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ISQOLS WEBINAR: A Journey For Happiness: The Man Who Cycled to Bhutan

Presenter: Christopher Boyce

“Many of the things that are important for happiness seemed out of reach to me, an apparent expert on happiness…whilst I knew better, I was up against it when trying to actually live better.” What is it that makes a person happy in life? Most people will have a solid answer to that question. Yet, how much do our wider systems enable us to make choices that bring greater happiness? Christopher had spent a decade researching happiness, but felt frustrated at how difficult it was to live the findings of his own research. To deepen his explorations around happiness he wanted to find another way. And so he quit his job, saddled up, and began cycling to Bhutan, applying all his expertise about happiness to create a journey for happiness. This talk brings together insights from that 20,000km journey to Bhutan on a bicycle. Presenter: Christopher Boyce

ISQOLS Webinar: Positive attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccines: A cross-country analysis

COVID-19 severely impacted world health and, as a consequence of the measures implemented to stop the spread of the virus, also irreversibly damaged the world economy. Research shows that receiving the COVID-19 vaccine is the most successful measure to combat the virus and could also address its indirect consequences. However, vaccine hesitancy is growing worldwide and the WHO names this hesitancy as one of the top ten threats to global health. This study investigates the trend in positive attitudes towards vaccines across ten countries, as steps must be taken to improve the trend over time. Furthermore, we investigate those variables related to having a positive attitude, as these factors could potentially increase the uptake of vaccines. We derive our corpus data from vaccine-related tweets, harvested in real-time from Twitter. Using Natural Language Processing, we derive the sentiment and emotions contained in the tweets to construct daily time-series data. We analyse a panel dataset spanning both the Northern and Southern hemispheres from 1 February 2021 to 1 August 2021. To determine the relationship between several variables and the positive sentiment (attitude) towards vaccines, we run various models, including POLS, Panel Fixed Effects and Instrumental Variables estimations. Our results show that more information related to the safety and side-effects of the vaccines are needed to improve positive attitudes towards vaccines. Additionally, government procurement and the vaccine rollout should improve. Accessibility to the vaccine should be a priority, and a collective effort should be made to increase positive messaging about the vaccine, especially on social media. The results of this study are of the utmost importance to policymakers, health workers, and stakeholders who communicate to the public during infectious disease outbreaks. Additionally, the global fight against COVID-19 might be lost if the attitude towards vaccines is not improved.

ISQOLS Webinar, Ireland: A case study of improvement in national well-being

Pressented by Mark Henry

When the Irish State was formed in 1922, Ireland was one of the most poverty-stricken nations in Europe and remained so for many decades. Yet now, it has the second-highest standard of living in the world (UNDP HDI 2020). Mark Henry has gathered the data to tell the story of the country’s progress across every aspect of Irish life in his new book In Fact: An Optimist’s Guide to Ireland at 100. He identifies the factors that account for Ireland’s extraordinary success, as well as the psychological biases that prevent us from recognizing how far we have come. He also proposes a model of national well-being by merging Maslow’s hierarchy of needs with the factors that contribute to population well-being to produce a hierarchy of national needs. Join us for an exploration of Ireland’s progress in its centenary year.

ISQOLS Webinar, "The Happiness and Wellbeing Learning Collaborative at Purdue University"

Presented by Melissa Kovich This webinar will provide a brief introduction and overview of The Happiness and Well-being Learning Collaborative at Purdue University including mission, members, upcoming MasterClass event, current research, and our journal. Examples of how well-being relates to other constructs such as philanthropy will be highlighted, especially in context of our New Generation Philanthropy event, which aims to engage students and others interested in professional philanthropic work and its impacts on nonprofit missions. Additionally, highlights from our most recent special issue on Building Community Well-Being in Higher Education will be shared. The Happiness and Well-Being Learning Collaborative is an applied research initiative to connect scholars, educators, community members, and engaged citizens to inform happiness and well-being initiatives. This collaborative seeks to improve happiness and well-being of individuals and communities through research, discovery, and engagement.

