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| Happiness and reference groups | | |
Sponsor |  buckyreed | Jun 23, 2005 5:52am | I wanted to introduce a topic, and I thought marriage might be a good one. However, when Bunty gave several examples of solid lines of inquiry on the matter--none of which directly mentioned "mating instincts"--it became apparent to me that marriage may not have been my intended focus after all.
Anyway, since "Is mating better than marriage?" isn't likely to garner a lot of serious discussion, I am taking a different course entirely.
So...I was thinking about how self-reported happiness depends largely on the perception of one's social status in some reference group--not on absolute indicators of wealth or status. In other words, the low man on the totem pole* at the yacht club may well report less satisfaction with life than the big shot on the local bowling team.
The concept of [relative position in a reference group=reported happiness], as well as how a change in reference groups affects happiness, is demonstrated in this often-cited research on East Germans. It indicates a sharp drop in their self-reported happiness levels from 1990 to 1991, with the conclusion that they had expanded their reference group to include the more affluent West Germans.
But it seems that this change in reference groups could be voluntary and work the other way. Say that I am one of the "poor kids" at a very affluent private high-school. As long as I use that student body as my reference group, I am likely to feel unhappy about my situation. On the other hand, if I imagine myself as part of a reference group that includes all teenagers in the world, I can realize that I am actually quite fortunate not to be starving or embroiled in a nasty war somewhere.
The practice of using an "enlarged repertory of reference groups" is known in sociology (source for quote). I would like to tie it to the idea of happiness-as-a-function-of-perceived-status, and hopefully generate some research ideas.
Any thoughts?
*Actually, the lowest figure on a totem pole was often the most important, but I meant it the way it's popularly misunderstood. |
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Sponsor | | Bunty | Jun 23, 2005 11:44am | This could actually come back to the mating thing again. It's not uncommon for status symbols, and status seeking to take second place once the kids arrive on the scene, the two door sports car gets swapped for an SUV :)
Often it is best just to look at it as us being self-replicating automata, propogating one's own genetic line, the closer we are to being the alpha fe/male of whatever group we see ourself as being part of, the more 'happiness' reward we will free to allot ourself.
unabombertrial.com/manifesto/ [unabombertrial.com/manifesto/] is probably something worth reading through, it does cover how, even though we have a far better standard of living than at any time in history, if anything we are less happy.
Be interesting to see how happiness varies among those in virtual social reference groups, such as for instance stumbleupon :)
Especially as online the choice of reference group is quite voluntary, and often very interest tailored.
Also in fact whether people do become happier the 'higher' they are up the ladder. Or whether there is just more unhappiness when the bulk of people feel that they lack things...
willing to bet happiness levels are probably lower the higher you go up the long tail slope towards the hubs in the vast majority of online communities . Eternally frustrated desire, postmodern alienation, and ennui.. all at the click of a button on a mozilla add-on toolbar, hurrah! :D |
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Sponsor | | Lost-Child | Jun 25, 2005 11:13am | buckyreed:
Seems we're looking at a symbolic interactionist approach to status and roles, and self image vs. looking glass self.
First we need a definition of happiness though, otherwise we'll all just be flopping around like fish out of water and on a compltetely different page.
A suggestion for defining happiness: Perhaps acquire a random sample, you could do this on stumble upon by starting threads on various forums and asking "what is happiness". Afterwards it would be possible to content analyze the responses for commonalities or by some other method to allow your definition of happiness to come from there.
Another alternative might be look for previous research on happiness and definitions of happiness. Which would probably be easier.
happiness as a function of percieved status; seems like it could be some sort of coping mechanism to me. Inability to percieve onseself positively in comparison to one group so its to ones advantage to refer to another group of individuals in order to have a more positive view of self.
I think this has quite a bit of potential though, probably many approaches to it as well.... now you have me pondering.. |
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Sponsor | | Lost-Child | Jun 27, 2005 8:14pm | holy crap millerbull: thats awesome..
i just finished my spring semester finals so this week i think ill go through some of those links you posted, as well as search through some journal abstracts for relevent research. |
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Sponsor | | Bunty | Jun 28, 2005 8:03pm | alternatively we could just kidnap a bunch of folk.
transport them to a top secret location.
and experiment on them!
File System Check The System! |
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| Happiness and reference groups | | |
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