Happiness Assessment Survey Lab Notes


Objective: Create an automated survey to be conducted onthe phone that will entice participants to give us creative ideas on what
makes them happy and what could make them happier.

---------------------------------------------- PHASE ONE: RESEARCH ----------------------------------------------------------

Existing Research/Surveys regarding Happiness Assessment:
The Oxford Happiness Inventory:
http://www.coachingtohappiness.com/happiness-test.html

Satisfaction With Life Scale questionnaire (PDF)
http://www.wandsworth-pct.nhs.uk/pdf/MentalHealth/articles%20and%20questionnaire/Satisfaction%20With%20Life%20Scale.pdf

Some criticism of a BBC show about measuring happiness (things to be
careful of?):
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/05/13/114739.php

Some relevant Wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness // Talks about different takes on happiness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_life_satisfaction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Planet_Index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_National_Happiness // Bhutan's government policy of happiness measurement

Article with a mapping of happiness around the world. The author
rambles about correlations between happiness and life expectancy, and
ponders other factors.
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/006181.html

World Database of Happiness - Lots of ridiculously detailed info on
happiness surveys. Check out "Happiness in Nations" and then search
findings "by item type."
http://www1.eur.nl/fsw/happiness/

A huge paper on a study of how to measure happiness, comparing various
techniques. I didn't read all this, but it might be skimmed for useful
bits.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3852/is_200601/ai_n17170164

Brainstorming: General question examples:

Compared to my peers, I consider myself 1-Less Happy to 10-More Happy?
I have so much in my life to be thankful for.
I feel that the future is overflowing with hope and promise.
I am intensely interested in other people.
I am satisfied with my relationship with my family.
Do you feel you have enough love in your life?
Do you have time to do participate in fun activities?
Are you comfortable with your financial situation?
Achieving higher education would increase my happiness.
Having more accomplishments would increase my happiness.
My job fulfills me and brings me great happiness.
I do not consistently have adequate time in my life.
The state of my health makes me unhappy.
How content with your current government?


---------------------------------------------- PHASE TWO: COMPILING SURVEY QUESTIONS -------------------------------------------------




Concerns: Should we focus on one category like money, family, etc. or create an all-encompassing survey for general issues in their lives?
Are we going to be recording voice or doing the 1-9 scale? or both?
Voice recording would enable us to ask more specific questions and get specific answers. However, the disadvantage would be that we need to hire translators
and it would be more expensive.

Just as a side note, it would be cool if we play bollywood music in the background.


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Highly Rigorous Survey Questions (Target: India):

1st Goal : Get the stats.,
- Gender ( Male or Female) , -Age group (20 and under, 21-30, 31-59 and 60 & above), -Religion ( Islam, Hinduism (Branch out into caste?), Christianity, Others) ,
-Class (Lower, Middle, Upper Middle, Upper), How many members live in your household (2 or less, 3-4, 5 and above), Level of Education (< 5th grade, 6th-8th, 8th -12th, college)


Issues: Money, friends and family, goals, health, age, gender, education, safety, entertainment, religion

I. Economic Situation:
How comfortable are you with your financial situation? 1-9 ranking system
Rate your satisfaction with your professional life? 1-9
What changes would make you happier with your financial situation? (Voice Recording [VR])

II. Social Interactions
Do you feel you have enough love in your life? 1-9
How satisfied are you with the relationships in your life? 1-9
How emotionally supportive are your family, friends and peers? 1-9
Compared to my peers, I consider myself 1-Less Happy to 10-More Happy?
What kind of social interaction do you feel missing in your life? (VR)

III. Goals
I am excited for the future. 1-9
I feel like I have the opportunities to make all my dreams come true. 1-9
What is the biggest hindrance in achieving your goals? (VR)

IV. Health
Rate your satisfaction with your health. 1-9
How accessible is health care to you? 1-9
Do you feel like you generally get sufficient food and water? 1-9
If you do not have access to clean water, food, sanitation or basic health care, why not? (VR)

V. Government
How satisfied are you with your government? 1-9
How much does government corruption affect your happiness? 1-9
What is the MOST important change you want to see implemented by the Government? (VR)

VI. Education
How content are you with the education policies of India? 1-9
How satisfied are you with the educational opportunities available to you? 1-9
How important do you think education is in the development of your future? 1-9 What do you think can be done to eradicate child labor? (VR)

VII. Safety
How secure do you feel in your community? 1-9
How effective do you think the law enforcers are and what changes would you like to see in them?

VIII. Technology
How much would technology improve your life? 1-9 If you are afraid of technology, Why? (VR)
What the most useful technology in your life? (VR)

IX. Religion
How important do you think religion is in your life? 1-9

X. All-Encompassing
How satisfied are you with your amount of leisure time to do fun activities? 1-9
What are you most unhappy about in your life? (VR)
"Thank you for participating in our survey. Your time is appreciated"

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Results:
Pros of highly rigorous survey:

1. If we chose the rigorous route, this would entail converting an existing peer-reviewed "happiness" survey into something that could be conducted by phone. This way, our IVR results would have the validity of an approved, existing method for evaluating happiness.
   
2. produces easily quantitative results
3. do not need to hire a translator to translate results

Cons of high rigorous survey:

1. The biggest problem that we have with numeric responses for this app is that such questions address only known concerns, at best, and tend to be loaded, at worst. Statistics for much of what we could survey this way are already out there with much larger samples than we could manage. If our goal is a proof of concept that will make the project seem fresh and worthwhile (and perhaps worth investing a little in), we're probably going to need to gather unique data.
2. Also, on the '1-9' thing, my girlfriend is taking a research for psychology class at sdsu, and her references recommend a 1-5 scale. This breaks down better to "good or bad", "neutral", or "somewhere in between", and leaves less room for ambiguity about one user's 3 vs. another user's 4, etc.
   

