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Monday, January 12, 2015

The "U-Cruve of Happiness" - is it real?

While working on the work-in-progress blog on deconstructing
fundamentalism, the Atlantic magazine arrived at my door step (I hadn't
bothered to look at the digital delivery - I am yet to take a look at it. Somehow,
Mr. Hefner's classical magazine took priority in its digital form).

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The cover article was about the so-called U-curve of happiness.

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You can read the original article here (not sure whether the entire content is
available without subscription - you may give it a shot).

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The sum and substance of the U-Curve thesis is that everyone starts with a
high-mental state (equated to the subjective notion of happiness) which
steadily declines and reaches a low during the ages of 45-50 (the inflection
point or zone) and then again steadily inclines reaching a high during the later
stages in life.

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I was compelled to put some on this here since I myself is in this inflection
zone. By this statement I do not necessarily mean "inflection zone/point
equates to the lowest state of happiness". It must be taken as a statement of
age.
This U-curve is nothing new and people (at least those who are associated in
such areas) are quite aware of it. What is important is to understand about
the U-curve is:

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1. It is statistical. That is to say, it can only apply to a population and cannot

apply to an individual. No theory or curve or any graph of sorts is available at
the individual level.

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2. It is universal. This means, by and far, the generic shape of diverse

populations still depict the U-curve. The actual U-shape may vary, but the "U"
is quite discernible as a form.
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It is correlated to a niche area of psychology which specialises in the "theory

of wisdom" (an area which I intend to critique at some later point). It is
important to understand that correlation does not mean causation. Simply
because one has a large quantum of non-contradictory objective evidence in
favour of a proposition, such an ensemble cannot be deemed as casually
linked to the proposition.
The reason I am bringing the above point is some people advance a
explanation that the curve appears U-shaped because of "selection bias" - that
is, towards the valley of the curve, members of the population will be
"deselected" leaving only one way for the curve to move which is upwards.

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But this is actually not supported by any tangible evidence, even statistically
speaking. This is because the shape of the curve emerges after eliminating all
factors that may causally be linked to "deselection". There is no strong
proposition that "deselection" at the individual level has a strong correlation to
the curve shape, nor can any causal reason be attributed in this direction.

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As this blog is a derivative (meaning, triggered by, not influenced by) the
Atlantic article (which is good, but I have many reservations on various
hypothesis mentioned therein), I urge the reader to review the original article.
More or less, people want to fix the cause for the curve in the realm of
evolution and psychology with a dash of subjectivism.
I myself, while not entirely opposed to this view, strongly feel that the
bottoming effect is triggered by socio-cultural contexts - those aspects which
are common across all cultures. But that does not mean we should leave out
biology and psychology from the matter.
The point is that happiness is not quantifiable (although Cooper says that his
love for his daughter Murphy is quantifiable floating is a tesseract constructed
by 'bulk beings' (aka. human beings in fifth dimension!) in 'Interstellar' - a
contradiction in terms) and is subjective. What is both subjective and not
quantifiable cannot be ring-fenced into some artificial objective theory, whether
statistical or not, and advance explanations where none exists.
The U-curve is real if it applies to you.
Love,
R Ravishankar
12 January 2015.
Posted by Ravishankar R at 3:48 AM
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