ISQOLS Inaugural President's Lecture: Why Government Should Measure Hope? Presented by ISQOLS President, Carol Graham 11 MAY 2022

Hope is a new dimension in well-being research. Carol Graham will discuss why it is important and even worth inclusion in policy discussions, based on her forthcoming book, Hope and Despair (Princeton Press, 2022). She will discuss this within the broader context of the state of the art in well-being measurement and policy. Carol Graham is President of the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (2021-2022). She is a Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a College Park Professor at the University of Maryland, and a Senior Scientist at Gallup. 

ISQOLS Webinar: Good Data for Good Decisions about Community Revitalization

DECEMBER 2021

Across the river from the aging, economically depressed northern neighborhoods of the Lafayette, Indiana, United States, is a whole different world. Neighboring college city, West Lafayette, has a median age of 22 in stark contrast to the northern neighborhoods of Lafayette with a median household age of 42. By simply crossing the street into the rest of Lafayette, the median age drops to 33. Why does the northend of Lafayette struggle to retain their younger residents when youthfulness surrounds them? Many residents are transient dwellers, and with rising median ages, these neighborhoods struggle to retain younger residents. These problems plague Lafayette’s northern neighborhoods and restrict the growth communities. In partnership with the City of Lafayette, geographical and numerical data about over 3,000 local households were analyzed to inform decision- making efforts about community revitalization and resident retention in Lafayette by identifying indicators and areas of low retention. After observation of significant retention indicators, qualitative analysis of geographic visualizations was performed to filter households by characteristics and determine areas at high risk of low resident retention. With specific indicators and geographical areas identified, conclusions, visualizations, and relevant statistics were presented to community partners at the City of Lafayette to be utilized to advise resource allocation to specific areas at risk of low retention as well as empirical evidence for negotiations with other groups in the northern neighborhoods relating to neighborhood revitalization, affordable housing, and homelessness intervention. This presentation will discuss the data-driven techniques used to understand and analyze quality-of-life and resident retention in the northend neighborhoods of Lafayette.

ISQOLS WEBINAR: "Explaining Happiness and Income in the Short and Long Run: A Lesson on Happiness"

MAY 2021

In the short-run happiness and income are positively related; in the long-run there is a nil relationship. How does one explain the difference? Presented by: Richard A. Easterlin Richard A. Easterlin has recently published An Economist’s Lessons on Happiness: Farewell, Dismal Science! Springer Nature: Switzerland AG 2021. Easterlin is University Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Southern California. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. He is also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, and the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), and a former president of the Population Association of America, Economic History Association, and Western Economic Association International.

ISQOLS Webinar: POWER: LIMITS AND PROSPECTS FOR HUMAN SURVIVAL-

NOVEMBER 2021

What's In the Book? by Richard Heinberg Power is the story of humanity’s power over nature and the power of some people over others. How have Homo sapiens become powerful enough to threaten a mass extinction and disrupt the Earth’s climate? Why have we developed so many ways of oppressing one another? Can we change our relationship with power to avert ecological catastrophe, reduce social inequality, and stave off collapse? These questions — and their answers — will determine our fate. Power traces how four key elements developed to give humans extraordinary power: tool making ability, language, social complexity, and the ability to harness energy sources — most significantly, fossil fuels. It asks whether we have, at this point, overpowered natural and social systems, and if we have, what we can do about it. Most crucially, the book explores how self-limitation of power is rooted in evolution and human history and why, at this vital moment, we must rapidly relearn the lessons of power if humanity is to have a thriving future. In this webinar, author Richard Heinberg will discuss the book and its implications for the human future. An intellectual journey not to be missed!

ISQOLS Webinar, "How Was Life? New Perspectives on Well-being and Global Inequality since 1820".

JUNE 2021

How was life in 1820, and how has it improved since then? What are the long-term trends in global well-being? Views on social progress since the Industrial Revolution are largely based on historical national accounting in the tradition of Kuznets and

Maddison. But trends in real GDP per capita may not fully re­flect changes in other dimensions of well-being such as life expectancy, education, personal security or gender inequality. Looking at these indicators usually reveals a more equal world than the picture given by incomes alone, but has this always been the case? The two "How Was Life?" reports, published by the OECD in 2014 and 2021, address these questions by providing and analysing long-run estimates of wide range of wellbeing indicators, including both country averages as well as within-country inequalities. The presentation will include a global overview and synthesis by the reports' editors as well as an in-depth look at inequality in longevity over time.

