Fun Times
The Socio Political Demography of Happiness
Sam Peltzman
University of Chicago Working Paper, July 2023
Abstract:
Since 1972 the General Social Survey (GSS) has asked a representative sample of US adults “… [are] you …very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” Overall, the population is reasonably happy even after a mild recent decline. I focus on differences along standard socio demographic dimensions: age, race, gender, education, marital status income and geography. I also explore political and social differences. Being married is the most important differentiator with a 30-percentage point happy-unhappy gap over the unmarried. Income is also important, but Easterlin’s (1974) paradox applies: the rich are much happier than the poor at any moment, but income growth doesn’t matter. Education and racial differences are also consequential, though the black-white gap has narrowed substantially. Geographic, gender and age differences have been relatively unimportant, though old-age unhappiness may be emerging. Conservatives are distinctly happier than liberals as are people who trust others or the Federal government. All above differences survive control for other differences.
Were COVID and the Great Recession Well-being Reducing?
David Blanchflower & Alex Bryson
NBER Working Paper, July 2023
Abstract:
We show individuals’ reports of subjective well being in Europe did decline in the Great Recession and during the Covid pandemic on most measures and on four bordering countries to Ukraine after the Russian invasion in 2022. However, the movements are not large and are not apparent everywhere. We also used data from the European Commission's Business and Consumer Surveys on people’s expectations of life in general, their financial situation and the economic and employment situation in the country, all of which dropped markedly in the Great Recession and during Covid, but bounced back quickly, as did firms’ expectations of the economy and the labor market. Neither the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI) nor data used in the World Happiness Report from the Gallup World Poll shifted much in response to negative shocks. The HDI has been rising in the last decade or so reflecting overall improvements in economic and social wellbeing, captured in part by real earnings growth, although it fell slightly after 2020 as life expectancy dipped. This secular improvement is mirrored in life satisfaction which has been rising in the last decade. However, so too have negative affect in Europe and despair in the USA.
Mental Health Effects of Income over the Adult Life Course
Tamkinat Rauf
Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, July 2023
Abstract:
While a gradient between income and depression is well documented, associational estimates are subject to bias due to measurement errors, reverse causation, and other sources of confounding. Causal studies are few and report small and divergent estimates, even in their direction. But prior research has important limitations for causal inference, such as relying on comparisons between individuals sensitive to each other’s relative income or capturing only a subset of pathways through which income affects well-being. This study leverages longitudinal and genomic data to assess how much some known biases affect the income-depression gradient and to what extent the gradient might be reflective of a causal effect. Findings from three U.S. samples -- representing early midlife, late midlife, and older adulthood -- are suggestive of a beneficial effect of income on mental health, especially in late midlife and beyond. The results have implications for interpreting the nature of socioeconomic disparities in mental health.
Nostalgia Counteracts Social Anxiety and Enhances Interpersonal Competence
Yuwan Dai et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Socially anxious individuals struggle with establishing and maintaining social relationships. We hypothesized that, when socially anxious, people often turn to nostalgia, which alleviates the interpersonal competence deficits that accompany social anxiety. We tested and supported this hypothesis in six studies (N = 1,858), three preregistered. In cross-sectional Study 1, higher (compared with lower) social anxiety individuals more frequently identified interpersonal incompetence as a trigger of nostalgia. In cross-sectional Study 2, social anxiety was associated negatively with interpersonal competence, but positively with nostalgia, which in turn predicted higher interpersonal competence. In the final four studies, we tested causation. Although social anxiety reduced interpersonal competence, it also triggered nostalgia (Studies 3–3S), and nostalgia increased interpersonal competence (Studies 4–5).
I am what I am: The role of essentialist beliefs and neurodivergent identification on individuals’ self-efficacy
Alexa Lebrón-Cruz & Ariana Orvell
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
Essentialism is the belief that members of particular categories (e.g., social and cultural) are united by an innate underlying essence. While such beliefs have been associated with negative outcomes such as stereotyping, discrimination, and prejudice, minority group members can sometimes use essentialist beliefs to validate their identities. Here, we focus on people who identify as “neurodivergent” -- individuals whose brains differ from typical neurology (such as those with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, etc.). We examined whether endorsing essentialist beliefs about neurodivergence serves a protective function among 316 neurodivergent-identifying individuals. As expected, endorsing essentialist beliefs was related to higher self-efficacy. This was especially true of people who highly identified as neurodivergent. These results illuminate how essentialist beliefs may empower a group that is often negatively stereotyped.
Can you smell my stress? Influence of stress chemosignals on empathy and emotion recognition in depressed individuals and healthy controls
Annkatrin Wunder et al.
Physiology & Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Human body odors contain chemical signals that play a key role in our non-verbal communication regarding health, genetic identity, immune system, fitness, and emotional state. Studies on human chemosignaling in individuals with psychiatric diseases are scarce but indicate altered smell perception and emotion recognition in depressed individuals. In the present project, we aimed to investigate the influence of chemosensory substances in social stress sweat on emotion recognition, perspective taking, affective responsiveness as well as stress level in healthy and depressed individuals. Therefore, chemosensory stimuli (sweat samples from Trier social stress test (TSST) and friendly-TSST (fTSST)) were obtained from 39 healthy participants (19 females). In a next step, chemosensory stimuli and an odor-free blank (cotton pad) were used to stimulate another group of 40 healthy participants (20 females) and 37 individuals with depression (24 females). Those stimuli were examined regarding their influence on subjective feelings of stress, emotion perception and empathic reactions using an empathy test. Furthermore, physiological data (breathing, heart rate, skin conductance response, stress hormones) of the participants were collected during chemosensory stimulation. Depressed individuals improved their ability of perspective taking and affective responsiveness for the emotion grief when presented with stress chemosignals compared to no chemosignals. Healthy individuals remained unaffected regarding perspective taking and affective responsiveness. Both depressed and healthy individuals showed no increased stress hormone cortisol and α-amylase values during the social stress chemosignals condition, but reduced values for fTSST condition compared to no chemosignals respectively. The results imply that stress chemosignals do not trigger a stress reaction, but for depressed individuals they lead to a better emotion assessment for grief.