# data[].attributes.body
I chose this image as it depicts a sign of the times. When people started to panic buy necessities emptying shelves during the coronavirus crisis, it sparked fear globally. The thought of basic supplies such as food being inaccessible suggested a dystopian end of world scenario.

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I chose a picture of a wild fire as I feel it encapsulates the extent of global warming. Wildfires to this degree have never been seen before. It feels like events like these are earths way of showing humanity just how close we are to disaster. Wild fires look like biblical depictions of hell on earth. If anything signals the end of times it would be this.

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I chose this image as it wraps the pandemic, racism and crisis all in one. It shows a protester holding a sign which quotes 'racism is a virus'. Its a simple but relevant statement which highlights that racism plagues humanity just as coronavirus does if not worse and is an epidemic that has lasted hundreds of years. Racism is just like a virus. It's a disease to society which claims many victims, mirroring the infamous coronavirus death toll amidst times where people of colour die through no fault of their own.

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After speaking with my lecturer, I decided to narrow my focus down to advertising (my course) and the pandemic. Karel discussed with me that although my findings of 'change, divide and death being the main causes of a crisis' was a really good concept, it would be too broad and difficult to fit into a 2000 word essay.

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Advertising in the Pandemic: Facilitating or Fear Mongering?

Has Advertising helped(informed/reminded) people in the pandemic or added to their suffering (anxiety/panic)?

Advertising the Pandemic: Fiction or fact?

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Is the Advertising Industry unfairly Capitalising on the Pandemic?

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Is the Advertising Industry unfairly Capitalising on the Pandemic?

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https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/coronavirus-advertising-marketing-covid19-pandemic-business/

https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2020/04/the-impact-of-covid19-on-your-advertising-and-marketing-campaigns

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The coronavirus pandemic has led to an immediate drop in advertising spending. Image: REUTERS/Toby Melville

Head, Shaping the Future of Media, Entertainment & Sport; Member of the ExCom, World Economic Forum

Project Lead, Media, Entertainment and Sport, World Economic Forum Geneva

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This is how COVID-19 is affecting the advertising industry

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The coronavirus pandemic has led to an immediate drop in advertising spending. Image: REUTERS/Toby Melville Head, Shaping the Future of Media, Entertainment & Sport; Member of the ExCom, World Economic Forum Project Lead, Media, Entertainment and Sport, World Economic Forum Geneva Stay up to date: Future of Media, Entertainment and Sport Follow Advertising spend is falling in key markets across most channels.

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The harm of fear mongering during the pandemic is coming to light, people have died from avoiding hospital appointments when they needed urgent care.

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The harm of fear mongering during the pandemic is coming to light, people have died from avoiding hospital appointments when they needed urgent care.

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consumerism really is matter of life and death: keeps the world spinning, sustains peoples lifestyle and income yet takes lives in poverty an sweat shops. Does consumerism build us or destroy us?

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consumerism really is matter of life and death: keeps the world spinning, sustains peoples lifestyle and income yet takes lives in poverty an sweat shops. Does consumerism build us or destroy us?

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Global consumer views on brand communication during coronavirus outbreak 2020 | Statista

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During the time of the coronavirus pandemic, global consumer sentiment towards brand communication seems rather positive, with 65 percent saying that hearing form brands about their response to the situation is comforting and reassuring.

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What is Advertising Propaganda? Propagandists have specified goals, to achieve that goal they present their facts, opinion, and arguments in the most effective way among the targeted group. Propaganda in advertising is the way to attract customers towards a product and change their views about other's products.

# data[].attributes.subject
What is Advertising Propaganda? Propagandists have specified goals, to achieve that goal they present their facts, opinion, and arguments in the most effective way among the targeted group. Propaganda in advertising is the way to attract customers towards a product and change their views about other's products.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjFoM2S4pj2AhXbgVwKHY9VAPEQFnoECBsQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.incrementors.com%2Fblog%2Ftypes-of-propaganda-used-in-advertising%2F&usg=AOvVaw1iUzWpqnp7XWZJlUTxGuPW

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Over the course of the 20th Century, capitalism moulded the ordinary person into a consumer. Kerryn Higgs traces the historical roots of the world's unquenchable thirst for more stuff.

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Over the course of the 20th Century, capitalism moulded the ordinary person into a consumer. Kerryn Higgs traces the historical roots of the world's unquenchable thirst for more stuff.

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https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210120-how-the-world-became-consumerist

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Consumerism was essentially an invention of capitalism (Credit: Getty Images)

Over the course of the 20th Century, capitalism moulded the ordinary person into a consumer. Kerryn Higgs traces the historical roots of the world's unquenchable thirst for more stuff.

The notion of human beings as consumers first took shape before World War One, but became commonplace in America in the 1920s. Consumption is now frequently seen as our principal role in the world.

People, of course, have always "consumed" the necessities of life - food, shelter, clothing - and have always had to work to get them or have others work for them, but there was little economic motive for increased consumption among the mass of people before the 20th Century.

Quite the reverse: frugality and thrift were more appropriate to situations where survival rations were not guaranteed. Attempts to promote new fashions, harness the "propulsive power of envy," and boost sales multiplied in Britain in the late 18th Century. Here began the "slow unleashing of the acquisitive instincts," write historians Neil McKendrick, John Brewer, and J H Plumb in their influential book on the commercialisation of 18th-Century England, when the pursuit of opulence and display first extended beyond the very rich.

But, while poorer people might have acquired a very few useful household items - a skillet, perhaps, or an iron pot - the sumptuous clothing, furniture, and pottery of the era were still confined to a very small population.

At first, consumer goods were more likely to supply basic needs rather than luxury items (Credit: Getty Images)

In late 19th-Century Britain a variety of foods became accessible to the average person, who would previously have lived on bread and potatoes - consumption beyond mere subsistence. This improvement in food variety did not extend durable items to the mass of people, however. The proliferating shops and department stores of that period served only a restricted population of urban middle-class people in Europe, but the display of tempting products in shops in daily public view was greatly extended - and display was a key element in the fostering of fashion and envy.

Although the period after World War Two is often identified as the beginning of the immense eruption of consumption across the industrialised world, the historian William Leach locates its roots in the United States around the turn of the century.

In the US, existing shops were rapidly extended through the 1890s, mail-order shopping surged, and the new century saw massive multi-storey department stores covering millions of acres of selling space. Retailing was already passing decisively from small shopkeepers to corporate giants who had access to investment bankers and drew on assembly-line production of commodities, powered by fossil fuels. The traditional objective of making products for their self-evident usefulness was displaced by the goal of profit and the need for a machinery of enticement.

"The cardinal features of this culture were acquisition and consumption as the means of achieving happiness; the cult of the new; the democratisation of desire; and money value as the predominant measure of all value in society," Leach writes in his 1993 book "Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture". Significantly, it was individual desire that was democratised, rather than wealth or political and economic power.

The glove section at an early department store, which changed the way people shopped (Credit: Getty Images)

Release from the perils of famine and premature starvation was in place for most people in the industrialised world soon after WWI ended. US production was more than 12 times greater in 1920 than in 1860, while the population over the same period had increased by only a factor of three, suggesting just how much additional wealth was theoretically available. The labour struggles of the 19th Century had, without jeopardising the burgeoning productivity, gradually eroded the seven-day week of 14- and 16-hour days that was worked at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in England. In the US in particular, economic growth had succeeded in providing basic security to the great majority of an entire population.

It would be feasible to reduce hours of work and release workers for the pleasurable activities of free time... but business did not support such a trajectory

In these circumstances, there was a social choice to be made. A steady-state economy capable of meeting the basic needs of all, foreshadowed by philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill as the stationary state, seemed well within reach and, in Mill's words, likely to be an improvement on "the trampling, crushing, elbowing and treading on each other's heels ... the disagreeable symptoms of one of the phases of industrial progress". It would be feasible to reduce hours of work further and release workers for the spiritual and pleasurable activities of free time with families and communities, and creative or educational pursuits. But business did not support such a trajectory, and it was not until the Great Depression that hours were reduced, in response to overwhelming levels of unemployment.

In 1930, Kellogg adopted a six-hour shift to help accommodate unemployed workers. It didn't last long (Credit: Wikipedia)

In 1930, the US cereal manufacturer Kellogg adopted a six-hour shift to help accommodate unemployed workers, and other forms of work-sharing became more widespread. Although the shorter workweek appealed to Kellogg's workers, the company, after reverting to longer hours during WWII, was reluctant to renew the six-hour shift in 1945. Workers voted for it by three-to-one in both 1945 and 1946, suggesting that, at the time, they still found life in their communities more attractive than consumer goods. This was particularly true of women. Kellogg, however, gradually overcame the resistance of its workers and whittled away at the short shifts until the last of them were abolished in 1985.

