Comments on: Can the mentally distressed also be happy?

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Wed, 26 Sep 2007 08:41:29 +0000

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By: Brad

Brad — Tue, 01 May 2007 09:04:17 +0000

Yes, the mentally distressed can be happy. Of course it would depend upon the degree of distress the individual is going through.

Happiness may come in cycles throughout the day. Depression affects people more in the morning than afternoon or evening.

By: Andrew Leigh

Andrew Leigh — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 23:12:15 +0000

AN, fair points. I like the thermometer analogy.

By: derrida derider

derrida derider — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 04:22:56 +0000

Tom N, as someone once said “Better to be a Socrates discontented than a pig happy”.

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 02:23:12 +0000

Andrew - I don’t disagree that we will find many people on a spectrum from ill-being to well-being, and that people who are high on one will generally be low on the other.

But the overall point is I think an important one for this area of research, showing in the limited studies of ‘positive affect’ too - that there is an imperfect relationship between day-to-day (or hour-to-hour) moods and emotions and overall life assessment.

Also the psychological distress instruments simply aren’t designed to measure happiness. Of the 12 GHQ questions in the divorce paper only 2 deal with positive emotions, and even then at lukewarm level (happy enough all things considered). They are like a thermometer that can’t measure heat above 28 degrees.

By: Andrew Leigh

Andrew Leigh — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 01:25:06 +0000

Andrew, we should probably engage the services of an econometrician who thinks more about latent variables than moi. But my intuitive response is to say that a negative correlation among a small group isn’t inconsistent with a positive correlation for the majority. For example, imagine two proxies for latent health: self-reported health (on a 1-10 scale), and body mass index. For most people, these will proxy the same thing. But for bodybuilders, they’ll be negatively correlated. Nonetheless, I think the general rule that self-reported health and BMI are both health proxies is a reasonable one.

By: Tom N.

Tom N. — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 23:44:44 +0000

I have a good friend who I describe as my “gay, Christian, psychopathic ex-house mate with an IQ of 360.” Naturally, he seems mentally distressed most of the time. He is also exceedingly happy with his state!

___

BTW, the IQ estimate is not precise - just my way of saying that he’s several times smarter than me.

By: Andrew Norton

Andrew Norton — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 20:25:24 +0000

“Out of the last six posts, four have been on a theme related to marriage. Is there a particular reason why this subject is of particular interest to you these days?”

Two weddings to attend on one weekend put marriage in my mind and triggered the first post, and last night’s follow up to it was only incidentally about marriage (or to be more specific, divorce).

The gay marriage post was triggered by seeing a friend attack an acquaintance in The Australian, which I could write about as I had thought about the issue before. The liberal marriage post was a follow-up to something John Heard said in reply.

So nothing along the lines you are hinting at. It was just coincidence that two marriage-related topics appeared within a few days of each other, and both triggered comments that I wanted to reply to at greater length than I could in the comments box.

By: Perry

Perry — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 14:42:48 +0000

A littlestress does no harm but prolonged stress is not good

By: Boris

Boris — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 13:32:38 +0000

On a more serious note, I think there is also a need to differentiate between general happiness and specific happiness related to marriage. In my personal case the latter is quite low, but despite this I am in god spirits most of the time.