I’m a psychologist and I’m currently collecting results from a study trying to ascertain the behavioral and cognitive correlates of happiness. In layman’s terms it measures stuff like mindfulness, sex, personality, social relationships, self-esteem, neuroticism etc…
However, before I can publish these results I need more data! Here is where you guys come in, I need you outdoor types to take my survey. It takes about 25 minutes, you don’t have to finish it right away as long as you don’t hit the X button and close the tab. Do it at your leisure if you want.
From all accounts the survey is pretty fun to take…
As a bonus, and incentive to take the survey one in ten people who take it will win a $25 gift card to amazon, ticketmaster or something else of your choosing.
P.S there are built in B.S detectors, so if you just breeze through the questions willy-nilly your data will automatically be thrown out, so don’t waste your time unless you want to give an honest answer for science.
Kind of an odd statement. What, if anything, is your base of comparison? Are you just attempting to draw a parallel between a majority opinion as to what constitutes happiness and a particular philosophical theory? Are “right” and “conventional” synonymous?
If you read the first page of the survey, it would tell you all the information, including how this survey is funded, who the principle investigator is (me) and everything else you want to know…etc
and universities also offer rewards for doing experiments all the time. In the case of students it is usually class credit, but for the general population it is the norm for them to be reciprocated for their time and effort.
No, I measure it scientifically and mathematically.
‘happiness’ (kind of an outdated word in my opinion, I prefer hedonism) is the ratio of the amount, duration and intensity of positive feelings,sensations,emotions / the amount of,duration and intensity of negative feelings,sensations and emotions
Hedonism is a school of philosophy. When it’s not a school of philosophy, it’s a description of a lifestyle. It’s not a synonym for happiness - they mean comepletey different things.
Wellbeing is the term currently favoured, I believe, at least in Utilitarianism (where the concept of ‘happiness’ is evidently important).
Subjective Well-Being is measured in two ways. 1-is a hedonistic measure…positive affect vs negative affect. 2. By asking people how satisfied they are with their lives.
I don’t care much for the latter, and neither does nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman due to people problems with memory, what is it that people think about when they are asked if they are satisfied with their lives, the vagueness of what that really mean…etc…
This may come as a surprise to you…but philosophers don’t have a patent on the word hedonism.
Neither do pyscologists. Nor linguists nor anyone else. It’s about how the word is formed and how the word is used. It simply isn’t a synonym for happiness.
I feel happiness.
I can not feel hedonism.
‘Hedonism’ is not a subjective feeling. It is a principle, or a lifestyle choice, or a school of philisophical thought. But ‘happiness’ is a feeling.
Moreover - this isn’t likely to change - as the word’s suffix (‘ism’) belongs to a group of words that are about principles, not feelings. I do not ‘feel’ post-modernism, or racism, or any other other ~ism word. I believe in them, I follow them, I refute them or I don’t know about them, but I never feel them.
'Hedonism is the ratio of the amount, duration and intensity of positive feelings,sensations,emotions / the amount of,duration and intensity of negative feelings,sensations and emotions
This sentence consequently makes no sense, as the definition of ‘hedonism’ you have given is at odds with the both the essential meaning of the word and its syntactic form.
Indeed. Apologies for the suspicion; the combination of a non-academic web address, financial reward and your eyecatching username didn’t scream ‘genuine’
One thing however - when compiling the data, don’t you have to quietly add “According to statistics based on people who read english, have access to a computer, and are inclined to take psychological tests we find that…”
of course he does. Any good study always includes an analysis of the methodology and a description of it’s limitations. I never trust any research paper that doesn’t include this. Sadly, too few willingly critque their own work.
No one said you can FEEL hedonism. You made that one up all on your own.
Hedonic psychology…is the study of what makes experiences and life pleasant or unpleasant. It is concerned with feelings of pleasure and pain, of interest and boredom, of joy and sorrow, and of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. It is also concerned with the whole range of circumstances, from the biological to the societal, that occasion suffering and enjoyment." (Kahneman, Diener & Schwarz, 1999, p. ix)