Even if a shorter working day became an acceptable strategy during the Great Depression, the economic system's orientation toward profit and its bias toward growth made such a trajectory unpalatable to most captains of industry and the economists who theorised their successes. If profit and growth were lagging, the system needed new impetus. The short depression of 1921-1922 led business leaders and economists in the US to fear that the immense productive powers created over the previous century had grown sufficiently to meet the basic needs of the entire population and had probably triggered a permanent crisis of overproduction. Prospects for further economic expansion were thought to look bleak.

Unless the consumer could be persuaded to buy lavishly, the whole stream of six-cylinder cars, super heterodynes, cigarettes, rouge compacts and electric ice boxes would be dammed up

The historian Benjamin Hunnicutt, who examined the mainstream press of the 1920s, along with the publications of corporations, business organisations, and government inquiries, found extensive evidence that such fears were widespread in business circles during the 1920s. Victor Cutter, president of the United Fruit Company, exemplified the concern when he wrote in 1927 that the greatest economic problem of the day was the lack of "consuming power" in relation to the prodigious powers of production.

Notwithstanding the panic and pessimism, a consumer solution was simultaneously emerging. As the popular historian of the time Frederick Allen wrote, "Business had learned as never before the importance of the ultimate consumer. Unless he could be persuaded to buy and buy lavishly, the whole stream of six-cylinder cars, super heterodynes, cigarettes, rouge compacts and electric ice boxes would be dammed up at its outlets."

Factory workers icing a steady supply of biscuits in 1926 (Credit: Getty Images)

In his classic 1928 book "Propaganda," Edward Bernays, one of the pioneers of the public relations industry, put it this way: "Mass production is profitable only if its rhythm can be maintained." He argued that business "cannot afford to wait until the public asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through advertising and propaganda... to assure itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant profitable".

Edward Cowdrick, an economist who advised corporations on their management and industrial relations policies, called it "the new economic gospel of consumption", in which workers (people for whom durable possessions had rarely been a possibility) could be educated in the new "skills of consumption".

It was an idea also put forward by the new "consumption economists" such as Hazel Kyrk and Theresa McMahon, and eagerly embraced by many business leaders. New needs would be created, with advertising brought into play to "augment and accelerate" the process. People would be encouraged to give up thrift and husbandry, to value goods over free time. Kyrk argued for ever-increasing aspirations: "a high standard of living must be dynamic, a progressive standard", where envy of those just above oneself in the social order incited consumption and fuelled economic growth.

President Herbert Hoover's 1929 Committee on Recent Economic Changes welcomed the demonstration "on a grand scale [of] the expansibility of human wants and desires", hailed an "almost insatiable appetite for goods and services", and envisaged "a boundless field before us ... new wants that make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied". In this paradigm, people are encouraged to board an escalator of desires (a stairway to heaven, perhaps) and progressively ascend to what were once the luxuries of the affluent.

People were encouraged to board an escalator of desires and progressively ascend to the luxuries of the affluent (Credit: Getty Images)

Charles Kettering, general director of General Motors Research Laboratories, equated such perpetual change with progress. In a 1929 article called "Keep the Consumer Dissatisfied", he stated that "there is no place anyone can sit and rest in an industrial situation. It is a question of change, change all the time - and it is always going to be that way because the world only goes along one road, the road of progress."

The prospect of ever-extendable consumer desire, characterised as "progress", promised a new way forward for modern manufacture, a means to perpetuate economic growth. Progress was about the endless replacement of old needs with new, old products with new. Notions of meeting everyone's needs with an adequate level of production did not feature.

The non-settler European colonies were not regarded as viable venues for these new markets, since centuries of exploitation and impoverishment meant that few people there were able to pay. In the 1920s, the target consumer market to be nourished lay at home in the industrialised world. There, especially in the US, consumption continued to expand through the 1920s, though truncated by the Great Depression of 1929.

Electrification was crucial for the consumption of the new types of durable items, and the fraction of US households with electricity connected nearly doubled between 1921 and 1929, from 35 to 68%. This was followed by a rapid proliferation of radios, vacuum cleaners, and refrigerators. Motor car registration rose from eight million in 1920 to more than 28 million by 1929. The introduction of time payment arrangements facilitated the extension of such buying further and further down the economic ladder.

Electricity sparked a whole new wave of consumer product possibilities (Credit: Getty Images)

This first wave of consumerism was short-lived. Predicated on debt, it took place in an economy mired in speculation and risky borrowing. US consumer credit rose to $7 billion in the 1920s, with banks engaged in reckless lending of all kinds. While it was a lot less in gross terms than the burden of debt in the US in late 2008, the debt of the 1920s was very large, over 200% of the GDP of the time. In both eras, borrowed money bought unprecedented quantities of material goods on time payment and (these days) credit cards. The 1920s bonanza collapsed suddenly and catastrophically. In 2008, a similar unravelling began; its implications still remain unknown. In the case of the Great Depression of the 1930s, a war economy followed, so it was almost 20 years before mass consumption resumed any role in economic life - or in the way the economy was conceived.

Once WWII was over, consumer culture took off again throughout the developed world, partly fuelled by the deprivation of the Great Depression and the rationing of the wartime years and incited with renewed zeal by corporate advertisers using debt facilities and the new medium of television. Stuart Ewen, in his history of the public relations industry, saw the birth of commercial radio in 1921 as a vital tool in the great wave of debt-financed consumption in the 1920s - "a privately owned utility, pumping information and entertainment into people's homes".

"Requiring no significant degree of literacy on the part of its audience, radio gave interested corporations ... unprecedented access to the inner sanctums of the public mind," Ewen writes. The advent of television greatly magnified the potential impact of advertisers' messages, exploiting image and symbol far more adeptly than print and radio had been able to do. The stage was set for the democratisation of luxury on a scale hitherto unimagined.

Television and radio super-charged advertising, directly into people's homes (Credit: Getty Images)

Though the television sets that carried the advertising into people's homes after WWII were new, and were far more powerful vehicles of persuasion than radio had been, the theory and methods were the same - perfected in the 1920s by PR experts like Bernays.

Vance Packard echoes both Bernays and the consumption economists of the 1920s in his description of the role of the advertising men of the 1950s. "They want to put some sizzle into their messages by stirring up our status consciousness," he wrote. "Many of the products they are trying to sell have, in the past, been confined to a 'quality market'. The products have been the luxuries of the upper classes. The game is to make them the necessities of all classes... By striving to buy the product - say, wall-to-wall carpeting on instalment - the consumer is made to feel he is upgrading himself socially."

Though it is status that is being sold, it is endless material objects that are being consumed.

In a little-known 1958 essay reflecting on the conservation implications of the conspicuously wasteful US consumer binge after WWII, John Kenneth Galbraith pointed to the possibility that this "gargantuan and growing appetite" might need to be curtailed. "What of the appetite itself?" he asks. "Surely this is the ultimate source of the problem. If it continues its geometric course, will it not one day have to be restrained? Yet in the literature of the resource problem this is the forbidden question."

We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate - retail analyst Victor Lebow

Galbraith quotes the President's Materials Policy Commission setting out its premise that economic growth is sacrosanct. "First we share the belief of the American people in the principle of Growth," the report maintains, specifically endorsing "ever more luxurious standards of consumption". To Galbraith, who had just published "The Affluent Society", the wastefulness he observed seemed foolhardy, but he was pessimistic about curtailment. He identified the beginnings of "a massive conservative reaction to the idea of enlarged social guidance and control of economic activity", a backlash against the state taking responsibility for social direction. At the same time he was well aware of the role of advertising. "Goods are plentiful. Demand for them must be elaborately contrived," he wrote. "Those who create wants rank amongst our most talented and highly paid citizens. Want creation - advertising - is a 10 billion dollar industry."

Or, as retail analyst Victor Lebow remarked in 1955: "Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption.... We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate."

Thus, just as immense effort was being devoted to persuading people to buy things they did not actually need, manufacturers also began the intentional design of inferior items, which came to be known as "planned obsolescence". In his second major critique of the culture of consumption, "The Waste Makers", Packard identified both functional obsolescence, in which the product wears out quickly and psychological obsolescence, in which products are "designed to become obsolete in the mind of the consumer, even sooner than the components used to make them will fail".

The consumerism of the present day has roots that go back at least a century (Credit: Getty Images)

The commodification of reality and the manufacture of demand have had serious implications for the construction of human beings in the present day, where, to quote philosopher Herbert Marcuse, "people recognise themselves in their commodities".

This is reflected in current attitudes. For instance, the Australian comedian Wendy Harmer in her ABC TV series called "Stuff" expressed irritation at suggestions that consumption is simply generated out of greed or lack of awareness: "I am very proud to have made a documentary about consumption that does not contain the usual footage of factory smokestacks, landfill tips and bulging supermarket trolleys. Instead, it features many happy human faces and all their wonderful stuff! It's a study of a love affair as much as anything else."

