The science of happiness has spawned hundreds of thousands of studies, surveys, books and reviews, but what reliably lifts the spirits, to what extent, and who benefits most are still far from nailed down.
Now, psychologists have drawn up plans for the world’s largest happiness experiment to thrash out once and for all what really gives people an emotional boost, how effective different strategies are, and whether the benefits are the same around the globe.
“Our goal is for this to be the largest, most comprehensive, most diverse experiment on happiness ever conducted,” said Prof Elizabeth Dunn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “It’s like the Avengers: many of the top happiness researchers from around the world have come together to join forces.”
In the past six months, more than 1,000 scientists from over 70 countries submitted proposals for the project. In December, an expert panel whittled these down to seven categories of interventions, each including three or four different approaches, which will be tested in the Global Happiness Megastudy.
The researchers aim to recruit at least 30,000 people worldwide for the trial. The volunteers will be randomly assigned to perform a short, sharp intervention from the list, or assigned to a control group for comparison. Each happiness intervention is designed to last no more than 25 minutes and requires no special equipment.
The strategies range from physical exercise, involving yoga, high-intensity interval training or body weight resistance training, to social interactions, where people might call a loved one, push themselves to behave in more extroverted ways, or chat with an AI companion.
“All of the interventions can be done at home, people don’t need anyone watching them or helping them,” said Dr Barnabás Szászi, a behavioural scientist and principal investigator on the project at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. “That was a very conscious decision on our part.”
The project aims to address shortcomings that raise questions over the validity of some older happiness research. One concern is that most research involves “weird” people – western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic – meaning the bulk of the evidence is based on people from North America, Europe and other western regions. But what makes a person in Chicago happy might not work in Chongqing, Nagoya or Mombasa.
The lack of diversity is not the only issue. Happiness interventions are delivered in different ways to different populations in different settings, making direct comparisons impossible. Another problem occurs when researchers do not pre-register their studies, a move that requires them to outline their plans and analyses in advance. This can lead to spurious claims if scientists repeatedly analyse their data until they find a statistically significant result. The practice, known as p-hacking, is likened to drawing a target around a bullet hole and claiming to have hit the bullseye.
Having done the groundwork, Dunn and Szászi are now looking for funders to move the project on. If all goes well, they aim to publish a registered report in a major journal to record the methods and data analyses they will use. The experiments themselves should start soon after.
“What will we have at the end of it?” said Dunn. “We will have the largest and most diverse dataset ever collected on the strategies that promote happiness. How effective are these strategies? Do they work everywhere? Do some work extremely well for a small group of people and barely do anything for many others?
“If we find things that are universally effective, or that are at least effective in certain places, and identify what kinds of places those are, or what kinds of people benefit, it will be a huge leap forward for the science of happiness.”
