Exploring the world of occupational psychology: Insights and career prospects
Occupational psychologists (also called work, business, or organisational psychologists) focus on understanding people; and how they think, feel, and behave.
Happiness is contagious. Happy people emit vibes that induce others to become happy. Everyone wants to be happy in life on earth. The quest for happiness begins when one attains adulthood and it runs throughout life. It is an experience that everyone wants to go through. A comparison with compatriots and the finding that one stands on equal footing with them gives immense life satisfaction. Judgements of personal well being are measured by comparing with the average standard of living of society as a whole.
Every individual has his or her own level of happiness; and this level tends to remain constant in one’s life time. Psychologists have oncluded that every individual has his or her own distinct and steady level of happiness, termed as ‘set point’. A ‘set point’ is mostly genetically determined. A certain life event may change this level upward or downward but again reset it to the ‘set point’. This is called the ‘hedonic treadmill’. The hedonic treadmill concept signifies a treadmill affect i.e. however hard one tries to improve happiness permanently he or she will remain at the same place. Economists have also been concerned about happiness in the last few decades.
They lay emphasis on one’s income and employment situation in order to assess ‘well being’. Economists thus try to relate income and material aspirations and its attainment to happiness. The view is that money brings happiness; more money will bring more happiness. We may recall here the Easterlin Theory on happiness. Findings of economist Richard A Easterlin suggest that at a point of time there is a positive association between income and happiness. But in the long run, it gradually evaporates over time. Easterlin’s theory states that “at a given time those with higher incomes are happier, on average, than (those with) lower incomes.
Also at a point in time respondents typically feel that they were less happy in the past and will be more happy in future. Finally experienced happiness, on an average, is constant over the life cycle”. Thus economic activities have a definite impact on individual happiness but are not the only reason behind an individual’s satisfaction. Optimists believe the world is much better now than it was a few centuries ago. The perception is that this is the result of progress. Some pessimists have reservations.
They say that the world deserves much better results with the same resources. A large section of the population in almost every society faces inequality, poverty, hunger and unemployment. The aspirations and goals of individuals remain unfulfilled. This implies fruits of progress are not evenly distributed among the members of society. So, while a minority is happy, most are not. The world is gradually thinking of ways to measure the well-being of citizens in a society by giving more and more importance to human development and individual happiness.
Measuring happiness in countries and relating it to economic performance of the government and corporate is slowly gaining ground. The United Nations has published World Happiness Reports (WHR) over ten years since 2012. The reports aim to identify determinants of well-being which help nations craft policies for achieving happier societies. The report ranked countries according to happiness measures. The top ranked countries “all score very well on the measures the report uses to explain its findings: healthy life expectancy, GDP per capita, social support, low corruption, generosity in a community where people look after each other and freedom to make key life decisions”, the 2023 WHR said.
The World Happiness Reports from 2012 to 2023 are based on individual life evaluations done on around 1,000 people from each country over a three-year period. It covers more than 150 countries. The congregate of individual happiness of citizens gives the national happiness index of each country. World Happiness Reports exist because of the idea that individuals are able to report their subjective experience in a way which can meaningfully guide individuals and societies towards better lives.
A natural way to measure people’s well-being is to ask them how satisfied they are with their lives. People are asked to evaluate their life satisfaction these days “on a scale, called the Cantril Ladder, of 0- 10 (0 – completely dissatisfied and 10 – completely satisfied). This allows people to evaluate their own happiness without making any assumptions about what causes it. Thus ‘life satisfaction’ is a standard measure of wellbeing” (WHR 2023). Interestingly the World Happiness Reports suggest that the most economically advanced countries or the fastest growing economies are not the happiest countries. These reports also suggest modern world people suffer from poor health infrastructure, lower standard of living, fragile governance and freedom despite having high income. War-torn countries, which include countries perturbed by civil war, conflict and ethnic cleansing are the unhappiest. Life would be very unpleasant in a country with the world’s lowest incomes, lowest life expectancy, lowest generosity, most corruption, least freedom and least social support. Objectively measured happiness should gradually emerge as the yardstick of performance of the economies.
After all, the ultimate objective of economic activities is to bring happiness to the life of people on earth. But, why happiness? Surveys show happy people are generally found to be more sociable, flexible, and creative and beneficial for society at large. Achieving such a society is an objective to aim at. Every individual has the right to be happy in life. Thus, governments are being urged to give more importance to happiness in policy making. Bhutan has already adopted a resolution in 2011 that targets “Happiness: Towards a holistic approach to development”. Bhutan has adopted a Gross National Happiness index as the main development indicator instead of Gross Domestic Product. The first WHR in 2012 stated that “the quest for happiness is intimately linked to the quest for sustainable development”. It says “happiness should be taken seriously; societies should foster the happiness of their citizens. Public policies are to be so designed and delivered that it attains life satisfaction of the citizens.”
It is widely believed that increased growth will bring in more resources to the government to spend on productive purposes, infrastructure, health and education which will ultimately bring happiness to its citizens. But efficiency in spending and providing quality service to the people are essential to reap maximum return from the resources spent. Obviously the focus shall be on people, their aspirations, choices and opportunities. A happy, meaningful, rich life of human beings should be the desired goal, rather than simply rich economies.
(The writer, a cost accountant, works with a state-owned power utility. The views expressed are personal.)
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