The capitalist system, dependent on a logic of never-ending growth from its earliest inception, confronted the plenty it created in its home states, especially the US, as a threat to its very existence. It would not do if people were content because they felt they had enough. However, over the course of the 20th Century, capitalism preserved its momentum by moulding the ordinary person into a consumer with an unquenchable thirst for its "wonderful stuff".

*This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in The MIT Press Reader, and is republished with permission.

Kerryn Higgs is an Australian writer and historian. She is the author of "Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet," from which this article is adapted.

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Over the course of the 20th Century, capitalism moulded the ordinary person into a consumer. Kerryn Higgs traces the historical roots of the world's unquenchable thirst for more stuff.

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my new idea is to base my essay on consumerism, I've realised how much consumerism controls our loves and has its own role in life and death. 

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After initial research I've realised that its very hard to do a research based essay on the affects the pandemic have had on advertising and vide versa, silly because it is all so recent there is not enough resources and research to back my points up.

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Ive decided to write on consumerisms impact on life and death. I feel that consumerism is a crisis in itself. I feel that its not just a crisis in terms of global warming but a mental health crisis as well. I want to explore this more and really investigate what consumerism is doing to humanity and wether it is really a life or death scenario.

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I want to cover these main topics:

Climate change
Waste
Explotation
Slave Labour
Lifestyle
Happiness

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Link to my google slides where I have some links to research

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Link to my google slides where I have some links to research

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https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1QBh37741lnmBtC_CJnU5orAubXtKvxLVLiSP10JLNpU/edit?usp=sharing

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Introduction

The subject of happiness has long been a playground for philosophers. Since the 1970s, it has become the object of empirical research in the social sciences. In the wake of the social indicators movement, happiness became a common topic in large-scale welfare surveys, and a key topic in psychological research on mental health and in medical research on 'health-related quality of life.' Around 2000, 'Happiness Economics' appeared on the scene (e.g., Frey and Stutzer 2002; VanPraag and Ferrer-i-Carbonell 2010).

The starting point of the literature on economics and happiness is an empirical finding, generally referred to as the Easterlin paradox: while across individuals and countries higher income results in higher happiness, over time income growth is not associated with higher happiness levels (Easterlin 1974). Motivated by this puzzling result, a large number of studies in the economics and happiness literature have investigated the relationship between income and happiness (Clark et al. 2008; Stevenson and Wolfers 2008; Stanca 2010). Three main types of explanations have been offered for the Easterlin paradox, based on hedonic, aspirational, or positional mechanisms (Easterlin et al. 2010). More recently, the relational treadmill has been proposed as an additional explanation, based on the interplay between economic conditions and interpersonal relations (e.g., Gui and Stanca 2010; Stanca 2009, 2012; Colombo and Stanca 2014). The common theme in all these explanations is that although our material conditions improve, some other change occurs at the same time with an opposite effect. As a consequence, similar to the position of a runner during a treadmill workout, our perceived well-being remains unchanged.

Forty years since Easterlin's seminal contribution, a large body of evidence is available about the relationship between income and happiness. Quite surprisingly, instead, relatively little is known about the effects of the level and composition of consumption on happiness. This special issue aims at filling this gap. It draws on papers presented at a workshop on 'Consumption and Happiness,' organized by Ruut Veenhoven within the conference 'Advances in Happiness Economics,' held at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, on October 28-29, 2013. This paper provides a short introduction to the special issue. We start by discussing different concepts and measures of happiness in Sects. 2 and 3, respectively. We then briefly review, in Sect. 4, the existing literature on consumption and happiness. Finally, Sect. 5 introduces the papers contained in the special issue by outlining their respective contributions.

Concepts of happiness

Since the term happiness is used with very different meanings in different disciplines, we start by spelling out alternative definitions, in order to clarify what concept of happiness is addressed in this issue. In philosophy, the word 'happiness' was used as an umbrella term for 'the good life,' and different qualities of life were called by this same name. Quality-of-life concepts can be grouped by using two distinctions, one between life chances and outcomes, and another between outer and inner qualities of life. In combination, these two dichotomies yield a four-group taxonomy of qualities of life (Veenhoven 2000): livability of the environment, life-ability of the person, usefulness of life, and satisfaction with life.

Livability of the environment denotes the meaning of good living conditions, in short, 'livability.' Economists associate livability with access to goods and services and call it 'welfare.' Livability is not what is called 'happiness' here. It is rather a precondition for happiness, and not all environmental conditions are equally conducive to happiness (e.g., Colombo et al. 2014).

Life-ability of the person denotes inner life chances. That is, how well we are equipped to cope with the problems of life. Sen ( 1992) calls this quality-of-life variant 'capability.' The simple term 'life-ability' is to be preferred, as it contrasts elegantly with 'livability.' An ability to deal with the problems of life will mostly contribute to happiness as defined here, but it is not identical to happiness. If one is competent at living, one then has a good chance at experiencing happiness, but being thus endowed does not guarantee an enjoyable life outcome.

Usefulness of life represents the notion that a good life must be good for something more than itself. This assumes that a life has some higher value. There is no current generic term for these external outcomes of life. Gerson ( 1976) refers to these effects as 'transcendental' conceptions of quality of life. Economists would call it 'externalities.' Leading an objectively useful life may contribute to one's subjective appreciation of life, but it may also come at the cost of that. Therefore, useful living is not the same as a happy living.

Satisfaction with life represents the inner outcomes of life. That is, the quality of a life in the eye of the beholder. As we deal with conscious humans, this quality boils down to subjective satisfaction with life. This is commonly referred to by terms such as 'subjective well-being,' 'life satisfaction,' and 'happiness' in a limited sense of the word. This is the kind of happiness addressed in this issue.

Even when we focus on subjective satisfaction with life, there are still different meanings associated with the word happiness. These meanings can be categorized on the basis of the distinction between parts-of-life versus life-as-a-whole, and the one between passing versus enduring satisfaction. These two dimensions produce a four-group taxonomy for satisfaction (Veenhoven 2000): pleasure, domains satisfaction, peak-experience, and life satisfaction.

Pleasure represents passing enjoyments of life-aspects. Examples would be delight in a cup of tea at breakfast, the satisfaction of a chore done, or the enjoyment of a piece of art. This category can be referred to as 'pleasures.' Kahneman ( 1999) calls it 'instant-utilities.' Although fleeting enjoyment obviously contributes to a positive appreciation of life, it is not the whole of it.

Satisfaction with life domains denotes enduring appreciation of life-aspects, such as marriage satisfaction and job satisfaction. Domain satisfactions are often denoted with the term happiness: 'a happy marriage,' 'happy with one's job,' etc. Yet, one would not call happy a person who is satisfied with her marriage and job but still dissatisfied on the whole because her health is failing.

Peak-experience denotes the combination of passing experience and appraisal of life-as-a-whole. This combination occurs typically in peak-experiences, which involve short-lived but quite intense feelings and the perception of wholeness. This is the kind of happiness poets write about, but not the kind of happiness addressed in this issue. A moment of bliss is not the same as enduring appreciation of life.

Life satisfaction represents lasting satisfaction with one's life-as-a-whole. This is the meaning addressed in this issue and is central in happiness economics. Happiness and consumption are often equated in classic economics and referred to as 'utility.' Yet, a consumption good such as a house is an external condition for happiness that, in the first taxonomy above, belongs to the livability of the environment, while happiness itself belongs to subjective enjoyment of life. Next, not all satisfaction is life satisfaction. A consumer may be very satisfied in the domain of housing, but not satisfied with his life-as-a-whole, because he had to work all the time to pay for the big house. Likewise, passing pleasures derived from consumption should not be equated with its long-term consequences for life satisfaction. One may enjoy more than five glasses of alcohol a day, while this consumption pattern still reduces life satisfaction in the long run. The question at stake in this issue is what patterns of consumption add more or less to enduring life satisfaction.

Measures of happiness

Since happiness is defined as something that we have in mind, it can be measured using questions. Questions on happiness can be presented in various ways (Veenhoven 2012a). A common direct question is 'Taking all things together, how happy would you say you are?' Indirect questions ask related things, such as 'Do you think that you are happier than most people in this country' or 'Do you often sing when under the shower?' An assumed advantage of indirect questioning is that this will reduce response bias. A disadvantage is that something different than happiness is measured.

Rather than using single questions as in the example above, one can ask about the same using multiple questions. Series of questions on happiness are referred to as 'scales,' and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) is one of the most common questionnaires (Diener et al. 1985). An advantage of single questions is that it is clear what is being measured and hence that one can easily see whether that is happiness as subjective enjoyment of one's life-as-a-whole (face validity). A disadvantage is that the particular words used may not be interpreted in the same way by all respondents. An advantage of multiple questions is that such differences in interpretation balance out. Yet, a disadvantage is that the questions may not quite address the same thing, such as the last item in Diener's SWLS.

