2 Wellbeing around the world
Defining ‘the good life’ is a question which has vexed philosophers and religious and moral leaders for many centuries. Thousands of self-help books, social media gurus and celebrities continue to promote ways of being, thinking and acting as a sure route to happiness, fulfilment and a healthy life. The advice given can be bewildering and is often contradictory: should a person eat no meat or eat only meat; be grateful or strive for more in life; be constantly busy or make time to be bored; be kind to themselves or be tough on themselves? Should they lift weights, practise yoga, swim in cold water, heat up in the sauna, or none of these?
This range of advice illustrates the difficulty in pinning down one answer to the question of what makes a good life, or of which kinds of practices lead to health and wellbeing. Both ancient Chinese and ancient Greek philosophy, for instance, were deeply interested in defining ‘the good life’. Baggini (2018) points out that both traditions contended with similar questions at around the same time and proposed some similar answers, despite not being in contact with each other. There are some striking similarities between the thoughts of Confucius, who lived around 500 BCE in China, and Aristotle, who lived around 100 years later in Greece.
In both traditions, the road to living well was proposed to be an active one. Living well meant developing and sustaining good habits and acting ethically in the world. People were not presumed to be inherently good or bad but instead were able to become ethical and live well through adopting good habits. This was thought to require self-cultivation, meaning a person taking an active interest in forming the best habits and reflecting on their behaviour and possible areas of improvement. Also common to both traditions was an emphasis on moderation or ‘the doctrine of the mean’, meaning the middle or average. This meant that people were supposed to avoid either excess or deficiency in their lives. An excess might have meant spending too much time on one kind of task and neglecting others or having very heightened emotions. A deficiency could be a lack of motivation, or very low energy. Both traditions advocated for the person to spend some time doing the opposite to bring themselves back to moderation. If someone is very busy and active, for instance, they might spend some time meditating and being very still (Baggini, 2018).
There are, of course, other approaches to the question of the good life. Ancient Indian philosophy, for instance, held that transcendence and spirituality were more centrally important to living well than the Chinese or Greek tradition did. Organised religions also provide frameworks for how to live a good and moral or ethical life (although what counts as ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’ differs between religions and often changes within a religion over time). The range of ideas about living well, however, also poses a problem for psychology researchers who, unlike religious leaders or ancient philosophers, are not seeking to tell people how they ought to live. Instead, the aim of psychological approaches to wellbeing is to measure, describe and theorise wellbeing and the circumstances which enable people to flourish. This has proved to be a difficult task.
Two very influential ways which psychologists have argued that wellbeing can be measured are:
- How people feel about their life: ‘subjective’ wellbeing.
- This refers to how people evaluate their own lives. It includes measures about life satisfaction, the presence of positive emotions, and the absence of negative emotions. A typical survey question to assess this is ‘how satisfied are you with your life nowadays’? This method gives us insight into a person’s emotional state and overall happiness from their perspective.
- To what extent people’s needs are being met in their life: ‘objective’ wellbeing.
- A human need is something essential for a person to function well and thrive. At a basic physiological level, hunger indicates a need for food, and shortness of breath a need for oxygen. Beyond these, people also have emotional and practical needs – such as love, belonging, shelter and security – to enable them to live well. Psychologists have developed theories about human needs, but perspectives vary across the sciences. One well-known theory is the ‘hierarchy of needs’ developed by psychologist Abraham Maslow (1943). Maslow organised these needs into a five-tier pyramid which included basic needs like food, water and shelter at the bottom, moving up the pyramid to love and safety, all the way to self-actualisation at the top – achieving one’s potential. Maslow argued that people cannot focus on higher tier needs until the basic needs have been met.
First read the case study of Ceri, and then work through Activity 5 to think more about each of these.
Case study: Ceri
Ceri is a woman in her thirties living in the UK. She has chronic health problems which affect her mobility. Her health and mobility vary and at times she needs to use a wheelchair.
Ceri works from home as a freelancer in the charity sector, meaning that she is in control of the hours she works, and is able to work less during periods of ill health. She is well respected in her field. As well as her paid work, she is entitled to disability support and her home is well adapted for her mobility needs. She lives with her partner and is close to her family, who mainly live nearby. She also has an active social life, and her friends are understanding of the fact that her ability to socialise can vary with her current state of health. She has an adapted car which enables her and her partner to easily travel for trips away.
Ceri feels contented with her life. She sometimes gets frustrated with her health and struggles emotionally when she has prolonged periods of pain and low mobility. At these times she finds her partner and family really help to cheer her up. She also tries to ‘count her blessings’ and not focus on the negative too much.
Activity 5
Read Ceri’s case study and then answer the following questions.
- If you were to ask Ceri in a survey ‘how satisfied are you in your life nowadays?’, what kind of answer do you think she would give?
- Think now about Ceri’s physical, emotional and practical needs. You might think here about emotional needs like purpose, love, belonging and respect. Practically you might think about her need for financial stability, mobility and medical care. What needs of Ceri’s are being met, and what are not?
- What features of Ceri’s life do you think are most responsible for her wellbeing? Think here about qualities of Ceri herself, of the people around her, and of her environment. It may help to think here about what major changes to her life might most affect her wellbeing.
Discussion
You probably thought here that Ceri is someone with high wellbeing. She has a full life, with strong relationships and fulfilling employment. Asking Ceri about her life satisfaction would probably get a reasonably high score. In terms of needs, you might have noted that Ceri is able to get her emotional needs met through her friends, family and partner. Her physical needs are also met through her access to medical care; the adaptations to her house and car; and her financial security from work and benefits.
Thinking about the final question, you may have identified that Ceri’s wellbeing is supported by a mixture of all of these elements. She is able to work, due to her own ability and experience, which is helped by technology enabling her to work from home and to the flexibility of freelancing. A more rigid kind of work which required daily attendance in an office might block Ceri from paid employment. Similarly, her relationships and social life are, in part, made possible by the set-up of her environment and the people around her. Without disability benefits and the adaptations to her house and car, it is possible that Ceri would not be able to live such a full and independent life. Her health is less of a barrier than it could be, due to the adaptations to her environment and the attitudes of her friends and family.
What this example illustrates is that, to understand individual wellbeing, psychologists have to also understand the full context of a person’s life. Asking about individual feelings can be a good quick measure, but it doesn’t really tell you much about what causes good or poor wellbeing. It also can lead people to see wellbeing as being something that is only to do with an individual – how happy or resilient they are. As you saw with Ceri’s case, however, the full context of the environment which someone lives in helps to create and sustain wellbeing. Practical concerns such as good housing, transport and medical care can be just as important as the individual choices people make about their lives.
A really important context which psychologists are increasingly interested in looking at, is the status or group that someone belongs to in a society. It’s well established that people with higher status tend to have better health and wellbeing (Wang and Geng, 2019). In countries which are living with the legacy of colonialism, for instance, health disparities can be stark between the Indigenous and settler populations (Gracey and King, 2009).
In the next section, you will learn about the approach taken to wellbeing by Māori psychologists in Aotearoa New Zealand.