DP: Happiness for Development or Development for Happiness
In one of my first classes at EOI I was introduced to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It is appealing to assume that once one satisfies lower level basic needs she/he progresses to meet higher level growth needs and, once those needs are also satisfied, one may approach the highest level called self-actualization. On the other hand, one can became depressed about this idea finding out that less than 1% of the population is expected to achieve self-actualization. Moreover, how long would one take to reach the top of the ‘pyramid to happiness’?
In my search for answers I discovered a lot of criticisms of Maslow’s methods, but it was Ed Diener who interested me the most. He helped designing a survey on well-being with 60,865 participants from 123 countries, and published (together with Louis Tay) an inspiring study relating positive and negative emotions to various needs, including food, shelter, money, safety, respect, social relations and autonomy. According to him ‘Although the most basic needs might get the most attention when you don’t have them, you don’t need to fulfill them in order to get benefits from the others. Even when we are hungry, for instance, we can be happy with our friends.’
The results of Diener’s survey reminded me of Robert Chambers’ article Poverty and livelihoods: whose reality counts? and the outcomes from Participatory Rural Appraisals in a Pakistan village. Both strongly connect interpersonal need satisfaction (time at home, friendship, love and respect, for instance) to everyday satisfaction, well-being and happiness. As a consequence, both question development policies based on monetary measures.
There have been many discussions around this subject and apparently happiness and well-being have finally joined the development agenda. In a recent meeting called “Happiness and Well-being: Defining a New Economic Paradigm” Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General, stated: ‘We need a new economic paradigm that recognizes the parity between the three pillars of sustainable development. Social, economic and environmental well-being are indivisible. Together they define gross global happiness.’
It looks promising but still far from the necessary. The Earth cannot support our current development standards, so in fact we need a new value paradigm. Instead of just making happiness a prerequisite for sustainable development, shouldn’t we be thinking of making sustainable development a prerequisite for global happiness? Consequently, as an alternative to classifying countries into developed/developing/least developed shouldn’t we classify them into happy/not-so-happy/least happy?
I will be happy to keep you posted on the development of this subject. 
Comments Off on DP: Happiness for Development or Development for Happiness /
30 Nov 2012
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Andrea Mara Hanai
IMSD /
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