The above-mentioned single question calls for a global estimate by the respondent, which may involve various biases (Kahneman 1999). An alternative is to ask repeatedly how happy one feels at the moment and to compute an average. This is referred to as the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), a variant of which is the Day Recall Method (DRM). These method can be used to measure only the affective component of happiness, referred to above as 'hedonic level of affect.'

The hedonic level of affect can also be measured indirectly by asking people about particular feelings in the recent past, such as how often they felt 'cheerful' or 'blue.' The reported number of negative affects is then subtracted from the number of positive experiences. A common scale of that kind is Bradburn's ( 1969) 10-item 'Affect Balance Scale.' This technique fits well with Bentham's ( 1789) classic notion of happiness as 'the sum of pleasures and pains.'

An overview of happiness questions is available in the collection 'Measures of Happiness' of the World Database of Happiness, which includes about 900 variants (Veenhoven 2015a, b). There is a large literature on the quality of these measures, their validity, reliability, and comparability across persons and cultures. Comprehensive reviews are presented in Larsen et al. ( 1985) and Veenhoven ( 2012b).

Happiness and consumption

Research in happiness economics has focused mainly on the effects of income and employment, that is, on how much and in what way money is earned. As yet, there has been relatively little interest in the effects on happiness of how earnings are spent. In addition, the available findings are all cross-sectional and generally do not inform us about cause and effect (MacDonald and Douthitt 1992; Headey et al. 2004; DeLeire and Kalil 2010; Perez-Truglia 2013; Lewis 2014).

In modern multiple-choice society we face several major consumer choices, such as when we buy a house, a car, or a life insurance. Expectations about happiness play a key role in such decisions. People who spend a large part of their income on a spacious house typically expect that life will be more satisfying in a big house and might take up a heavy mortgage in order to prevent the unhappiness expected from living in a smaller house.

Yet, predictions of future happiness appear to be subject to many distortions (e.g., Gilbert 2006). In this context, Kahneman and Thaler ( 2006) distinguished between expected utility and experienced utility, the latter being the ultimate effect on happiness. Likewise, Frey and Stutzer ( 2014) coined the expression mis- predicting utility, which results in a loss of happiness. Their iconic example is the person who accepts a better paying job at a longer distance, expecting that the better pay will add to his happiness, whereas the longer commuting time actually makes him less happy overall (Stutzer and Frey 2008).

There are several ways to deal with the problem of misinformed consumer choice. One way is to combat misleading information by means of rules for advertising and counter-information by consumer unions. A related approach is consumer education. Still another way to more informed choice is to gather information about the long-term effects of consumer choice, for instance by following over time the happiness of otherwise comparable people who bought a big or a small house. Such information can be used both for correcting misleading claims in advertisements and for consumer education. This approach is comparable to effect research on pharmaceutics, which is also used to check claims by producers and to inform health education.

The long-term effects of consumer choice on happiness are likely to differ across persons. So the question is not only whether most people are happier in a bigger house, but also among what kind of people happiness depends on the size of the house.

The first key research question is 'How much consumption is optimal for happiness?' Are frugal people really happier than big spenders, as some studies on happiness and materialism suggest (e.g., Hudders and Pandelaere 2012)? A second question is 'What types of consumption are most conducive to happiness?' Is experience consumption more satisfying than material consumption? In the case of experience consumption, a more specific question is 'What kind of experiences add most to happiness?' And, when it comes to material consumption, what durable goods add most to happiness? Does investment in housing pay off more than in cars? In all these issues we are faced with further questions about variations across persons and situations. This leads to a more general fundamental question: to what extent and on what issues can empirical research contribute to more informed choice?

Given the relevance of these questions, and the size of the market, one would have expected much more research on the consequences of consumer choice on happiness. Why is there only a handful of findings about consumption and happiness, for example, in the World Database of Happiness ( 2015a)?

One of the reasons seems to be the theoretical limitations of mainstream economics. Many researchers still equate consumption and happiness, implicitly assuming that homo economicus is fully informed about his preferences and that meeting these preferences will make him happy. They are often unaware of the above-noted difference between expected and experienced utility. They underestimate the importance of the difference between needs and wants and tend to overlook the fact that happiness depends more on meeting the former than the latter (Veenhoven 2009).

Another reason is commercial interest. Producers are interested in selling their products in the first place. They spend large amounts of money on marketing research to obtain a better picture of what consumers expect that will make them happy, and on advertisement to influence these expectations and link to their products. Whether these products actually add to consumers' happiness is not necessarily of interest. Although there is a substantial body of research on consumer's satisfaction with the product, there is little research on the effects on life satisfaction, not even in the domains of housing and residential care.

This lack of research is part of a wider market failure. Since there is no reliable information about the long-term consequences for happiness of large consumer purchases, there is no competition on happiness effects and hence no product development in that direction. The market itself is unlikely to solve this problem. Governments and consumer unions would be, instead, in the position to press for more research on the effects of consumption on happiness.

Contributions in this issue

This special issue contains five empirical papers providing new evidence on the relationship between the level and composition of consumption and subjective well-being. Overall, the papers provide a wide range of contributions, from different perspectives, to the understanding of the relationship between consumption and happiness.

In the first paper, Noll and Weick ( 2015) investigate the effects of the level and composition of consumption on life satisfaction among German households. They use cross-sectional data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), which includes, since 2010, retrospective information on households' consumption expenditures. Total consumption expenditures are found to exert a positive and significant effect on life satisfaction. The size of the effect is substantial and only marginally lower than that of household income. Turning to the composition of consumption, expenditures on clothing and leisure are identified as key determinants of subjective well-being, while expenditures on food and housing are not significantly related to life satisfaction. The explanatory power of the model rises substantially when replacing total expenditures with the amount spent on different categories of goods and services. Finally, the analysis indicates that there are differences in the effects of income and consumption across different parts of the respective distributions. Individuals in the lowest consumption decile are less unsatisfied with their life than individuals in the lowest income decile. In addition, low levels of consumption expenditures are found to reduce life satisfaction only marginally when people voluntarily choose to consume less.

Okulicz-Kozaryn ( 2015) investigates the effects of car consumption on life satisfaction. Using the 2011 wave of the American Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), the paper focuses on the role played by car ownership, number of cars owned, and type of car (luxury versus frugal). The findings indicate that, controlling for income and house ownership, car ownership does not have a significant effect on life satisfaction. The relationship between number of cars owned and well-being is shown to be sensitive to the set of control variables. Most importantly, luxury cars are not found to contribute to happiness more than frugal cars. An interesting interpretation of these results is that conspicuous, or positional, consumption may help to explain the Easterlin paradox.

Zhang and Xiong ( 2015) study the effects of consumption choices on several indicators of happiness, focusing on a large set of consumption categories from different life domains and including both monetary and experiential consumption. The analysis relies on a web-based survey conducted in 2010 on 2,178 individuals in various cities of Japan. The results indicate that while more than half of the 77 consumption variables from eight life domains affect happiness, different happiness domains are influenced by different sets of consumption variables. In particular, while income only affects overall happiness and experiences of mildly pleasant moods during leisure activities, saving is the most important factor for enhancing overall happiness. Happiness is strongly affected by active life consumption variables and communication with neighbors.

The last two papers in this special issue rely on the Life in Transition Survey conducted jointly by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank in 2010, which includes detailed information on several consumption categories, such as expenditures on food, education, and durables. Dumludag ( 2015) studies the effects of various consumption expenditures on life satisfaction at different levels of development. Interestingly, the findings indicate that the relationship between consumption categories and life satisfaction differs depending on levels of development. While expenditures on clothing and footwear and durables have a positive and significant effect on well-being in both developed and transition economies, expenditure on utilities has a positive effect on well-being in transition countries but no effect in developed countries. Gokdemir ( 2015) carries out a similar analysis with a focus on Turkey. The findings indicate that, overall, only expenditures for durable goods and savings are positively and significantly related to life satisfaction.

Notes

1. The empirical content of the Easterlin paradox has been recently challenged on the basis of newly available time series data, showing that average happiness has risen in most nations and more so in the nations that had faster economic growth (Veenhoven and Vergunst 2014). Yet, the effect of economic growth on happiness is small.

2. World Database of Happiness, Findings on Happiness and Income and Happiness and Employment (Veenhoven 2015a).

3. Of the 14,000 correlational findings in happiness, only about 100 concern the relationship between consumption and happiness (World Database of Happiness, Findings on Happiness and Consumption, Veenhoven 2015a).