ISQOLS WEBINAR: Sustainable Hedonism. A Thriving Life That Does Not Cost the Earth

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2021

How could values that might seem distant, such as ecological balance and solidarity, override what is immediate, personal, and enjoyable? Why would anyone opt for minimalism in the world of maximizers? Ecologically responsible behaviour is often perceived as a loss of happiness and life quality, evoking resistance or even anger.

The idea of loss is unlikely to motivate for adjustment. A more viable path is to refine and fine-tune our relationship to joy. We need to find a life strategy that is both joyful and does no harm to oneself or to others. I call this ‘sustainable hedonism’.

Our simplified 21st century version of hedonism encourages radical hedonism, unrestrained egoist pleasure-seeking. In contrast, ancient hedonists were masters of pleasure, but with inner freedom, emphasizing that one should not become a slave to desires. Experiencing pleasure and pain is a matter of habit, and it can be learned, argues Aristotle. Self-mastery is far from being ascetic self-denial, but rather a ’golden mean’ or a ’middle way’ between self-indulgence and self-mortification, as argued by both Aristotle and the Buddha as well. According to Aristotle, pleasure and morality need to be connected. This approach invites us become better hedonists and more virtuous at the same time.

The presentation is based on Dr Lelkes’ recent book titled "Sustainable Hedonism. A Thriving Life that Does not Cost the Earth” (Bristol University Press, May 2021).

ISQOLS WEBINAR: "Walls of Glass. Measuring Deprivation in Social Participation"

THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2021

This paper proposes a measure for deprivation in social participation, an important but so far neglected dimension of human well-being. Operationalisation and empirical implementation of the measure are conceptually guided by the capability approach. Essentially, the paper argues that deprivation in social participation can be convincingly established by drawing on extensive non-participation in customary social activities. In doing so, the present paper synthesizes philosophical considerations, axiomatic research on poverty and deprivation, and previous empirical research on social exclusion and subjective well-being. An application using high-quality German survey data supports the measure’s validity. Specifically, the results suggest, as theoretically expected, that the proposed measure is systematically different from related concepts like material deprivation and income poverty. Moreover, regression techniques reveal deprivation in social participation to reduce life satisfaction substantially, quantitatively similar to unemployment. Finally, the validity of the measure and the question of preference vs. deprivation are discussed.

Keywords: social participation, capability approach, deprivation, life satisfaction, multidimensional poverty, SOEP

ISQOLS WEBINAR: "Exploring the Link Between Walkability and Subjective Wellbeing in Detroit Metro Area"

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2020

Walkability as a concept in urban planning is emerging since neighborhoods are less walkable and people are more dependent on their automobile today. On the research front, there is enough literature on the health benefits of walkability but the relation between walkability and subjective wellbeing remains understudied. The webinar will show the wellbeing effects of walking behavior of individuals living in Detroit metropolitan area. In addition to walking behavior, the research also focused on the activity of walking in the presence of neighborhood aesthetics like greenness, crime, streets maintenance which might alleviate positive or aggravate negative emotions while performing the act of walking.

"Does it matter where it comes from? Happiness and air pollution sources"

MONDAY, OCTOBER 5

Presented by:  Veronica Vienne

The adverse effects of air pollution on human health are well documented in the clinical, epidemiological and toxicological literatures. People in their everyday lives and industrial activity contribute to the creation of air pollution, but overall air pollution affects people regardless of how it is produced, unless the pollutant agent differs. However, does is affect people’s well-being differently depending on how it is produced? In this paper I study whether changes in air pollution from different sources have a heterogeneous impact on people's life satisfaction, and I analyse the incentives individuals face to abate emissions.

