Bliss artists: can we measure happiness?
Do you think that happiness can be measured? Is happiness the same for everybody? Do happy
people live in a happy world, as the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein suggested? Do we laugh
because we are happy or are we happy because we laugh? Happiness is hard to quantify and hard to
qualify.
Professor Jennifer Aaker of Stanford University is trying to do so however. According to Fastcompany
magazine she has worked with companies including Facebook and Adobe to try to help them “figure
out how to use productivity and woo customers”. Aaker asked her students to take at least one
smart phone photo every day for 30 days of a happy moment in their lives. Then she asked them to
rate each moment on a scale of one to ten.
Based on this research she says that people like the anticipation of a pleasurable event as much as
finishing an onerous duty, and that a meaningful event can make people happier than a time of pure
pleasure. She also reports generational differences, with younger people reportedly being happiest
when excited and older people being happiest when peaceful.
That’s where Coca Cola’s “happiness machine” comes in. A 2010 viral sensation on YouTube, it
showed how a series of utterly random, bizarre and unexpected events made a group of students
very excited and happy. Coca Cola set up two fake Coca Cola machines in two university cafeterias
and started dispensing free bottles of Coca Cola, bouquets of flowers and even boxes of pizzas. The
students did not know this was going to happen and an atmosphere of great excitement set in once
people knew more and more unusual gifts were going to be given out. Coca Cola did the same in
Brazil and the Philippines, with footballs and even a surf board being handed out from a large truck.
But does that mean that happiness can be measured and identified for all? Can businesses identify
‘happiness triggers’ and market these to consumers and can employers provide happiness targets to
workers? Let’s say that two fictional academics got together to discuss this. See what they had to say
and what it says about whether you really can have a Coke and a smile.
Happiness: is Coke it?
Hannaa Bergström and Mika Holkerii were attending an international conference in Stockholm. Both
were key-note speakers; she from one of Stockholm’s prestigious research institutes and he from his
university in Finland. Their talks had been on the nature of happiness. Professor Bergstrom had
given her talk from a neuroscientific perspective and had emphasised the structural nature of
happiness, related to genetic heritage and then based on how well we live and eat. On the other
hand Professor Holkerii had talked about how interacting socially was most important in generating
happiness, with DNA and the brain only being so important. After some fine Swedish beer at the
conference dinner they continued the debate that had brewed all evening. Hannaa Bergström
began.
“You know, Mika, you can only take talk so far. There are too many indefinables in your argument.
Things have to be tangible and measurable, even happiness. I can do an MRI scan on someone and I
can see that the structure of their brain changes when they’re in love, a type of happiness.
“But saying you can measure happiness? I don’t see how you can pin down the idea of happiness.
How do you define such an enormous idea? And then how can you measure it if it’s so non specific?
You quoted Professor Aaker as she used an interesting quantitative method but it was very
subjective. Don’t we all have happy moments every day? Does that mean that because her students
were able to identify happy moments that they were happy? What if there were more unhappy
moments than happy moments? It’s all too fuzzy for my liking I’m afraid. Give me science any time. I
prefer rigorously defined research questions and findings that can be generalised, not just studying a
small number of subjective opinions.”
Mika Holkerii thought for a moment before he responded. “I see why you would think that Hannaa.
Neuroscience deals with things you can examine and measure and feel. If something goes wrong
there’s often a physical reason for it. But not all behaviours have a specific physical root. We can’t
locate the basis for everything we do in some part of the human genome. Without those building
blocks we’d be nowhere, I agree, but it’s really only a starting point. It doesn’t tell us anything about
what someone is going to do in their life. What about the unquantifiable, ineffable life influences
from the very beginning?
“Strategic marketing is the very opposite to your field Hannaa. We have to ask people about feelings
and behaviours which are very hard to pin down but we do it as rigorously as with the scientific
method. Coke did this experiment where they gave students free gifts from what looked like an
ordinary Coke drinks machine; things like pizzas and flowers, completely unexpected. The people
were delighted and it went viral on YouTube. How do you explain that?”
“Have a Coke and a smile I suppose,” Hannaa Bergstrom said as she laughed at her own mention of
Coke’s famous jingle. “Happiness is more than a posed stunt that goes viral on YouTube. I can show
you parts of the brain which light up when people are happy, and not just from getting free pizza
and flowers. There has to be something observable, something quantifiable, even with consumer
research. What you talk about can’t be measured, or if people tried there were probably loads of
different researchers with different results. The way my colleagues and I do it we can arrive at
generalisable findings but with yours there are a lot of very subjective findings Mika.”
“Perhaps Hannaa, but to quote another Coke tag line, ‘Coke is it’, and that’s why I can study
happiness and consumer behaviour the way I do. You could say that people are happy to drink Coke
because they’re thirsty but the brand and how it’s consumed also satisfies more social needs and
wants. In certain parts of the world Coke is a status symbol. The status nature of this product is a
social construct. It isn’t tangible but is very real nevertheless. I think that certain phenomena are
best quantified and measured so that they can be applied universally. In economics the law of
diminishing marginal utility shows how the first Coke you drink is the most enjoyable and that
decreases bit by bit until you’re probably sick of them after drinking twenty, if you get that far. But
there’s still a role for research into those things we can’t articulate but which matter to us, like
happiness.”
“Let’s agree to differ, Mika. All this talk of Coke is making me thirsty. Skål!” she said as she toasted
him with some Pripps Blå beer and brought their debate to an end.
Student Questions
1. What philosophical position does Hannaa Bergström represent?
Positivist
2. What philosophical position does Mika Holkerii represent?
Interpretivist, or better, Constructivist
3. How do different philosophical positions affect what research methodologies we use?
Positivist  Quantitative methods; Interpretivist  Qualitative methods; Realist  both
4. Do you think that truths are there to be discovered or are they there to be created? In other
words, is something good irrespective of what people think about it or is it good because people
think it is good?
Truth can be both discovered and created. Positivist discover truth (exercise is good for me);
Interpretivist creates truth (put money in bank before CNY is good for you; buy iPhone/diamond
ring/Rolex watch happy)
5. Can happiness be studied and can it be used to market goods and services to consumers?
Yes, it can be studied. But Positivist and Interpretivist study it differently.