Author information

Affiliations

1. Department of Economics and Neuro-Mi, University of Milan Bicocca, Piazza Ateneo Nuovo 1, U6/3062, Milan, Italy

Luca Stanca

2. Erasmus Happiness Economics Research Organization (EHERO), Erasmus University Rotterdam, POB 1738, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Ruut Veenhoven

3. Opentia Research Programme, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa

Ruut Veenhoven

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ruut Veenhoven.

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Stanca, L., Veenhoven, R. Consumption and happiness: an introduction. Int Rev Econ 62, 91-99 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12232-015-0236-x
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Consumption and happiness: an introduction - International Review of Economics

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The subject of happiness has long been a playground for philosophers. Since the 1970s, it has become the object of empirical research in the social sciences. In the wake of the social indicators movement, happiness became a common topic in large-scale welfare surveys, and a key topic in psychological research on mental health and in medical research on 'health-related quality of life.'

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Consumerism causes a large chunk of our carbon emissions. Here are a few ideas for healthier habits during the holidays and beyond.

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1.1. OVERVIEW OF SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING

Subjective well-being (SWB) refers to how people experience and evaluate their lives and specific domains and activities in their lives. Over the past decade, interest in information about SWB (also called "self-reported wellbeing") has increased markedly among researchers, politicians, national statistical offices, the media, and the public. The value of this information lies in its potential contribution to monitoring the economic, social, and health conditions of populations and in potentially informing policy decisions across these domains ( Krueger et al., 2009; Layard, 2006).

Economists, psychologists, and sociologists have found a number of distinct components of SWB to coexist but which are not entirely independent-they do overlap. These measurement constructs may be thought of in terms of a continuum, with essentially real-time assessments of experience, emotional state, or sensations at one end (associated with the shortest time unit) and overall evaluations of life satisfaction, purpose, or suffering at the other end (the longest reference periods or no particular reference period).

These temporal overlaps notwithstanding, the components of SWB display distinct characteristics, often correlate with different sets of variables, and capture unique aspects of the construct that for various purposes are each worth monitoring. The terms used to describe SWB have often been ambiguously applied, which has muddled discussion and possibly slowed progress in the field. For example, the term "happiness" has been used to refer to momentary assessments of affect as well as to overall life evaluations. This absence of precision precludes understanding of the complexities known to coexist. For example, a person who is engaged in stressful or difficult activities, such as working toward an education or a job promotion, may find substantial meaning or satisfaction with life overall; a person who is generally suffering or lacking hope may experience temporary reprieve in an enjoyable moment.

The nature of the policy or research question being asked dictates the appropriate construct to measure SWB and may suggest an approach to data collection. For example, if the dimension of interest is known to be sensitive on a very short time frame and responds to daily activities and events but is somewhat stable over long periods, a cross-sectional data collection conducted every 2 years may not be useful. In such cases, a high-frequency approach (even if it involves a much smaller sample) might be most informative. Similarly, if a measure varies a great deal from individual to individual on a given day but does not react very much to exogenous events (financial shocks, changes in employment rates, etc.) and tends to wash out at high aggregate levels, it may not be a particularly insightful construct to track at national levels over time.

The following sections briefly identify the distinct components that must be measured in order to produce a full and clear accounting of SWB. Chapter 2 discusses these components and the interactions among them in greater detail.

1.1.1. Evaluative Well-Being

Measures of evaluative well-being are designed to capture judgments of overall life satisfaction or fulfillment; these judgments may be applied to specific aspects of life, such as relationships, community, health, or occupation, as well as to overall evaluations. An example of a question phrased to measure evaluative well-being-one recommended by OECD (2013, p. 253) and based on the World Values Survey-is "Overall, how satisfied are you with life as a whole these days?" Although OECD has proposed a scale from 0 to 10 for this question ( OECD, 2013, p. 254), different scales have been used for versions of the question by other surveys, including the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS), the French national statistics office, the British Household Panel Study, the Canadian General Social Survey, the German Socioeconomic Panel, and the European Social Survey.

Alternative measures of evaluative well-being exist, such as the CASP-19, a quality-of-life scale for older people that is often used in research on aging ( Hyde et al., 2003), the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale ( Cantril, 1965), and the five-item scale designed by Diener et al. (1985) to measure global cognitive judgments of life satisfaction. The Cantril Scale is the instrument for measuring evaluative well-being used in several Gallup initiatives, including the World Poll. Research (e.g., Fredrickson et al., 2013) suggests that different aspects of well-being may have distinct physiological correlates. Longitudinal studies indicate moderate stability of life satisfaction over time; the variation that has been observed suggests there are potentially modifiable contextual factors that influence judgments about some aspects of evaluative well-being.

1.1.2. Experienced Well-Being

Experienced well-being (ExWB)-the focus of this report-is closely related to the oft-used term "hedonic well-being," which Christodoulou et al. (2013, p. 2) characterized as referring to:

the frequency and intensity of emotional experiences such as happiness, joy, stress, and worry that make a person's life pleasant or unpleasant ( Kahneman and Deaton, 2010). A variety of disciplines have shown increasing interest in the accurate assessment of HWB [hedonic well-being], especially positive aspects of well-being ( Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Kahneman and Krueger, 2006; Huppert et al., 2004; Krueger et al., 2009). Research has begun to delineate the neurobiological foundations of [hedonic well-being] ( Davidson, 2004) and to discern broad and important implications in areas such as health and society. In health research, positive affect has been found to predict response to illness ( Cohen et al., 2003) and even survival among older men and women ( Steptoe and Wardle, 2011). In the economic and social arenas, there is a realization that traditional economic measures such as income provide an incomplete explanation of societal wellbeing ( Easterlin, 2001; Kahneman and Deaton, 2010) and that appropriate measurement of [hedonic well-being] could serve as a useful complement to traditional economic indicators ( Kahneman et al., 2004; Seaford, 2011).

Thus, measures of ExWB are designed to reflect some combination of "positives," such as pleasure, joy, contentment, or happiness, and "negatives," such as suffering, distress, sadness, stress, or worry. These measures are obtained from personal (subjective) reports that are made either in real time or shortly after an event has occurred.

The distinction between positive and negative emotions (or affect) is essential, as evidence is conclusive that one is not simply the inverse of the other. And there is little doubt that positive and negative dimensions track at least partially independently of life satisfaction and of each other. Additionally, other dimensions of ExWB, such as anger or arousal, which relate to positive and negative emotions in a range of ways, are important. Sensations such as pain may also figure into emotional states and into hedonic assessment of those states. Finally, cognitive appraisals of the meaning, purpose, or worthwhileness of current activities may also be included in the ExWB construct.

Examples of techniques for measuring ExWB, discussed in detail in Chapter 3, include applications of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule ( Watson et al., 1988) and a range of approaches involving Ecological Momentary Assessment ( Stone and Shiffman, 1994). Data on ExWB have been collected less frequently in large surveys than have data on life evaluations, and methods for collecting data on hedonic experience in real time-experience sampling-have rarely been applied to a representative population sample because they are burdensome. Less intense methods, such as the Day Reconstruction Method ( Kahneman et al., 2004), designed to help individuals recover their experiences and associated emotions of the day before (described in detail below), have been implemented through representative samples. Another class of single-day measurement approaches for ExWB, such as that used in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, asks about the presence of a range of emotions the previous day; others ask about emotional experience at the end of the reference day.

Along with the life-evaluation questions, the OECD Guidelines recommend a global-yesterday question for use in a module designed to include a minimal set of measures for use in government household surveys. Derived from the Gallup World Poll and European Social Survey, the recommended questions are phrased as follows ( OECD, 2013, p. 253):

The following question asks about how you felt yesterday on a scale from 0 to 10. Zero means you did not experience the feeling "at all" yesterday while 10 means you experienced the feeling "all of the time" yesterday. I will now read out a list of ways you might have felt yesterday.

A3. How about happy?

A4. How about worried?

A5. How about depressed?

Other surveys with components to measure ExWB use different (sometimes very different) emotion or affect adjectives.

1.1.3. Eudaimonic Well-Being

Eudaimonic well-being refers to people's perceptions of the meaningfulness (or pointlessness), sense of purpose, and value of their life-a very broad set of considerations. The ancient Greek concept of eudaimonia implies a premise that people achieve happiness if they experience life purpose, challenges, and growth. "Flourishing" is a term that has been suggested ( Keyes, 2002) as capturing the essence of this dimension of well-being. An example of a eudaimonic question-developed by ONS for the Annual Population Survey-asks respondents, "Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?" In this case, a 0 to 10 scale is used, where 0 means the respondent feels the things they do in their life "are not at all worthwhile" and 10 means "completely worthwhile" ( OECD, 2013, p. 253).

