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Creating social policies that promote well-being.

If well-being is the overarching goal of life then all relevant organizations and government institutions should develop policies that support this fundamental existential objective. Psychologists can make important contributions by assessing well-being and by trying to determine what relevant life experiences, work climate, social institutions, and educational programs promote more happy lives (Diener & Seligman, 2004). Measurement of well-being should be broad in scope and take into account not only subjective well-being, but also dimensions of social well-being. In turn psychological studies can be useful to governments whose sole reason for existence is after all to increase well-being in society. Public research can identify areas where the populations are satisfied, as well as areas that need change for optimal happiness. This research might also make the objective of well-being more relevant to policy decisions and therefore produce helpful changes in government policies.

Schimmel (2009) argued in favor of well-being assessments as a guide to government decisions and policies. The United Nations developed a measure called the Human Development Index that reflects relative poverty, wealth and social development in the world. This data was compared to the World Database of Happiness (Veenhoven, 2011). Countries were ranked according to the happiness measure that ranged from 8.2 in Denmark as the happiest country to 3.9 in Tanzania. The correlation of the two indexes demonstrated significant relationship between human development and happiness. For example Denmark has a high ranking of 14th in the world in the Human Development Index, whereas Tanzania is 164th. These results argue for the importance of the satisfaction of human needs derived from socio-economic development and the importance of meeting these fundamental needs to well-being and happiness. However, there is not a one-to-one relationship between development and happiness as people in some countries living with underdevelopment are happier than people in more highly developed nations. Hungary is an unhappy country although it does not fare poorly in development. These results suggest the importance of subjective experiences of happiness that are to some degree independent of social development.


Date: 2015-01-11; view: 915


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