperate even if it helps both to do so) has the same electrical activity in the brain鈥檚 reward centre as when they have any other rewarding experience.
This provides huge ground for hope, because efforts to produce better behaviour are doomed if they are joyless. Aristotle understood this when he said that virtue has to be developed as a habit, so 鈥渧irtuous actions in themselves give pleasure鈥�. Of course, there is a deeply selfish side to our nature, but it is the job of culture to support our natural altruism against our natural egotism.
Action for Happiness asks people to commit to increasing happiness and to decreasing misery 鈥� and equips them with the tools to do so. Our offers 10 evidence-based keys to happier living, and 50 actions 鈥� ranging from private strategies, such as meditation, to better ways of child-rearing, to happier workplaces, and lobbying for well-being policies.
What is truly new here is that this is a secular movement for radical cultural change. There is a clear hunger: before launch we had over 4000 members from 60 countries, including scientists such as Robert May and Colin Blakemore. We appeal to everybody who feels that, based on evidence rather than assertion, the things we hold dear must not be sacrificed to the god of growth.