There has been less research into eudaimonic well-being than into either evaluative or ExWB; consequently, its role in explaining behavior is less well understood. For some questions, such as the "worthwhileness" of specific activities or the role of purpose in a person's assessment of overall satisfaction with life, eudaimonic sentiments may figure into emotional states or into evaluations of life satisfaction. All subjective reports involve either evaluations or experiences, or both. However, concepts of "worthwhileness" or purpose appear crucial for understanding (or predicting) why and when people engage in various activities during the day or choose various life courses. White and Dolan (2009) have measured the worthwhileness (reward) associated with activities using day reconstructions of time and activities. They find discrepancies between those activities that people find "pleasurable" as compared to "rewarding" or meaningful. For example, time spent with children is relatively more rewarding than pleasurable, whereas time spent watching television is relatively more pleasurable than rewarding.

1.2. STUDY CHARGE

The objective of this report is to:

Review the current state of research and evaluate methods for measuring self-reported hedonic (or experienced) well-being that are useful for monitoring, informing, and policy analysis purposes. Although the emphasis of this report is on ExWB and time-based approaches, their relationships with measures of evaluative wellbeing are considered. The report does not assess the value of evaluative well-being measures.

Assess whether research on, and the methods to study, ExWB have advanced to a point that warrants the federal government collecting data in surveys and constructing indicators, accounts, or other statistics to inform social and economic policies-recognizing that the UK and U.S. statistics agencies are at different stages of development with regard to measurement constructs for SWB and operate within very different systems. In assessing the reliability and value of data on ExWB, the point of comparison should be other measures that are routinely collected; otherwise the comparison may be with a perfect world, not the real one.

Recommend strategies for implementing data collection on ExWB, or, if premature, outline work that needs to be done before moving measurement of ExWB to statistical agency agendas.

The panel charge, verbatim, is reproduced in Box 1-1.

The value of research on SWB and the insights it has produced have been well established in the literature over recent decades. Much of this research has relied on nongovernment data collections, such as those conducted by the Gallup Organization. A central task of this study is to assess and provide guidance about the optimal role that statistical agencies might play in collecting, coordinating, and publishing data needed to advance the field further and potentially to inform policy discussions.

It should be made explicit here that the panel's interpretation of its charge was to provide guidance primarily for the measurement and data collection in the area of experienced (hedonic) well-being. In line with this emphasis, this report partially sets aside a substantial body of work on policy-relevant measures of evaluative well-being. Guides to this work may be found in the 2009 report by Stiglitz, Sen, and Fitoussi, the recently released OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being ( OECD, 2013) or the World Happiness Report ( Helliwell et al., 2012), to name just a few. Additionally, the sponsors of this study (the U.S. National Institute on Aging and the UK Economic and Social Research Council)-which are keenly interested in the development and refinement of measures and concepts covering the full range of well-being-have noted that the measures of well-being used in aging research have focused almost exclusively on life satisfaction addressing many questions, which they rightfully argue is not sufficient. Our understanding of ExWB is more incomplete, yet its measurement may be equally valuable in that it likely taps somewhat different domains of psychological functioning. Indeed many of the concerns related to an aging population center around quality of life, well-being, and the reduction of suffering on a day-to-day basis.

1.3. MOTIVATION FOR STUDY

Data collections on SWB and related constructs have already proven to be highly valuable to researchers, producing insights into the emotional states and self-evaluated life satisfaction of people belonging to different groups, engaged in different activities, at different points in the life course, and involved in different family and community structures. Research has also shown how these subjectively assessed states of individuals relate to their behavior and decisions. Additionally, the media, politicians, and the general public have shown a strong interest in the information portrayed in these data and statistics.

The case for policy relevance is still developing but is well in motion. In the broadest sense, the promise of studying self-reported well-being rests in its capacity to enhance measures of (1) suffering (particularly long-term suffering) in a way that provides insights into its reduction, and (2) positive experiences in a way that informs efforts to increase or enhance them. A reasonable analogy can be drawn with poverty. Once poverty reduction emerged as a policy priority, a need to define and measure it (i.e., to design a poverty measure) was created. And to be most useful, information needed to be simultaneously collected on variables, such as education, health, economic mobility, and other factors that relate to poverty, whether as a cause, as a result, or in a circular fashion. This analogy also highlights the need to embed measurement of SWB in the most useful contexts. For example, if long-term unemployment, depression, lack of income, or lack of social connectedness prove to be drivers of long-term suffering, appropriate datasets are those that include covariate information on employment status (e.g., Current Population Survey's American Time Use Survey [ATUS]), mental health (e.g., National Health Interview Survey), income (e.g., Survey of Income and Program Participation), and social capital (e.g., American Housing Survey's Neighborhood Social Capital module). Likewise, promising data collection vehicles would be implied if positive affect were shown to have a measurable impact on health or workforce productivity.

In Chapter 5, the panel cites several policy applications or potential applications, ranging from assessment of end-of-life treatment options, cost-benefit studies of health care delivery (particularly where dimensions not captured by longevity or quality-adjusted life year metrics are present), and commuting and transportation planning, to environmental valuation and outdoor recreation resource monitoring. Beyond cases where SWB data may allow for fuller cost-benefit analyses of policy options, there may also be reverse cases, where measures of people's SWB are indicative of a factor driving outcomes; the impact of positive affect on resistance to or ability to recover from illness is an actively researched example. As is true for most measures, even those viewed as "objective," the goal is not to have a perfect measure of SWB but to generate data that can be usefully combined with other information and incorporated in a range of policy applications.

Spurred by the types of questions described above-along with an increasing desire by policy makers, researchers, and the public for a richer concept of progress and well-being than can be provided by traditional market-based measures on their own-research on SWB has recently accelerated and calls for data collection by statistical offices have been invigorated. Pointed impetus to the movement was provided by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, established by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and chaired by Joseph Stiglitz, which argued that governments and population surveys should measure people's well-being as a way of assessing societal progress ( Stiglitz et al., 2009). The Commission included a working group that analyzed new measures of quality of life, including subjective ones, and its report emphasized that economic growth alone (as measured, for example, by growth in gross domestic product [GDP]) is not a satisfactory measure of the standard of living. The Commission recommended a shift in the focus of economic measurement from production toward people's well-being ( Stiglitz et al., 2009). The underlying argument is that, at least in developed nations, per capita GDP is high (some argue that societies now over-consume) and the focus of national policies should shift to issues of inequality (even with high per capita GDP, those at the bottom of the economic ladder still suffer), sustainability, and nonmarket dimensions of well-being that cannot all be well captured by conventional, "objective" measures of well-being.

Emerging and ongoing efforts around the world to establish measures of and statistics on SWB also provide a strong impetus for this report. Initiatives by national statistical offices and international organizations are very much in their experimental phases, so this is the time to contribute input to them. The panel sees a clear need emerging to provide guidance for next steps to advance data, surveys, and research on the subject. An overarching part of such guidance is the need for clarification and a better understanding of the different dimensions of SWB, the specific information added by data on measures of ExWB, and the kinds of policy-relevant questions such data would inform.

In the United States, ATUS has, since 2010, included a module asking respondents about feelings (pain, happiness, stress, sadness, tiredness) during specific episodes of the day. Given the extensive and rapidly growing academic literature on time use and SWB (see references at front of chapter), this is an appropriate time to assess that literature and to determine whether and how to apply it in the statistical policies of the U.S. government. Appendix B to this report provides support for and guidance on the continuation and development of the ATUS module on SWB.

Among efforts currently under way that are attempting to advance measurement of SWB among national statistical offices, perhaps the most prominent is the recently developed and published OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being (2013). The Guidelines are intended to:

Improve the quality of subjective well-being measures collected by national statistical offices, by providing best practice in terms of question wording and survey design; improve the usefulness of the data collected by setting out guidelines on the appropriate frequency, survey vehicles, and covariates when collecting subjective well-being data; improve cross-country comparability of subjective well-being measures by establishing common concepts, classifications, and methods that national statistical agencies could use; and provide advice and assistance to data users when analyzing subjective well-being data. ( OECD, 2013, p. 9)

National statistical offices are now being called upon to begin systematically gathering and publishing information on subjective measures of well-being. ONS now includes a set of four questions on the core of its Integrated Household Survey covering three aspects of SWB: life evaluation, momentary emotional state, and worthwhileness. Beginning in April 2011, ONS included the following questions on its Annual Population Survey and Opinions and Lifestyle Survey:

Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays? [evaluative well-being]

Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile? [eudaimonic well-being]

Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday? [experienced well-being]

Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday? [experienced well-being]

All were answered on a scale of 0 to 10 where 0 is "not at all" and 10 is "completely."

