Psychic

Yesterday I had I fierce discussion with my atheist friends. It started by our fantasies of finding freedom out of this third world (the usual exercise for anyone mildly intelligent around here) and my friend laid an argument making some errors IMO.

First he implicitly stated that in the first world countries everyone is happier than in the third world countries! And that a poor man pre-occupied with ways to procure his daily living, is much miserable than a rich man pre-occupied with ways to get his next promotion. IMO the intensity of the misery of the two depends not on the nature of their problem. Rather on how subjectively each one values his difficulty, and on the welfare of those around (arguing that a poor living amongst rich is inclined to sense his difficulties more acutely). Simply stated: “whatever life you lead, whatever abilities you have, You have your OWN problems” and the misery generated by these problems is roughly equal among all people regardless of the nature of the problem.

As support of my view a presented that depression rates in the first world are much higher than in the third world (Happiness is inversely related to the level of complexity of life) In industrial countries life is a sequence of job stresses, deadlines, and a very lofty social demands. Most of these are (with much exaggeration) unheard of, in the developing countries! [but I couldn’t get away with this argument with my smart friend]

Second he built a model of human needs, dividing them into basic needs, and non-basic needs. Arguing that we in the third world live deprived of many of the basic needs that’s why the magnitude of our misery is much more.

As an opposition I came up mentioning the ancient hunter-gatherer societies, because according to his model, those people were very deprived of what he calls now “basic needs” so if the industrial countries make people happy, and the third world countries make people miserable, then the ancient societies would make people wonder what happiness is!

Our judgment assigning a certain level of welfare with a certain level of happiness is very subjective, and there is no absolute scale.

One Winged Angel

I feel the need to quote Dennis Leary on this one. "Happines comes in small doses. It's a cookie, or a cigarette or a five-second orgasm. You eat the cookie, you smoke the cigarette, you cum, you go to sleep, you get up and go to work in the morning."

Happiness is relative. Some people will always be happy, regardless of situation. My cousin is like this. Some people will never be happy.

Yes, it is easier to be happy when your basic needs are met. But after food, clothing and shelter have been provided, additional money does not directly add to happiness. At least that's my experience.

meritocrat

First how does one define happiness?

Really can't anything bring happiness to a person?

scigirl

Ok wait a minute! Depression is caused by a lot of things, and happiness and absence of clinical depression aren't necessarily the same thing.

But since my JAMA (Journal of the AMA) magazine is all about depression this week, here are some stats for ya, that I found interesting:

1) Depression in third world countries is fairly high, in part because of HIV and the high mortality rate of children/family members. According to one study, "we found a current depression prevalance rate of 21%, consistent with previous research implicating socioeconomic disadvantage and bereavement in depressive symptoms."

2) In the United States, the prevalence is estimated to be 16.2%. Poor people in the USA are more likely to be depressed than people in a higher economic bracket.

I'd agree with that. However, is there a link between the stresses, and happiness or depression? Well maybe this other article will help - it is titled "Depression and suicide in physicians."

So basically what we think of as "stress" doesn't really correlate with suicide rates, anyways. But is a stressed out doctor less happy than a non-stressed out doctor (there must be one somewhere!! )? Probably!
Hmm, where did you get data about depression and happiness on ancient societies?? Did the scientists administer the depression scale on a bunch of fossils?

I think a problem with your argument is that you are trying to compare apples and oranges. We don't have data on how "happy" these ancient societies were, so how would we know?

Also, I think that knowledge of other cultures that are "better off" does tend to influence the happiness scale. I wonder if anyone has looked at depression or happiness in homogenious societies versus ones like ours with great disparities of wealth. It might be harder to be happy with your own life when you know the neighbor next store has more stuff than you and you see it every day.

I would agree with that - to a point. We can sort of quanitify depression in a way that makes comparisons across cultures "meaningful." I also think there's a quality of life scale that we could probably modify to answer your question.

But I'll put down the research tools for a bit and say - on some level I agree with your argument. I think our wealth does not make us intrinsically "happier," and that a poor family in africa that has time to spend with their kids, and their extended family, is probably happier than our fragmented families (wow I'm sounding like a republican! ). We in the developed countries would benefit greatly from slowing down a bit and taking time to enjoy the non-monetary things in life, meditate more, etc.

But the simplistic uncomplicated life often comes with a great price - ignorance. Just look at the AIDS epidemic.

scigirl

phil

Both happiness and depression are emotions, which make them complex things. Are emotions are affected by our environment, but also by our attitude towards our environment, and even by the chemicals in our brain. I am inclined to say that our attitude towards life and our environment is more important than our environment.

