Freedom vs happiness

Does freedom make us happy? Two things I've seen today suggest not. First, a cross-country study of the link between economic freedom and well-being concludes:

Economic freedom is significantly negatively related to life satisfaction if controlled for the influence of income per capita, unemployment, social trust, life expectancy and aging.

Of course, controlling for income is a big control. The raw correlation between freedom and happiness is positive. The message is that economic freedom make us happy insofar as it makes us rich, but it has no intrinsic value for well-being.

Yah boo sucks to neoliberalism, you might think. If you do, my second reading might discomfort you. This paper says:

Women’s happiness seems to fall – at least in the short-term - when there are changes/improvements in gender rights.

This corroborates work by Sabrina Vieira-Lima.

All this is consistent with Sheena Iyengar's theory of choice overload - the idea that freedom can reduce our happiness because it increases our regret at options not taken. She's written(pdf):

Choosers in extensive-choice contexts enjoy the choice-making process more—presumably because of the opportunities it affords—but also feel more responsible for the choices they make, resulting in frustration with the choice-making process and dissatisfaction with their choices.

I don't write this to deprecate the value of freedom. None of this research undermines the possibility that freedom is an intrinsic good, worth having regardless of its impact upon happiness. Instead, the point is simply Isaiah Berlin's - that there are unavoidable conflicts between basic human values.

Comments

[Jimmy Hill]

I completely agree with your last paragraph.

As with all happiness research my first thought is always isn't this just utilitarianism dressed up in new clothes?

Theres more to life than being happy...

[Will Davies]

Durkheim recognised something along these lines in Suicide (1897). Studying statistics on suicide rates across Europe, he found that it was higher amongst protestants than catholics, and increased during periods of *both* unusually rapid industrialisation and recession. Hence, capitalism's influence on suicide levels did not only derive from the emiseration of the poor, but from the upheaval it created, both upwards and downwards. Wellbeing studies appear to confirm aspects of this, by showing that human happiness can be at best temporarily lifted by a sudden increase in wealth, but permanently damaged by major upheavals to one's life, be they 'good' (winning the lottery) or 'bad' (losing one's job). So, yes, people seem to prefer predictability over uncertainty.

[LordSidcup]

Too true.
I have long been a miserable bastard and I delight in it.

[Biowrite.wordpress.com]

Completely agree re "choice", but it's a matter of trivial choices squeezing out the opportunity to make more meaningful choices about one's life. See http://tiny.cc/notconsumer .

[Sean]

I think the missing point is that even in a free society you still have to choose to be free, and in a lot of situations freedom is a luxury, therefore its cost can be high.

As for Happiness, ive never been in anyway content with the whole idea.

[Bialik]

I don't think freedom is overrated, but too often there's nobody to see you enjoy it, which spoils the experience.

[Metatone]

Maybe there is devil in the detail - that detail being "in the short term" regarding women's happiness?

We know from more extreme events that freed slaves have exhibited euphoria at their freedom, followed by unhappiness as they try to integrate into a society that is only just coming to terms with their new status...

It seems to fit the data that something similar may be at work here. Not to mention of course that you need to take overall happiness levels into account, which the paper does a bit imperfectly perhaps.

[Frank Upton]

If they 'control' for all those other factors, they are not sctually doing research but producing a foregone conclusion in order to support their pre-judgement of the matter. You can get any result you want if you select enough factors to control for. More strictly, there is a logical fallacy in that economic freedom may make people richer, live longer etc. on average and to filter these effects out is to create a false result. I don't see how one could love economic freedom independently of the effects of economic freedom.

[leather bed]

We perceptive from added acute contest that freed disciplinarian accept apparent bliss at their freedom, followed by dejection as they try to accommodate into a association that is alone just advancing to agreement with their new status.