Elsewhere, the French national statistical office has collected information on SWB, and on ExWB specifically, in the Enquete Emploi du Temps 2009-2010. Plans are in motion to collect data on SWB by the statistical systems in a number of other European nations and beyond, including South Korea and Japan. Chile now has a life satisfaction question in its annual National Socioeconomic Survey, which produces high-quality, annual poverty information at the household level. Other countries have long collected information on SWB: Canada has done so in the General Social Survey since 1985; New Zealand collects data on life satisfaction through its General Social Survey; and Australia has collected information on SWB in its Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. In addition to several new initiatives, the Japanese government has collected data on SWB continuously since 1958 in its Life in Nation Surveys ( Stevenson and Wolfers, 2008). Eurostat began developing a module on SWB for the European System of Social Surveys. Some international agencies, such as the World Health Organization, have long worked with quality-of-life measures; typically these have been assessments of evaluative, as opposed to experienced, well-being.

Although a few national statistical offices are in the forefront of obtaining regular measures of well-being, most (including the United States) have played only a limited role in this regard. Indeed, some of the most prominent surveys measuring SWB and comparing countries' performance are undertaken by commercial and academic organizations. The most widely used (and largest) datasets on SWB are the Gallup Organization's World Poll-begun in 2005 and covering 160 countries-and Gallup World Values Survey. The Gallup World Poll is a repeated annual cross-sectional survey that includes life evaluation and ExWB questions, as well as many factors beyond self-reported well-being, such as perceptions of work, social, financial, physical, and community well-being; perception of leadership; basic access to food, shelter, safety; and others. In 2008, Gallup instituted a daily poll of 1,000 individuals in the United States that includes evaluative and ExWB. The World Values Survey, which is also cross-sectional, collects information on life evaluation and overall happiness and has sometimes also included questions asking about more focused measures of experienced emotion and mood.

A number of national surveys conducted by academic institutions, often funded by governmental organizations, include assessments of SWB as a component of their standard questionnaire/interview protocol. These are usually very brief assessments composed of just a few questions, because interview time is at a premium. One example of this in the United States is the Health and Retirement Study funded by the National Institute on Aging, which has a goal of understanding and monitoring the impact of retirement on health and well-being. It is a large-scale, prospective survey of individuals over age 50 and has included several questions to evaluate SWB. The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which is a very large cross-sectional telephone survey designed for investigating behavioral risk factors, includes a life-satisfaction question that has been used by researchers (e.g., Oswald and Wu, 2009). It is government-run (by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and conducted by individual state health departments. The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, conducted by a consortium of European investigators, has been used to compare eudaimonic and hedonic ratings with each other and across countries ( Vanhoutte et al., 2012). The German Socioeconomic Panel and the British Household Panel Study (recently integrated into the UK Household Longitudinal Study) include brief questions on evaluative well-being of the form "How happy are you at present with your life as a whole?" The Health and Retirement Study has been working on developing survey-friendly versions of short hedonic assessments and piloting them in subsamples of the larger data collection. The panel discusses these efforts further in later parts of the report.

1.4. REPORT AUDIENCE, REPORT STRUCTURE

The audience for this report includes statistical agencies, research funding agencies, policy makers, researchers, and the general public. Most of the recommendations in this report are directed toward U.S. statistical agencies that either are already engaged in collection of self-reported well-being information or may do so in the future. However, the report also presents guidance for a research program that is relevant to science and health funding agencies. Additionally, the panel hopes that the report will prove useful to researchers and others interested in the multidimensional nature of moment-to-moment and reflected well-being-something that is much more nuanced and difficult to measure than can be understood simply by asking people if they are happy.

The remainder of the report is structured as follows: Chapter 2 sketches a brief history of measurements of self-reported well-being and their inclusion in survey development; it also defines more technically the evaluative, experienced, and eudaimonic approaches introduced above. Objectives of this careful definition are to clarify the distinctiveness of experienced (and hedonic) well-being from evaluative well-being (life satisfaction) and to assess the relationships among these different dimensions, including the extent to which each measures something unique. The panel also begins its exploration of the implications of this multidimensionality for policy application.

Chapter 3 delves more deeply into ExWB, identifying in greater detail its dimensions and the alternative techniques for measuring them. The panel assesses the state of research on methods for measuring its many dimensions, positive and negative, as well as related sensations such as pain, anger, arousal, etc., across different reference periods, from the momentary to day-long assessments and reconstructions.

Chapter 4 addresses a series of conceptual and measurement issues ranging from cultural and aging effects to survey ordering, context, and mode effects. In the process of discussing difficult survey issues, various types of self-reported bias are identified, along with other aspects of the science that are not well understood. These points in turn suggest a number of research needs, stated throughout the chapter.

Chapter 5 focuses on the potential of measures of self-reported wellbeing, and particularly measures of ExWB, to inform policy decisions. It identifies what is known about the predictive capacity of these measurement constructs, which in turn suggests what questions can be informed by the data. The panel evaluates current policy uses of the data and promising directions, and it discusses the value of data on these constructs beyond policy (for example, as a general informing and monitoring tool).

Chapter 6 focuses on data collection strategies. It presents an overall approach that involves leveraging existing datasets and modifying ongoing data collection efforts. The panel notes the important role of smaller-scale studies, the use of nontraditional surveys, and new technologies to address specific questions.

Appendixes to the report provide details on some of the key ExWB questions and modules currently in place, such as those in the ONS Annual Population Survey, the HWB-12 Survey, and the Gallup World Survey. Also included as Appendix B is a separate report produced in mid-project by the panel, which was written to assess and provide guidance specifically on the ATUS.

1

OECD (2013) notes that, just in economics, a search of the Econlit database for a recent year (2008 is cited) returns more than 50 articles per year on SWB whereas, for the 1990s, the same search returns fewer than 5 per year, on average.

2

Consumer confidence, for example, can display this kind of pattern, which may be a reason that the survey on which the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index is based is designed as it is-with fairly small samples but ongoing data collection.

3

The Cantril Self-Anchoring Scale asks respondents to imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top, in which the top of the ladder represents the best possible life for them and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life. They are asked which step of the ladder they personally feel they stand on at this time (for a present assessment). For a good description and discussion of the Cantril Scale, see Diener et al. (2009).

4

The terms "hedonic well-being" and "experienced well-being" are often used interchangeably in the literature. Interpreted more precisely, the latter is a somewhat broader concept in that hedonic well-being refers specifically to moment-to-moment emotional states, while experienced well-being may be extended to include sensations (e.g., pain, arousal) or other factors beyond emotions. However, the two terms are very closely related, especially because the additional "experience" dimensions of the latter concept may directly impact the individual's emotional states.

5

See Appendix A for a more extensive sample of questions currently in use to evaluate self-reported well-being.

6

We qualify with "partially" because the relationships between experienced and evaluative well-being are described in some detail in section 2.1.

7

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Subjective well-being (SWB) refers to how people experience and evaluate their lives and specific domains and activities in their lives.

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ECONOMY definition: 1. the system of trade and industry by which the wealth of a country is made and used: 2. the.... Learn more.

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Why fast fashion is slow death for the planet

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With high-street chains churning out fresh designs every few weeks, we now buy more cheap clothes than ever before. But as Lucy Siegle reveals in her hard-hitting new book To Die For, it's a trend that will cost us far more than we imagine

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lessia Teresko, a 21-year-old student from Nottingham, seldom wears the same outfit online twice. Which is why, last month, for a friend's birthday, she bought a minidress: a 70s-style Zara dress in a swirling print, for which she paid £27.99. On Instagram, she posted a photograph of herself in her new dress, with a caption that read "Besties wknd". The post racked up 296 likes and with it, Teresko's Zara purchase was sent to the giant wardrobe in the sky. (Namely, the Depop account, where she resells the clothes she no longer wears.) "I can't take another picture in it because I already posted it," says Teresko. "I know that sounds very superficial."

In Edinburgh, 23-year-old Mikaela Loach, a student and climate justice activist, understands the pressure that Teresko is under. "Honestly," she says, "as someone with a platform, even I feel pressure to be wearing different clothes online." She buys her clothes secondhand. "Only if I can't find it secondhand," Loach says, "will I buy something new and then make sure I've done rigorous research on the company."

Just two years and a few hundred miles separate these women, but in their perspectives on sustainability, they might as well be speaking different languages. Teresko and Loach represent a dichotomy within Generation Z that is becoming increasingly pronounced. Whereas Gen Z, a term used to refer to people born between 1997 and 2012, is typically thought of as socially progressive and environmentally aware, it is also a rapacious consumer of fast fashion, one of the world's most polluting industries, often linked to human rights abuses in the global south.

A 2020 Vogue Business survey of 105 members of Generation Z found that more than half reported buying most of their clothes from fast-fashion brands. Around half the young people they surveyed said that they would continue to purchase from Boohoo, even after learning that workers in Leicester factories that supplied the fast-fashion giant were paid less than £4 an hour. Data from the market research firm Mintel suggests that Gen Z out-consumes older generations when it comes to fashion purchases: 64% of British 16- to 19-year-olds admit to buying clothes they have never worn, compared with 44% of all adults surveyed. And yet Mintel data also shows that Gen Z claims to care more about the environmental impact of their purchases: 70% of 16-19-year-olds agree that sustainability is an important factor when purchasing fashion items, compared with just 20% of 65- to 74-year-olds.