A person who always thinks "This could be alot worse" will be happier more often than the person who thinks "This could be alot better" will they not?

To be happy is to be content. However, being content is not always a prudent thing. All of our scientific achievement has come about by people who weren't content with the way things were. They were always looking to make or invent, or find something better.

It turns out that if you always are content about everything, you become lazy, but if you're always discontent about everything, then you become depressed.

You must continually try to find the balance between the two. You must have a good enough attitude about life so you can be happy, but also have and attitude of wanting to improve so you can be productive. That balance can be tricky to find.

-phil

scigirl

phil,

Have you read Brave New World? Your post reminded me of it for some reason - it's a pretty good book that talks about that issue - nobody is happy or sad, they are always the same.

I agree with you that we shouldn't be happy all the time. I think there's a difference between not being content with life so you strive to paint a better picture or build a better building - and between true depression, where the person feels like doing absolutely nothing.

scigirl

Psychic

Well Scigirl, I am a medical student with my primary interest in psychiatry! And after going through the bipolar disorders and schizoaffective disorders you surely come with the idea that depression and Mania (=elated mood=happy mood=(to me) happiness) are two ends of a spectrum!

And from the excerpt from the magazine
I would conclude you are an MD or something so no need to elaborate on bipolar mood disorder for you.

I see that the attribution of depressive symptoms prevalence to socioeconomic disadvantage is the researcher’s OWN subjective impression! He/she used his/her OWN scale of happiness versus welfare to come up with that conclusion! Because again if we extrapolate this presumed relationship between socioeconomic welfare and mood, then we would come to face the horrid mood people in ancient societies had, and the horrid mood of say Bedwins, gypsies…etc.

For that matter, I am reading evolutionary psychology these days, and they always use the primitive societies in Africa, Samoa, and else where as a reflection of our ancestral environment. Because these people still live in pretty much the same conditions.

Well my final point is that: when my friend said “people in the first world are happier”, I think he made this statement using his subjective scale of happiness and I don’t think that people are REALLY happier there. Although that’s the impression we get from the fact that we consider them to possess many things that we don’t.



Ooh we are desperate to use the WE referring to us followed by “in the developed countries” lucky you.

You see the problem with us here (me and the guys) is that we came to discover a whole new world. We freed ourselves from religion and used our brains to read and learn. To the point that we now feel supremely superior to the vast overwhelming majority of people around here! We cannot ever be satisfied now living like this. It’s like what you would feel if they put you in a mental hospital for the severely debilitated schizophrenics.

Anyway, I wonder if we can keep the first world out of our minds completely because the idea that there are YOU guys, is a bit depressive. But if we manage to manipulate and understand our subjective scale of happiness I guess we can be happy again. Wonder if that’s possible.

Nowhere357

A poor beggar who finds a crust of bread may be very happy, for he has a meal.

While an exiled ruler who lives in luxury may be in deepest depression, for she has lost her country.

Happiness comes from the change in your situation, and not from the situation itself.

Sitting down, for example, can be bliss - after a long hard day at work. Or it can be miserable - after too many hours in a waiting room.

Good luck, Psychic.

auto-da-fe

Psychic, if you really are interested in this (the concept of happines) I would suggest googling Abraham Maslow.

In a management class in college, I studied psychologist Abraham Maslow. He proposed that people are motivated be a predictable five-step hiearchy of needs. Masglow's Heiarchy started with the most basic needs, and progressed from there.

The pyramid was;

Physiological needs (i.e., food, water, oxygen, etc.)
Safety needs (medicine, shelter, clothing, etc.)
Love needs (family, partner, etc.)
Esteem needs (job, money, etc.)
Self-actualization needs (having a sense or worth)

The theory is, once one set of needs is met, you move to the next level. True happiness comes when all levels of the heiarchy are met.

I think this can be ascertained as fairly accurate, although the placement of each need on the heiarchy could be open to discussion, and may not be the same for everyone, I think this pretty much goes to show what it takes to be happy.

As far as your friend who thinks everyone in the "First World" are more happy than those in the "Third World", saying "everyone" is obviously false. There are few things in life that can be accuratly quantified in such braod terms. You can't say "everyone", or "always", or "never" when talking about people (espicially something as objective as happiness), because of the uniquness of the human psychy, and the objectivity of one's perception (what makes you happy may not make me happy).