Does Education Make You Happy? | Hacker News Reader

Does Education Make You Happy?

economix.blogs.nytimes.com

17 pointstokenadult15 comments

I reject the significance of the question, and I reject the purported method used to answer it. First, defang it of the direction of causal fit problem. Does being in a state of greater educational attainment dispose one towards happiness? The answer? Irrelevant.

Let us say that it was not true in a concrete case: that Paris Hilton (or someone equivalent) was happier than, say, W.V.O. Quine. Would that mean that the late Professor Quine should have dropped all that logic lark, caught the next plane to Hollywood and started snorting coke and appearing in sex tapes? Of course not.

If the only goal we had in life was happiness, we would spend all day watching TV, popping Prozac and engaging in mindless consumerist 'retail therapy' to cover up for our lack of... oh, wait.

Penelope Trunk has written a bunch of articles on people who are interested in happiness vs living an interesting life. I can't speak to the validity of her sources, but it's something interesting to think about:

http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2010/01/14/do-you-overemphasiz...

Problem is, there seems to be at least 3 different kinds of "happiness", at least according to Martin Seligman in this TED video: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/martin_seligman_on_the_sta...

It would seem that she is trying to move away from the first level of happiness (simply trying to seek out "feel good" experiences) toward higher level happiness that is achieved through flow experiences and meaning but may not have a lot of pleasure attached.

An approach worth contrasting seeking either happiness or interesting life is to try living a life with morality and purpose that leaves the world better than you found it in some meaningful way.

Wow thanks for the link, that's a really good blog in general.

I love how, as "Correlation does not prove causation" becomes more and more well-known, it is frequently added on to the end of an article with the basic approach of: "Correlation is not causation, but gosh, isn't it tempting?!"

This is a subject for which the Wikipedia article is surprisingly good:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_caus...

Especially when the article is titled "Does Education Make You Happy?"

I would guess "no," regardless of the answer in cities, but education probably does make me more right, or at least more right than not.

And once I have enough education, I can read books like Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness: http://jseliger.com/2009/04/23/stumbling-on-happiness-daniel... and hopefully (re?)learn about happiness.

Here's my reverse causality analysis: perhaps it's that those predispositionally disposed towards happiness -- optimistic, for example -- tend to go to college more often (and finish) than unhappy people.

A variety of studies that I have read suggest that the causation is that wealthier people (of a given level of ability) go to and complete college much more than poor people.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_27/b3840045_...

http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp0621.pdf

http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ff0615S.pdf

http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/carnrose.pdf

http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/kahlenberg-affacti...

http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/05/a-thumb-on-the-scale.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/financial-aid-leveragi...

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=510012

http://www.equaleducation.org/commentary.asp?opedid=1240

http://www.jkcf.org/assets/files/0000/0084/Achievement_Trap....

http://www.reason.com/news/show/123910.html

And most other things being equal, it's easier to be happy as a rich person than as a poor person.