When Bob Hawke famously said economists were in the happiness-raising business, he wasn’t wrong. But he didn’t endear himself to the profession, which these days prefers to think of itself as in the incentives business.
A few economists study happiness, but for the most part they leave it to psychologists – who prefer to call it by the more scientific sounding “subjective wellbeing”. How satisfied you feel with your life or, as I prefer to think of it, how fulfilled you feel.
One finding we got last year from the world of happiness research is that people with certain types of personality tend to be happier than the rest of us.
Social psychologists have put decades of work into studying personality, and are widely agreed on the “big five” personality traits: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and extroversion.
Conscientiousness refers to being industrious, orderly and dependable. It’s about the way we control, regulate and direct our impulses. Conscientious individuals avoid trouble and achieve success through planning and persistence.
Agreeableness refers to co-operation and social harmony. Agreeable people value getting on with others. They're considerate, friendly, generous, helpful and willing to compromise their interests with others’ interests.
The trait psychologists call neuroticism would be better labelled by its inverse: emotional stability. So it’s one on which you’d like a low score. Neurotics have a tendency to often experience negative feelings such as anxiety or depression – or always getting angry. They can be moody and irritable. People who score low on neuroticism are less easily upset and less emotionally reactive. They tend to be calm and emotionally stable.
Openness to experience refers to being intellectually curious, imaginative, creative, inventive and insightful. Less open people prefer familiarity over novelty and tend to be conservative and resistant to change.
Extroversion refers to being outgoing, talkative and bold. Extroverts want to engage with the outside world. They tend to be enthusiastic, action-oriented, assertive and want to draw attention to themselves (some of them wear loud ties or go everywhere in sneakers).
Although surveys often show us to be wildly overconfident about our own capabilities – a recent survey shows 65 per cent of Americans think they’re more intelligent than the average person, for instance – a study last year by Stefano Di Domenico of the Australian Catholic University and others has found we’re quite accurate in assessing our own personality.
You give yourself a score out of 10 for each of the five factors, where 5 is average, 1 is very low and 10 is very high.
I’ve written before about the benefits of being an optimist – which, fortunately, about 80 per cent of us are. Unsurprisingly, optimists are happier than pessimists.
Optimists score well on four of the big five personality traits – emotional stability, extroversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness – with only openness being of limited relevance.
But last year’s big news about the effect of personality on happiness concerned the benefits of extroversion. Psychologists have long known that extroverts rate highly in measures of wellbeing. And they’re less likely to suffer from depression, anxiety or other mental health problems.
So much so that some studies seem to be encouraging us to act in more extroverted ways in the hope of becoming happier. Fake it till you make it.
A study by Dr Luke Smillie, of the University of Melbourne, and others has found it’s not that simple.
Their randomised control trial confirmed that people told to “act extroverted” did become happier. But it turned out that those who were naturally extroverted benefited the most, whereas those who were relatively introverted didn’t seem to benefit at all.
This - and other evidence – suggests that our personality has a bigger influence on how happy we feel than many have assumed. That is, how happy we are with our lives is less susceptible to our conscious control than we thought.
Smillie (who must be terribly tired of hearing the words “nominative determinism”) and colleagues say that’s not as bad as it sounds, however. Our personality may shape our lives, but it also changes. “Personal change may not be easy,” they say, “but we now know personality is not ‘fixed’.”
Research suggests personality is most likely to change between the ages of 20 and 40, but can occur at older ages.
This fits my own experience. When I first became a journalist, I dreaded having to phone people I didn’t know. But I must have become more extroverted over the years because, when I try to tell people I’m actually quite shy, they just laugh.
In any case, I think it’s possible to be more extroverted in some aspects of your life – some “domains”, as psychologists say – and less in others. Just ask my wife.
Smillie & Co say they’re not meaning to imply you need to be extroverted to be happy. Scoring well on other character traits will get you there.