Happiness and

befriending Neil ThinUniversity of Edinburgh

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Archer

Geoffrey Howe

Jessie

Investing in appreciative enquiry – where’s the value?

Practical wisdom and the intrinsic

value of learning

Concepts and definitions

Analysis and modeling –

causes, priorities

Motivational change e.g.

empathy Evidence – ‘hard’ (stats) and

‘soft’ (stories, observations,

images)

Normative guidance for aspirational policy and

practice

Living deliberately

Learning about happiness

Intentional befriending

Learning about

friendship and social support

Survey data are the dominant output of happiness research. But isn’t happiness too elusive to be represented in numbers?

Maybe eight, maybe two

I’m a nine

“we mustn’t expect more

precision than the subject

matter allows”

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

“All things considered, how happy are you with your life these days?”

You

How happy?All things

Your life these days

The happiness lens W

hat

mak

e?does it

difference

The happiness lens po

sitiv

ity

holism

life course

empathy

goodfeelings

liveswhole

Our sense of self is developed through relationships

Our life stories, life plans, and sense of coherence depends on other people’s support

A ‘happiness lens’ means adopting appreciative approaches to research, policy and practice:

good

feelings

whole

lives

How happy are you? How’s life?

How do the bits fit together?

How’s your life going? What’s the story?

Let’s assume that we all want to help people live better

Two ways of doing this:

Remedial: find trouble, sort it out

Appreciative: learn about how happiness happens, promote it

Minimally acceptable living

Clinical (remedial,

therapeutic, medical) policy

and practice

Appreciative (or ‘positive’)

policy and practice

Appreciative enquiry focused on strengths and enjoyments or

preventive maintenance

Pathological or clinical research

focused on sufferings and remedies

Preventive action

Aspirational/appreciative planning and learning

Appreciative empathy

Happiness research should shift us towards appreciative empathy, by exploring

subjective experience

Relationships are causes and effects of happiness, but aren’t they also a part of happiness?

Enjoyment, positive self-evaluation

Interpersonal happiness

Therapeutic techniques

Self-help mind training Talk therapy

Pharma therapy

But I was unable to say what these meant. …it was very difficult to decide which of the diagrams was most like the face they were making because people’s faces move very quickly.

Mark Haddon (2003) Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

Befriending and appreciative enquiry

both promote empathy

Autistic people can’t understand us

‘neurotypicals’ think we’re a

puzzle

Which life is better?happiness

Life course

Some research themes and findings• consensus that quality, quantity, and diversity of relationships

are essential for happiness

• Aspects/varieties of relationships need to defined/specified

• Relational influences on happiness vary by age and gender

• Relationships often have mixed influences – even highly ‘toxic’ relationships can have their upsides

• In happiness and friendship research, common theme is ‘authenticity’

Authenticity matters, but don’t we also benefit from ‘fake’ happiness

and ‘pretend’ friendship?• Lots of studies of emotional self-disclosure show transition

from ‘fake’ smiles and forced laughter to real pleasure

• Lots of studies of intentional befriending show transitions to ‘real’ friendship

‘Real happiness’ and ‘real friendship’ require coherence across

contexts and over time.

Real happiness is lifelong

Real friendships endure through thick and thin

Real happiness requires

harmony across life domains

Real friends are reliably available

in any context

Befriending: evidence of benefits• Most overall evaluative judgments are moderately optimistic

• Some evidence that ‘social cognition interventions’ are particularly effective (i.e. changing minds matters more than changing skills, relationships, and situations)

• Qualitative accounts are selective and don’t ‘prove’ anything, but vignettes, images, and stories are often both instructive and inspirational

Social trends worth watching• Political: ‘Co-production’, ‘big society’, austerity, changes in state ‘welfare’ provision

• Financial: rising income inequality; growing financial indebtedness and instability

• Demographic: Ageing populations and increases in solo living (Klinenberg 2012)

• Cultural: e.g. emotional openness (Brownlie 2011); crossgender/transgenerational/interethnic friendships (Monsour 2001); new Generation Y

work patterns

• Medical: inflationary pyschiatric diagnosis and medication

• Cybersociality: Social robotics, remote interaction, translocal relationships; online, on-tap entertainment

The future of befriending?Fiction: Robot and Frank, 2012

Fact: ‘Paro’ seal robot leads the field in therapeutic companion robot development

He’s better than Jeffrey Archer

Discussions: happiness and befriending

Examples: Share examples of befriending (inspiring or problematic), based on your work. [10mins]

Who benefits? How could those activities have improved the happiness of befrienders, befriendees, or others? [25mins]

Happiness lens: Would a more explicit and systematic emphasis on ‘happiness’ be beneficial to your work? [10mins]