Learning about hedonistic versus eudemonic happiness in
lecture makes us think that there’s an obvious choice: eudemonic
happiness is the way to go! It’s longer lasting and will bring you more
happiness in the end. It becomes almost too easy to mentally condemn those who
focus on hedonistic happiness.
Before I get too far into this – I want to point out: I do
agree that we need to shift societal values towards eudemonic paths and
that addressing environmental problems (shifting behavior towards more local
living/pro-environmental behavior) is a way that we can achieve that goal. But
I wanted to address the thing that’s been itching at the back of my mind: there
are very valid reasons why someone might not be able to pursue many eudemonic
paths.
The fact is, we’re not in that society that fosters
eudemonic happiness very well yet. For those people who can afford to invest –
time, money, or mental effort – into those paths, it could boil down to that
simple choice of eudemonic vs hedonistic. But for many, there isn’t really a
choice as it is today. And unfortunately, those are usually the people
who can’t afford to look past today.
The kicker is that it’s probably these people who have
learned to greatly cherish any time they have with their family or loved ones –
to figure out what they really enjoy because they don’t get to enjoy
much. It’s probably these people that, if their financial situation were to get
better, would end up pursuing eudemonic paths to happiness. But without that
comfort and wiggle room, can we blame someone for wanting to default to the
path that’s a bit easier how it is today?
I believe we’re at a chicken and the egg sort of impasse:
how do we promote pro-environmental and eudemonic interventions in our current
society? However, without more support and people adopting these behaviors due
to limits from our current society, how do we get our society to change?
What are good tactics you’ve come across to help address
these issues?
Hey Kaitlyn! I think you raise a really important concern here, although it makes me think about whether we can consider eudaimonic well-being as something higher on the proverbial "hierarchy of needs pyramid" for individuals. Perhaps it is an issue of framing. There are certainly many people who are struggling to make ends meet or feel they do not have the time to invest in activities outside of their routines at work and at home. Yet I also believe that there are ways to find meaning within the work that you do, without taking on anything additional. As you've mentioned, many people of these individuals wish they could spend more time with their families, so maybe that is where they are benefitting. For example, being a good parent or providing for oneself through cooking healthy meals or keeping a steady job are great opportunities for pursuing eudaemonic well-being. These help to solidify relationships, build self-efficacy and competence, and enable people to feel needed. Additionally, these examples are not things that people need to necessarily devote extra time to achieve - instead, it may require people to reframe or be reflective about what drives how they spend their time. I don't mean to trivialize the struggle of someone who is living paycheck to paycheck, unemployed, or working multiple jobs to provide for oneself and a family. I just think there is always room for gratitude, being present, and giving to others in whatever way you can. In this way, I would argue that eudaimonic well-being does not exist only for the wealthy or the privileged (sometimes it's even the opposite because they have the resources to pursue more hedonic pleasure activities!). People without the same financial privilege may actually be participating more actively in their own lives and contribute to different forms of skill-building. That's part of what makes eudaimonic well-being such a powerful concept to me is that is feels universal and non-discriminatory. Surely there are extreme cases, where people are not able to create any sort of stability or safety such as refugees who are fleeing a war-torn country. Yet we could also argue that it is the internal motivation for a better life somewhere, the seeking of well-being, that helps drive them towards a new home.
ReplyDeleteHi Katie!
DeleteI completely agree and get what you're saying. I definitely didn't mean to imply that underprivileged people couldn't achieve eudaimonic well-being, because like you said - I think they might be more likely to achieve it!
I guess what I was really trying to get at was if we're promoting green living and interventions as a tool to get to eudaimonic happiness, there are barriers to that that I didn't think we got to address in class. I also wanted to delve into the idea of thinking about why someone might pursue hedonistic well-being over eudaimonic well-being in a way that doesn't blame the person for choosing to do so.
Like the idea that you might have to invest a little to get something better out the other side (like a poor community trying to self-fund something like a community garden). It might seem obvious that it would increase the well-being of the community, but for those who need every bit of their paycheck to pay the bills, can we fault them for wanting to spend maybe the extra $20 they have every couple months to go to the movies, instead of putting money towards a thing they may not see for a year (or longer)? "Investing in yourself" isn't something that everyone has the opportunity to do.