To do this I propose a model of household's choices of avoidance behaviours and use to analyse how differently-targeted policies affect households choices regarding air pollution. Later I perform an empirical study in a developing economy context. For the empirical work I use subjective well-being (SWB) measures to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) for reductions of air pollution, procedure known as the Life Satisfaction Approach. I use data from the Chilean Pollutant Release and Transfer Register, which appoints air pollution to different sources, and merge it with individual-level socio-demographic information from the Chilean household survey. Preliminary results show that life satisfaction is negatively related to air pollution generated by transport and firms, but that the externalities they receive from generating air pollution in a household outweigh its negative health consequences.

"Scale Norming Makes Welfare Analysis with Life Satisfaction Scales Difficult: Theory and Empirical Evidence"

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2

Presented by:  Dr. Mark Fabian

Scale norming, sometimes called ‘response shift’, is where respondents use qualitatively different scales to answer the same question across survey waves. It makes responses challenging to compare intertemporally or interpersonally. This paper develops a formal model of the cognitive process that could give rise to scale norming in year on year responses to life satisfaction scale questions. It then uses this model to conceptually differentiate scale norming from adaptation and changes in reference points. Scale norming could make life satisfaction responses misleading with regards to the changing welfare of individuals. In particular, individuals who would say that their life is "improving" or "going well" might nonetheless give the same scale response year after year. This has major implications for the use of scales in cost-benefit analysis and other welfarist applications. While there is already substantial empirical evidence for the existence of scale norming, its implications for welfare analysis are sometimes understated on the grounds that this evidence might simply be the product of errors of memory. The paper presents new empirical evidence for scale norming from two surveys (N1 = 278; N2 = 1050) designed such that errors of memory are an unconvincing explanation for the results.

"Be Happy: Navigating Normative Issues in Behavioural and Well-Being Public Policy"

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1

Presented by:  Dr. Mark Fabian

Psychological science is increasingly influencing public policy. Behavioural public policy (BPP) was a milestone in this regard because it influenced many areas of policy in a general way. Well-being public policy (WPP) is emerging as a second domain of psychological science with general applicability. However, advocacy for WPP is criticised on ethical and political grounds. These criticisms are reminiscent of those directed at BPP over the past decade. This déjà vu suggests the need for interdisciplinary work that establishes normative principles for applying psychological science in public policy. We try to distil such principles for WPP from the normative debates over BPP. We argue that the uptake of BPP by governments was a function of its relatively strong normative and epistemic foundations in libertarian paternalism, or “nudging”, for short. We explain why the nudge framework is inappropriate for WPP. We then analyse how “boosts” offers a strict but feasible alternative framework for substantiating the legitimacy of well-being (and behavioural) policies. We illuminate how some WPPs could be fruitfully promoted as boosts and how they might fall short of the associated criteria.

"Bowling with Trump: Economic Anxiety, Racial Identification, and Well-Being in the 2016 US Presidential Election "

WEDNESDAY, 30 SEPTEMBER

Presented by:  Dr. Mark Fabian

We use well-being data from the Gallup Daily Poll and a measure of racial animus derived from Google search data to explain why racial identification became politically salient in the 2016 Presidential Election. We find that the oft-observed positive relationship between racial animus and Trump’s vote share is eliminated by introducing an interaction between racial animus and a measure of the basic psychological need for relatedness. We also find that rates of worry have a strong and significant positive association with Trump’s vote share, but this is offset by high levels of relatedness. Together, these two results imply that racial voting behavior in 2016 was driven by a desire for in-group affiliation as a way of buffering against economic and cultural anxiety. Such behavior is well established in laboratory studies in self-determination theory and worldview defense theory. We find no effect on Trump’s performance from exposure to trade shocks. This suggests that the economic roots of Trump’s success may be overstated and that the need for relatedness is a key underlying driver of contemporary political trends in the US.

