At Exploring Happiness we have been building this index for some time. Last year we wrote two research articles that looked at the theory and evidence in relation to the determinants of life satisfaction. The detail included in these research articles played a role in the calibration of our index. In our default calibration, we use the same six determinants that we highlighted back then as the foundations of our index. The concepts that we used to build the index were simple. We look to capture the fact that everyone is different and what makes each of us happy is also different. Some people are career-driven, others live for the social scene and some are highly family-orientated. Despite this, we all also have a lot in common – we all value our health, both mental and physical, the quality of our personal relationships matters a lot and we all like to have something to do that makes us feel worthwhile.
We make our index unique for each user by creating the functionality to allow users to personalise the index, based on their own circumstances and preferences. Users are able to choose how important each of the components that make up the index are to them, and as a result the weights within the index will shift to reflect that.
In addition, our index considers the different stages and circumstances for each of us in our lives. Our base calibration is built towards the most common ‘individual type’ - an employed worker. However, when users create their accounts they will choose from a list of 13 different individual types such as parent/carer, student or retired and as a result of this choice the components that make up the index will change to reflect that individual types circumstances.
So thats the concept, but what’s the purpose? We see there as being three main benefits from using the index.
Being informed: If we assume that each individual’s objective in life is to maximise their own happiness, which we think is a fairly reasonable assumption, then it’s likely to be useful to know how happy you are now and how happy you have been in the past. Our decisions, big or small, will play an important role in determining our happiness and we are more likely to make the right decision when we have better information available to draw upon. The usage of this index provides users with this information.
Mental health tool: Using this index allows users time to reflect, to think about what has been going well and what has been more challenging. There is also a significant amount of research available which points to the benefits of self-reflection on mental health. This has been shown for self-reflection in a number of forms (e.g. from expressive writing to gratitude journaling), across various life stages and as an effective treatment for those with diagnosed mental illnesses. Our view, which we intend to robustly test in the future, is that users of the index will be able to build resilience to mental health illnesses through the method of self-reflection that this index requires.
The ultimate tracker: Nowadays, it is not uncommon to track several parts of our lives, from steps to sleep to calories. But whats the point in tracking these things? For most people, it’s because they believe if they do more steps or sleep better, they will end up feeling better. This index allows you to check whether thats true in practice.
The index methodology paper linked below outlines the evidence used to select the variables that make up the index, how this evidence feeds through to the calibration of the index and then how the base calibration is adjusted according to the users choices about their preferences and circumstances.