While I missed Erin at office hours today, I had an interesting conversation with one of the other course GSIs, Lauren. One of the things we talked about is the scope of this course. As you note, Kaitlyn, there are many factors that influence behavior, and some, such as income and familial responsibilities, are both outside of the realm of outside psychology and are relatively difficult to change. Others, like nine factors in our “pallet of behavior change tools,” are more accessible to us if challenging to change. This is where the “art” of behavior change comes in. As “artists” of change, we can work within the constraints that we can’t control and find ways to encourage target behavior. Is there a way to show someone who prioritizes “time” that taking a bus and knitting for the journey can be more enjoyable than listening to the radio during a car ride home? Can a health buff eat locally-grown kale chips and apples instead of imported seaweed and pineapple? Can using a reusable container actually make eating snacks on the go easier? These examples are both specific and small changes, but are meant to illustrate that by shifting behaviors and changing values can occur while working with individual or specific limitations.
DeleteOn a separate note, we’ve discussed how people are generally more receptive to new information or behaviors when they are in a well-rested, content, and have enough “attention” available. The first step in a potential intervention strategy could be identifying people who seem close to this state, or helping people generally move toward this state. While this won’t shrink barriers such as financial limits, this could help reduce mental strain and non-enjoyable time, addressing a few of your concerns.
Hi Kaitlyn, I really appreciate that you brought this topic up in your post because the "gentrification" of sustainability/environmental quality has been on my mind a lot lately as well. I completely agree with you that we need to avoid condemning those who pursue a more hedonistic lifestyle, and expecting them to live up to some universal standard of "living well", when their life circumstances may not realistically allow that standard at all. But I think there's a tough question of: what standard of living is "high enough" to warrant expecting them to be more eudaimonic? Even people who are living well above the poverty line will say they can't afford to spare money for environmental investments, or that they can't spare time for community-building projects. What's the "threshold" at which we think they *should* start being able to adopt a more eudaimonic focus?
ReplyDeleteI think this same question relates to the articles on prospection/future orientation that we read, which I found really interesting. It's great that promoting a future orientation can increase proenvironnmentalism (Carmi & Anon, 2014). But again, I think just advocating for a future orientation is not a universal solution, because looking to history and the past is valid and absolutely necessary in some cases. We're seeing a vivid example of this play out with the Dakota Access Pipeline. It's not just an environmental issue but (even more importantly) an issue about the sovereign rights of Native American nations who have suffered such a horrific history of abuse and rights violations at the hands of the U.S. Looking to the past is important here. But looking to the future of our planet is important too. What's the point at which we switch our focus from past wrongs to trying to move forward together with a future-focused orientation?
I know I've just posed a lot of questions and not answered any (sorry!), but at the same time, I'm starting to think that maybe it's okay for solutions to *start* with just asking questions to expose the relevant issues. One of the things that's stuck with me from lecture is what Ray said about how none of the behavioral change strategies he'll present are sufficient or even necessary on their own, but that in combination they can affect change. (I'm interested to see how that idea develops as we learn more models of behavior and strategies throughout the course!) So, clearly, there are LOTS of variables we need to keep in mind to affect change, and also different strategies for different target audiences. It's encouraging to me that more and more people seem to be becoming aware of the many different issues at play (e.g., the importance of history in how the U.S. has dealt with certain minority groups, or how environmental justice intersects with the proenvironmental movement). Maybe using a past-oriented strategy will work BETTER for SOME people. Maybe strategies like addressing food deserts in underprivileged communities will work better (and allow them to buy more environmentally friendly products, like perhaps locally grown food) for those communities, as opposed to expecting them to find extra money to spend on environmental projects.
It sounds more overwhelming to have to potentially have to develop such a varied mosaic of strategies, but Donella Meadows' piece was the most positive thing I have read about achieving change in the last few months, so I'll try to draw some inspiration from that to end my response...maybe if we have a vision of that mosaic, it is a small piece in getting us started toward achieving it.