Dimensions of Subjective Well-Being: Aging, Religiosity, and Adaptation

主观幸福感的维度：老龄化、宗教信仰和适应

基本信息

批准号：
8323242
负责人：
ANGUS S. DEATON
金额：
$ 20.38万
依托单位：
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
2011
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2011-09-01 至 2016-06-30
项目状态：
已结题

项目摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The project will study the use of self-reports as measures of well-being, with a view to advancing the measurement of subjective well-being (SWB) and to advancing the understanding of whether and how such measures can and should be used in policy. Our analysis rests on the distinction between different concepts of "happiness." One concept relates to hedonic well-being, the continuous flow of feelings that is experienced on a moment to moment basis. The other is an overall view of how life is going, which comes from a considered judgment. Accumulating evidence suggests that these two concepts capture different aspects of human well- being, and that they respond differently to different circumstances. The project will explore this distinction using large new data sets for the United States and for more than 150 countries around the world. It will look at how the different measures of self-reported well-being are related to life circumstances, with a particular focus on age. There are several hypotheses in economics and psychology about how SWB should change over the life- cycle, and these will organize our investigations. Another major line of investigation is the role of religiosity in well-being; the research will seek to better understand the determinants of religiosity-why people become more religious as they age, why women are more religious than men-as well as the benefits or costs of religion and whether they are or are not universal around the world. The final topic is the extent to which subjective well-being is relative so that, for example, whether well-being depends on a person's own income, or instead on income relative to the income of others. One hypothesis is that the well-known phenomenon of adaptation can often be mistaken for relativity, and that this has important consequences for thinking about economic policy for the elderly, including such issues as the taxation of social security benefits or incentives for postponing retirement. An overarching theme of the work is to understand whether self-reports of well-being can be defended as guides to policy, or whether the criticisms of them by some philosophers and economists are sufficient to rule them out. A better understanding of adaptation is also a key for this last endeavor.

描述（由申请人提供）：该项目将研究使用自我报告作为福祉的衡量标准，以期推进主观幸福感（SWB）的测量，并促进对是否以及如何进行此类衡量的理解可以并且应该在政策中使用。我们的分析取决于“幸福”不同概念之间的区别。一个概念与享乐主义福祉有关，这是瞬间经历的连续感情。另一个是关于生活的总体看法，这是由考虑的判断带来的。积累的证据表明，这两个概念捕获了人类福祉的不同方面，并且它们对不同情况的反应不同。该项目将使用美国和全球150多个国家的大型新数据集探索这种区别。它将研究自我报告的福祉的不同度量与生活环境有关，并特别关注年龄。关于SWB在生命周期中应该如何改变的经济学和心理学有几种假设，这些假设将组织我们的调查。另一个主要调查是宗教在幸福中的作用。这项研究将寻求更好地理解宗教信仰的决定因素 - 为什么人们随着年龄的增长而变得更加宗教，为什么妇女比男人更加宗教 - 以及宗教的利益或成本以及她们是否在世界各地不普遍。最后的话题是主观幸福感是相对的程度，例如，幸福感取决于一个人自己的收入，还是相对于他人收入的收入。一个假设是，众所周知的适应现象通常可能被误认为是相对论，这对于对老年人的经济政策有重要影响，包括税收社会保障福利或推迟退休的激励措施等问题。这项工作的总体主题是了解幸福感的自我报告是否可以作为政策指南，或者某些哲学家和经济学家对他们的批评是否足以排除它们。更好地理解适应也是这项最后一项努力的关键。