Wednesday 25 June 2008

Positive Psychology and Politics

A great article from The Guardian yesterday about the plans of Lord Layard, the so-called 'Happiness Tsar', to bring happiness to the UK masses. As an economist, his epiphany was the realisation that above a certain point, money and happiness aren't correlated.

Putting aside the argument about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and depression (which is one definitely worth having), I'm not yet convinced that government intervention to make us all happier is either necessary or effective. I'm all for educating people to make their own decisions but perhaps the government should concentrate its efforts on creating better schools and hospitals first...

But no doubt it would become bogged down in happiness measurements, targets and standards anyway before any real difference was made!

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