Ruut Veenhoven
Published in: Social Indicators Research 24, 1991, pp. 1-34
ABSTRACT
The theory that happiness is relative is based on three postulates: (1) happiness results
from comparison. (2) standards of comparison adjust, (3) standards of comparison are
arbitrary constructs. On the basis of these postulates the theory predicts: (a) happiness
does not depend on real quality of life, (b) changes in living-conditions to the good or
the bad have only a short-lived effect on happiness, (c) people are happier after hard
times, (d) people are typically neutral about their life. Together these inferences imply
that happiness is both an evasive and an inconsequential matter, which is at odds with
corebeliefs in present-day welfare society.
Recent investigations on happiness (in the sense of life-satisfaction)
claim support for this old theory. Happiness is reported to be as high in poor countries
as it is in rich countries (Easterlin), no less among paralyzed accident victims than it
is among lottery winners (Brickman) and unrelated to stable livingconditions (Inglehart
and Rabier). These sensational claims are inspected but found to be untrue. It is shown
that: (a) people tend to be unhappy under adverse conditions such as poverty, war and
isolation, (b) improvement or deterioration of at least some conditions does effect
happiness lastingly, (c) earlier hardship does not favour later happiness, (d) people are
typically positive about their life rather than neutral.
It is argued that the theory happiness-is-relative mixes up
‘overall happiness’ with ‘contentment’. Contentment is indeed largely
a matter of comparing life-as-it-is to standards of how-life-should-be. Yet overall
happiness does not entirely depend on comparison. The overall evaluation of life depends
also on how one feels affectively and hedonic level of affect draws on its turn on the
gratification of basic bio-psychological needs. Contrary to acquired ‘standards’
of comparison these innate ‘needs’ do not adjust to any and all conditions: they
mark in fact the limits of human adaptability. To the extend that it depends on
need-gratification, happiness is not relative.