Brain Dump

Keep thinking about stuff like, what is happiness? How do you measure happiness? Can you measure happiness? Should you measure happiness?

I think I read an article about Nazism and happiness during Intro to Sociology. We (I) think that happiness is inherently good. But people who do bad things are happy too (maybe they are always happy). Of course, it depends on whether you thing you are doing something bad or not. (Trying to remember to keep things simple, but it's so hard!)

How do autonomy and agency contribute to happiness? I know that I am much happier not being an assistant any longer (for my day job.) I think that those with more autonomy would be happier than those with less. (Of course, that might just be a no brainer...)

One of the reasons I decided to do my research notes as a blog was that it would make me happy. I like creating blogs, and I like trying to engage others. That said, if only my husband ends up reading this (and then, only if I specifically ask him to) that's okay too.

As I said in a previous post, I really have to buckle down for the next couple of weeks so I can get ready to do my survey in February--all research involving subjects must be approved by USM's Institutional Review Board, so I need to get everything ready for submission. (heh, heh, submission.)

My goal for this blog is to post every day. Well, I don't think that's going to happen, if my other blogs are any comparison, but if I post at least 5 days per week, I'll be happy. (There it is, happy again. I'll never get away from it!).

Bibliography

This Bibliography is not complete, but it will be updated when I add a couple of more articles.

Located here: http://gotthink.com/bibliography.html/

I feel more organized now

Whew. Just setting up this blog is helpful. I've gone through my reading list to see which articles I have printed out or which books I already own, and will procure the rest, probably through Amazon. Most of the articles I already had downloaded, so I might have to reprint some, but that's okay.

Started reading Flow, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, good read. Reminds me that I have to remember to keep this sociological and not psychological. (Fun, the copy I am reading is Edmund's copy from graduate school, he had it signed by the author and I think I remember Ed saying that he audited a class taught by Csikszentmihalyi.)

Off to buy some more books on Amazon. Next post, the bilbilography.

What's this Happiness thing about, anyway?

I will be using this blog and this webspace (http://gotthink.com/) for my exciting independent study project. To quote from my proposal:

What makes a person happy? Do happy people share common characteristics? The measure of subjective happiness can be correlated with the respondent’s life satisfaction, which can indicate the health of the surrounding society. When people are happy their society works; happiness data helps policy makers and social scientists predict how to change society to make it better for all. For my independent study, I will design and conduct an empirical, quantitative research project that will study the relation between one’s subjective happiness and gender, income, ethnicity, age and education.

I hope to explore these research questions:

• Why is it important to study subjective happiness and well-being?
• Do happy people share common characteristics?
• Are women happier than men?
• Are blacks happier than whites?
• Which brings higher levels of happiness: money or satisfaction with your monetary situation?

This will continue the research I completed as part of the Quantitative Research Methods course I took in the spring of 2008. From my literature review I hypothesized that female respondents would report higher levels of life satisfaction than males. This hypothesis was tested and supported using data from the third wave of the World Values Survey 2000. However, I also determined that further study might be warranted. My literature review revealed that some studies or cohorts men reported higher levels of happiness. In regard to race, in some studies whites reported higher levels of happiness; in my study minorities showed a significant, positive relationship toward happiness.

Since I am starting a couple of weeks later than I intended, the next two weeks will be very intensive, for me, as I get ready for the semester to begin. My goal for this independent study is the creation, design and completion of original quantitative research project. To that end I will:

• Conduct a literature review
• Formulate a hypothesis based on the literature review
• Design a quantitative online survey that will test the hypothesis
• Gain approval for study through USM’s Institutional Review Board
• Administer online survey to collect data
• Analyze data
• Report findings in research paper

And here is my timeline:

• January, 2009 Complete literature reviewJanuary, 2009 Formulate research hypothesis; design survey
• January, 2009 Submit proposal to USM’s Institutional Review Board
• February 1, 2009 Submit abstract for USM’s Thinking Matters
• Feb/March, 2009 Start data collection
• March, 2009 Start data analysis
• April 10, 2009 Complete draft of research paper
• April 17, 2009 Present findings at USM’s Thinking Matters
• May 1, 2009 Submit final research paper

I invite comments and suggestions for this project, and even some discussion. This should be fun! And because this is for a class, it won't be just another blog I start and never update. I have to update it! (Well, it would behoove me to do so anyway!)