During Donald Trump‘s India trip in early 2020, Melania T attended a ‘happiness class’ at a Delhi government-run school. The US first lady considered the ‘mindfulness’ activity, which included smiling at each other, and finding positives in their partners, among other dopamine-promoting activities along with meditation to be ‘very inspiring’. (What else would she have said when asked?)
Post-Covid, many schools in various countries started teaching students about happiness and wellness as part of mental health and well-being programmes. But these were probably counselling dressed up in a ‘happiness’ package.
But honestly, can happiness be taught? Maybe. Maybe not. Teaching about some of the scientifically credible constituents of happiness – boosting pleasant mood, pursuing ‘gratification’ by involving oneself completely, and utilising one’s strengths to serve and belong to something greater than oneself – may be feasible.
In his 2004 book, Authentic Happiness, former American Psychological Association chair Martin Seligman advocated for the above-mentioned ‘constituents’ of happiness to enhance all facets of one’s life. So, even if happiness can’t be taught, it may be feasible to provide students with the necessary skills needed to cultivate happiness.
To what extent is happiness within one’s control? Curiously, there exists a happiness pie chart for the last 20 years. A 2005 paper published in Review of General Psychology, ‘Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change,’ outlined factors that affect our well-being. Genes account for 50% of our happiness, activities 40%, and life circumstances 10%.So, do happiness classes intentionally or unintentionally try to regulate that 40%? For instance, MIT Sloan’s course, ‘Pursuing Happiness and a Meaningful Life’ seeks to improve relationships and friendships, develop resilience, teach how to bounce back from failures, and enhance mental and physical well-being via mindfulness and appreciation. To meet students’ growing mental health needs, Yale prof Laurie Santos introduced her ‘Psychology and the Good Life’ course in 2018. Nearly 1 in 4 Yale students enrolled, making it the most popular course offered by the university in over three centuries.
In 2019, ‘Professor of Happiness’ Santos spoke at the World Economic Forum annual meet in Davos about the rise in mental health issues in higher education. She offered its free version on Coursera, ‘The Science of Wellbeing’. Since its inception in 2018, more than 3.4 mn people have enrolled. Through a series of tasks, the course teaches participants how to improve their own happiness and develop more productive habits. Topics covered include common misconceptions about happiness, how to overcome personal prejudices, and how to increase one’s level of happiness.
Back to the happiness pie – which has its fair share of critics. Although the pie has separate slices, psychologist Todd Kashdan contends that genes, activities, and life circumstances aren’t isolated factors. The differences may become blurred due to their mutual influence.
A 2019 paper published in Journal of Happiness Studies, ‘Easy (Happiness) Pie? A Critical Evaluation of a Popular Model of the Determinants of Well-Being,’ suggested that happiness is 70-80% heritable. As defined, ‘life circumstances’ is a very broad phrase that encompasses the ‘national, geographical, and cultural region in which a person resides’. A 10% slice is probably inadequate to describe it.
Two of the ‘pie-makers’, KM Sheldon and S Lyubomirsky, in their 2021 paper published in the Journal of Positive Psychology, ‘Revisiting the Sustainable Happiness Model and Pie Chart: Can Happiness Be Successfully Pursued?’ agreed with a lot of objections. But they said that their broader message remains the same: making conscious efforts to improve and maintain one’s happiness in life is still feasible. But is that really a tiny slice?
It’s, however, impossible to determine how much of one’s happiness originates from different sources. Can I say that my activities account for 2.8 points if my happiness score is, say, 8.5/10? This happiness pie is tricky to bite.
