There is evidence that a discrepancy between the amount of
self-transcending emotion (e.g. love, trust) that people want to feel and what
they actually feel has an adverse impact on their happiness. Researchers have observed that this adverse
impact is greater for people in countries with relatively high levels of
economic development.
What is it about economic development that could explain this?
Before canvassing possible explanations I need to provide
some background information. The evidence referred to above is in a recent
article entitled ‘The Secret to Happiness: Feeling Good or Feeling Right?’ by Maya Tamir, Shalom H. Schwartz, Shige
Oishi, and Min Y. Kim. The study was based on a cross-cultural sample of 2,324
participants from 8 countries around the world. I wrote about the main findings of the article
on this blog in my last post entitled: What was Aristotle’s secret of happiness?
As indicated in the diagram reproduced above, the authors
found that the absolute discrepancy between desired and experienced self-transcending
emotions had a larger impact on life satisfaction and depressive symptoms of
people in countries with relatively high ratings on the Human Development Index
(HDI).
Evidence that economic development influences the impact of
emotional discrepancy on happiness was only observed in respect of
self-transcending emotions. The findings of the study suggest that economic
development has no influence on the way discrepancies between desired and
experienced anger, excitement and calmness impact on life satisfaction and
depressive symptoms.
So, what is it about economic development that could explain
why it seems to make happiness levels more sensitive to feeling the right
amount of love? The authors suggest that perhaps “for people who struggle to
meet their basic needs the amount of love they actually feel matters more for
their happiness than whether this amount feels right or not”. They suggest that
this would not apply to other emotions because love is “linked to social
connectedness”, which “is presumably a basic human need and a key determinant
of well-being”.
I’m not sure I understand what the authors mean. Anger might
also be linked to social connectedness. Angry people might find it harder to
maintain strong social connections.
A distinguishing feature of love, relative to emotions such
as anger, is that when people are asked how much love they feel they could
think of either how much they feel loved by others, or how much love they feel
toward others.
If we think in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it
might be reasonable to speculate that people whose basic physiological and
safety needs are satisfied might place higher priority on obtaining love than
those who are struggling to meet their basic needs. In economic terms this
could be thought of as an upward shift in the marginal utility of love as
incomes rise. That could explain why a shortfall in love obtained relative to
the desired level seems to have a larger impact on happiness of people in
countries with relatively high HDI ratings.
That is just speculation. The authors suggest future research
should explore further “when, why, and how” the links between emotion
discrepancies and well-being vary across countries. It will be interesting to
see what eventuates.