How to explain this schism, and the fact that a generation that has given the world Greta Thunberg, the climate change activist who excoriates the fashion industry from the pages of Vogue Scandinavia, also produced Love Islandrunner-up Molly-Mae Hague, recently announced as the creative director of the ultra-low-cost fast-fashion brand PrettyLittleThing in a rumoured seven-figure deal? "It did seem paradoxical to us, which is why we wanted to shed some light on it," says Malthe Overgaard, a former researcher at Aarhus Business School. In 2020, Overgaard co-authored a paper with fellow researcher Nikolas Rønholt which surveyed members of Gen Z to find out why they consumed fast fashion while professing to care about sustainability and the environment.

"Young people have this feeling of complexity and ambiguity related to sustainability," says Overgaard. "They all agreed that they thought of themselves as conscious consumers, but on the other hand, they were incentivised to buy more and consume more because of the need to stay trendy."

The fashion industry is designed to be exploitative ... the lack of transparency is what allows it to exist

Scott Bowden, 23, a delivery driver from Saltash, has online shopping delivered to his house so frequently that his dad has a running joke with the postman. "The guy who delivers to my house finds it funny how many clothes I've ordered," Bowden says. Bowden estimates he spends around £50 a week on clothes, usually from Asos, but occasionally from the ultra-low-cost retailer Shein. Bowden is aware of some of the ethical issues around purchasing fast fashion. "Recently, when all the stuff came out about people [at other companies] not being paid the minimum wage," he says, "stuff like that makes you feel awful, if it's true that they are getting paid that little."

But Bowden is a regular young person, working, seeing his friends, and conforming to the pressure we all feel - young and old - to look fashionable. He is not familiar with the ins and outs of fast fashion's supply chain. "If it came out that people were being mistreated or underpaid," says Bowden, doubtfully, "it would make me think twice about buying from a brand." This, says Overgaard, is a common response among the Gen Z members surveyed. "They feel that they don't have enough information about the products, and how they are being produced."

Loach can relate to this sentiment. "When I was at school," she says, "I'd buy new things all the time and I never really considered the impact of my habits or how harmful the industry was." What changed for Loach was watching the 2015 documentary The True Cost, which explored the environmental damage and labour violations inherent within the global garment industry. "It was transformational," she says. But she feels empathy for people who, as she once did, choose not to engage with the reality of fast fashion. "The fashion industry is designed to be exploitative and that opaqueness, the lack of transparency, is what allows it to exist," says Loach.

Of course, not all young people would stop buying fast fashion if they were forced to confront the reality of the industry they are supporting. Some do know, and choose to purchase anyway. When I ask Teresko if she knows that people are being exploited to make her clothes, she is honest. "I am aware but I don't really actively think about it," she says. "If I buy something online, I'm not thinking, 'that's fast fashion, I shouldn't buy it '. Has she ever felt guilty about buying fast fashion? "I have never felt like that. I only feel guilty if I spend a lot of money."

Money: when it all comes down to it, this is what keeps the fast fashion water-wheel turning. Every generation of young people has embraced the newest fashions, whether it was the flappers of the 1920s or the hippies of the 1970s. But before the advent of brands such as Boohoo and Missguided, which had the effect of pushing down prices across the entire industry, it was too expensive for young people to buy new clothes every week. Nowadays, £3 party frocks and £15 tracksuits are routine. "I would rather buy 20 things for £50," Teresko says, "because I feel like I am getting more worth than from two things."

Social media has intensified the pace at which young people are encouraged to consume. "Haul" videos, in which people unpack large orders of clothes, are ubiquitous on YouTube and TikTok. Because social media thrives on novelty - no one wants to see the same outfit posted dozens of times - trends that would have stuck around for months, even years, disappear in weeks. "Planned obsolescence is such a feature of fast fashion," says Dr Patsy Perry, reader in fashion marketing at Manchester Metropolitan University. "The marketing machine makes us feel that last season is not quite right for this season, if you want to look hot."

"When you think about how fast fashion has sped up," says Aja Barber, author of Consumed: the need for collective change: colonialism, climate change, and consumerism, "if you think about the popularity of social media, there's a huge connection there. I don't remember being encouraged to spend and buy the way that teenagers are spending and buying today, because social media didn't exist."

Influencers fuel this cycle of overconsumption. The footballer Jack Grealish and the rapper DaBaby have both released collections with BoohooMan. Teresko is a fan of Molly-Mae Hague and Kylie Jenner. "Kylie is such an icon," she says. But Loach believes that we need to hold the public figures collaborating with fast-fashion brands to account. "The fast fashion industry is not being propped up by people who need to shop there," Loach says. "It's being propped up by people who want to wear a new outfit every week, or by influencers who promote people buying huge amounts of clothing."

Many Gen Z teens do prefer to buy secondhand, often using the reselling app Depop ( recently sold to Etsy in a $1.6bn deal). "The Post Office hates me," sighs Evan Sellick, 16, a student from Cwmbran, south Wales. Sellick is a Depop reseller: his online secondhand store, Clothing View, has nearly 6,000 followers. "People say that vintage is expensive," Sellick says, "but in reality it's well under retail price, the quality is better and it's not made cheaply in factories."

But buying vintage or secondhand is not always an option, particularly for young people who want to dress fashionably but do not fit into so-called straight (meaning six to 18 ) sizes. While there are size-inclusive sustainable brands, including Birdsong and WithLoveEvie, many ethical brands stop at size 18. "PrettyLittleThing just did a catwalk show," says Sophie Coates, 20, a student from east Yorkshire. "Honestly, it looked incredible. There were models of all sizes and shapes. You feel like you're wanted in those sorts of brands."

Coates struggles to shop secondhand. "Vintage stores don't have curve sizes," she says. "They are all standard fittings - and with the outfits that do fit your size, they are not very body-positive. They don't show off your skin. They are oversized and baggy." She would prefer to buy sustainably, but as there are limited options in her size, she shops at Boohoo, Misguided and Shein. "I wish there were sustainable brands that did the new trends," she says.

Ironically, reselling apps may also facilitate overconsumption. "I resell a lot of my clothes on Depop," says Bowden. "Sales are usually pretty quick." Teresko uses the money from her Depop sales to subsidise her £100-a-month fast-fashion habit. But Perry warns against clearing out your wardrobe to recoup more money to spend on fast fashion. "We can't shop our way to sustainability," she says. "We have to slow down our consumption. The whole idea of buying stuff, wearing it once and sticking it on eBay or Depop - that needs slowing right down."

What also becomes apparent from speaking to Gen Z is that many buy from sustainable or eco-friendly ranges within fast-fashion brands because they believe that these products are more ethical. Coates has started shopping more from H&M Conscious and New Look Kind, for this reason. "I want to play my part," she says.

But even these ranges fuelthe same monstrous over-consumption. "Impulse-buying something that is made with slightly more sustainable fibres is not going to help," says Perry. Overgaard tells me that the young people he surveyed "lacked awareness of the sustainable alternatives to the products they were consuming from the fast-fashion producers". Some ethical brands they might wish to consider would be Finisterre, Lucy & Yak, Baukjen, They May Be, Community Clothing, Raeburn, Passenger, Rapanui, Ninety Percent, AYM, Form & Thread and Story MFG.

When it comes down to it, it is unfair to condemn Gen Z for being consumers of fast fashion, when people of all ages keep the system going, or at least fail to challenge it. Gen Z did not create fast fashion and are often funded by their parents, who also sign for the packages. "I can think of millennial parents that allow their kids to buy Shein without ever talking to them about it," says Barber. The truth is that we should all be held accountable, regardless of age, because we are all complicit. "I don't think this system is good for anyone," says Barber. "Not the garment workers. Not the environment. And not the person buying the clothing. This is a bad system that needs to change on all fronts."

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Out of style: Will Gen Z ever give up its dangerous love of fast fashion?

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As a generation, they care deeply about the environment and sustainability - but are also under pressure to change their wardrobe constantly. Which impulse will win?

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The global environmental injustice of fast fashion - Environmental Health

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Fast fashion, inexpensive and widely available of-the-moment garments, has changed the way people buy and dispose of clothing. By selling large quantities of clothing at cheap prices, fast fashion has emerged as a dominant business model, causing garment consumption to skyrocket. While this transiti…

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How Fast Fashion Is Destroying the Planet (Published 2019)

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In “Fashionopolis,” Dana Thomas exposes the environmental, economic and humanitarian hazards of cheap clothing production.

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Our economies and our jobs depend on mass consumption, argues Oliver Williams. If we all consume less to save the planet, the economy will tank and millions will lose their jobs. The answer is not frugality, but reductions in population.