Educational Research - the Ethics and Aesthetics of Statistics

8 European Citizenship and Evidence-Based Happiness 117
many studies of affluent countries do not register an increase in happiness in line with
wealth. (Almunia, 2007, p.2)
GDP cannot take account of gaps between rich and poor or of levels of sustainability,
for example. Measurement now needs to account for quality rather than
only quantity. This move beyond GDP is formalised in an International Initiative
comprising the European Commission, the European Parliament, the OECD, the
Club of Rome and the World Wildlife Fund (see http://www.beyond-gdp.eu/ and
the European Commission’s 2009 report “GDP and beyond: measuring progress in
a changing world”).
The statement by Almunia cited above derives from the influential findings of the
economist Richard Layard in the emergent field of “happiness economics”. Layard
contends that although wealth has increased significantly in Western countries in the
last 50 years (both reported and measured) levels of happiness have not. As such,
it is no longer considered appropriate to measure the success of societies solely
in economic terms. On the basis of this new economic theory, defined in his text
Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (2005), a plethora of policy statements and
research initiatives have emerged. In a 2003 lecture Layard stated:
GDP is a hopeless measure of welfare. For since the War that measure has shot up by leaps
and bounds, while the happiness of the population has stagnated. To understand how the
economy actually affects our well-being, we have to use psychology as well as economics.
Fortunately psychology is now moving rapidly in the right direction and I hope economics
will follow. (Layard, 2003a, p.4)
The field of positive psychology in particular illustrates the approach that Layard
praises here. One of its leading proponents is Martin Goleman, author of Emotional
Intelligence (1995) and various subsequent texts that seek to apply the psychological
profiling and techniques that he and his colleagues have developed to the professional
(Working with Emotional Intelligence, 1998) and personal aspects of our lives
(Social Intelligence: the New Science of Social Relationships, 2006). Another leading
figure in the field of positive psychology is Martin Seligman, who describes the
field thus:
The aim of positive psychology is to catalyze a change in psychology from a preoccupation
only with repairing the worst things in life to also rebuilding the best qualities in
life...The field of positive psychology at the subjective level is about positive subjective
experience: well-being and satisfaction (past); flow, joy, the sensual pleasures, and happiness
(present); and constructive cognitions about the future – optimism, hope and faith.
At the individual level it is about positive personal traits – the capacity for love and vocation,
courage, interpersonal skill, aesthetic sensibility, perseverance, forgiveness, originality,
future-mindedness, high talent and wisdom. At the group level it is about the civic virtues
and the institutions that move individuals towards better citizenship: responsibility, nurturance,
altruism, civility, moderation, tolerance and work ethic.... (Seligman in Snyder &
Lopez, 2002, p.3)
The approaches advocated by Goleman, Seligman and others seek to make psychological
knowledge and techniques available to all, for the betterment of quality
of life at the level of the individual, the interpersonal and the social. This illustrates
what Nikolas Rose has termed the “generosity of expertise”; the lending