"Wellbeing, sustainability, and progress: what's needed to help governments be accountable to human experience? "

MONDAY, 14 SEPTEMBER 2020

Presented by:  Dr. Chris Barrington-Leigh

Chris Barrington-Leigh is an Associate Professor at McGill University, jointly appointed at the Institute for Health and Social Policy and the School of Environment, and is an associate member in McGill's Department of Economics. His recent research is focused on empirical and quantitative assessments of human well-being, measured through subjective reports, and their implications for policy. He was originally trained in upper atmospheric and space plasma physics at M.I.T., Stanford, and Berkeley, before studying Economics at the University of British Columbia. Chris was a Global Scholar of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (2009-2014) and is a current member of the Global Young Academy. 

"Influence of Spouses’ Work-Role Similarity on Inter Gender Difference in Health and life Expectancy"

WEDNESDAY, 2 SEPTEMBER 2020

Presented by:  Dr. Uriel Leviatan

Life Expectancy (LE) for women is longer in industrial societies and as their LE increases, women gain more. Add to this that most husbands are older than their wives are and at least two major problems emerge: (1) Society gets a very large numbers of old widows without the support of male spouses; (2) An extra demand on the welfare resources of society. Yet, in some societies, the level of inter-gender difference in LE is relatively low. A case in point is the Israeli Kibbutz population. Its LE is one of the highest yet the LE difference between males and females is one of the lowest. I test with three studies a theoretical model to explain this phenomenon as follows: Similarity in work roles of spouses >> increases empathy between spouses >> makes social support among them more effective >> brings about well being and health >> reduces mortality and increases LE

"Promoting wellbeing through gender equity: ten strategies for basic education institutions"

FRIDAY, 21 AUGUST

Presented by: Dra Zeida Guajardo 

Discrimination has a negative effect on wellbeing, and this effect is more severe during childhood. An investigation carried out in the city of Monterrey, Mexico, showed that gender discrimination is experienced daily in the classroom, both in public and private schools. This webinar will present at least ten specific strategies to prevent gender discrimination and thereby positively promote wellbeing in basic education institutions.

"Character Strengths and Participation in Sport/Physical

Activity to Promote Positive Ageing" 

MONDAY, AUGUST 3, 2020

presented by Dr Urszula Wolski

The aim of research is to investigate whether an intervention programme encourages ‘non-active’ adults to participate in regular sport and/or physical activity in relation to their character strengths. Character strengths are what are unique and authentic to everyone, such as love, gratitude and appreciation of beauty, and as a result, it is these that will encourage participation in activities that are found to be enjoyable and could lead to flow experiences. Such activities can therefore help to lead to greater health, well-being and eudaimonic happiness

"Designing Meaningful Work during COVID-19:

Implications for Managers & the Future of Work"

THURSDAY, JULY 16, 2020

presented by Jonathan Westover

This webinar will summarize a series of studies comparing job satisfaction and its determinants across 37 countries, based on data from the most recent wave of the International Social Survey Program. This research explores various work-life balance factors, job autonomy, and meaningful work indicators and the related considerations for managers as they work to design work (including remote work) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"POZE. A paradigm for Social Change, from the inside out."

MONDAY, JUNE 22

This presentation offers an introduction in the POZE perspective and the related methodology. A case study from Haiti is used to illustrate its impact. The underpinning logic is that human life is the result of multiple dimensions which can be optimized only if their interplay is understood.

"Transmission of Research Results to the Field of Public Policies for the Improvement of Quality of Life"

MONDAY, JUNE 8

This webinar will begin with the review of the concept of public policy, to introduce the analysis of the transmission of research results in the context of public policies – taking into account the different characteristics of knowledge and the way in which researchers and policy-makers has been interacting in this field. Then it will identify and comment on the handicaps which have historically turned up in the development of this process and the possibilities of strengthening it to achieve the improvement of people`s quality of life.

"Community Indicators Projects: Theoretical Notions"

THURSDAY, MAY 28, 9:00 AM Pacific Standard Time/12:00 (NOON Eastern Standard Time

Community planners devise their own community indicators systems guided by theoretical notions of what constitute quality of life of their own communities. There are many concepts guiding the formulation of community indicators projects. Here are five popular concepts: (1) personal utility, (2) opulence, (3) the just society, (4) satisfaction of human needs, and (5) sustainability. This webinar will describe these theoretical notions and how they are used by researchers in the development and use of community indicators projects.