On a scale of 0 to 10, I’d say my happiness ranks at about a 6. I’d guess my wife’s is at least a 9. I try not to envy her natural Spanish alegría, but sometimes it’s hard.
Still, I’m glad to know I’m a 6, because, as a famous management maxim puts it, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” This is generally used in reference to business operations, but as a social scientist, I can assure you that it works for life operations as well. If you want to improve an aspect of your life, you need to be able to assess progress toward your goal—and that means measuring it.
The goal of this column is to help you manage and improve your happiness. No surprise, then, that I make frequent reference to studies and surveys that measure happiness. A number of people have asked me whether quantitative happiness measures are really accurate and reliable—and it’s a reasonable question. So let’s take a look behind the curtain. But not just for intellectual curiosity; as you will see, understanding the measurement of happiness can itself make you better at improving your own well-being—and avoid some critical errors.
The best method scientists have to understand with confidence how something affects something else is a randomized, controlled trial. Think of the tests currently under way to find a vaccine for COVID-19. They take a long time because the drug companies with trial vaccines are conducting experiments that randomly assign people to a treatment group (they get the vaccine) and control group (they get a placebo), and then waiting to see if the drug is effective and safe b ..
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