Pros of simple survey:

1. Simplicity is advantageous in that people are more likely to respond if the survey is short and easy to understand. It will not produce conclusive evidence, but as a proof of concept, will be highly suggestive. The simple route will also be easier to build and test.
2. I do think that a more open-ended survey would result in more interesting data. If responses are limited to a minute or so, then translation/transcription shouldn't be a huge task for a limited number of surveys - I didn't think about it that way during our meeting.
3. A minute-long free response requires less end-user commitment than a longer, attention-span taxing numerical survey, which could mean more responses. Some of them might be top-of-the-head smarmy remarks, butthose might actually be useful if they're on topic. Also, the data itself would be immediately engaging, we wouldn't have to rely on some correlation of numbers we put together to gather interest.

Cons of simple survey:

1. have to hire translators to transcribe/translate responses
2. data is not easily quantitative
   
3. have to think of a way/attention grabber that will convince survey participants to tell us a personal story about happiness that they are willing to let us use for research

----------------------------------------------------------- PHASE THREE: SIMPLE SURVEY and INITIAL TESTING ----------------------------------------------------------

*******************************************************************************
Part One- Simple Survey

(blue text is the stuff we need to say) INTRODUCE THE PROJECT: "Hello, this is a Happiness Assessment project conducted by researchers at UCSD.

We are inviting you to participate in a 5 minute survey about happiness. Let’s get started!"

(give them no chance to say no)
“How many members live in your household: 2 or less, 3-4, or 5 and above?” (wait for response) “What is your highest level of education? High school or below, College, Grad school, or beyond” (wait for response) "Thank you for participating in our survey. Your time is appreciated!"
END
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Part Two- Initial Testing
Testing on UCSD Students

• We used the simple survey and called around 20 people that either Angela, Malini or I knew using Skype.

• We used Audacity to record the survey and Soundboard to break the survey up into individual questions.

Skype Testing Results:

Problems:

1. Audio: many people could not hear the questions clearly
2. Too many questions: some people got annoyed by all of the stats questions
3. Unwilling participants: some people hung up once they found out it was a survey
4. No creativity: everyone surveyed said they were happy and for basically the same reason.
   

--------------------------------------------------------------------- PHASE FOUR: ATTENTION GRABBER ----------------------------------------------------

Brainstorming on ways to keep participants' attention:

1. take out statistics questions
   
2. make sure it is a good time for the caller: "If right now is not a good time for you, press 1 if you want us to call you back/to call you back in 20 minutes."
3. create an incentive for a person to answer questions (ex: chance to win a free i-pod)
4. explain concept of survey
5. ATTENTION GRABBER
6. strip away all questions/phrasing that might create aversion (ex: UCSD)
7. tell people we are a NON-PROFIT organization so that they will not think we are trying to sell something
8. don't restrict the amount of time they have to talk (will get more creative answers)
9. give them the questions ahead of time so that they can think of good answers
10. advertise our survey: Union Tribune, craigslist
11. have people make anonymous blogs on a website (bad idea because the point of using a phone is that it is a very CHEAP platform)
12. try live phone conversations first to see what kinds of questions simulate the best responses
13. must get participant's permission to post results ONLINE
14. phrase questions differently, instead of asking "what makes you happy/unhappy", ask "tell us a story of the happiest/unhappiest moment of your life"
    

End Result: We want the survey to be short yet effective. So we incorporated certain Indian phrases of welcome in our introduction. This included saying "Namaste" ("Hello" in hindi) instead of hello at the very beginning of the automated message. The introduction now became "Namaste! I am a researcher from UCSD conducting a survey about happiness. The happiness or the unhappiness of individuals living in a community is a key component when reflecting on societal issues. I want to know if you are happy or unhappy "

Next Steps:

1. get some random India phone numbers
2. make some live phone calls to India to get an idea of how to put together best automated survey

------------------------------------------------------------PHASE 5 - AGENDA AFTER WINTER QUARTER ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Due to delays due to finals, obtaining the indian phone numbers, implementing changes in survey, the project was not completed by the end of winter quarter.

Goals over spring break - Test out the survey in India by calling a sample of 33 people, analyze and refine as the survey to increase response, jot down or record the results, analyze the results, establish conclusion.

1) March 19th: Received the phone numbers
2) March 21st - 23rd: Working out the distance and technical issue- all three members were located in different parts of the country, with only one laptop capable of playing the soundboard file ( the recorded survey) without any background noise - clear enough for a listener to understand the questions without any repeats. It was then decided that rather than having all the callers take the recorded survey. We could split it two samples - half of the callers responding to the questions posed by a live person on the other end of the line (Malini). While the other half of the callers will respond to the soundboard file ( Angela). This way, not only do we solve the laptop issue, we can actually see if automated surveys actually yield a similar result as a live caller.
3) March 24th - March 27th: Calling people in India
4) March 27th: 22/31 calls complete. Waiting on Alice
5) April 1st- April 2nd: Complete all the calls, organize all the recorded inputs on soundboard (?)
6) April 3rd - 4th: Analyze the results, determine the one solid and most encountered happiness/unhappiness factor, determine if the success of the survey, determine if automated or live survey via phone is more suited for the Indian environment, discuss the obstacles and barriers encountered, discuss ways to improve or make the survey a better success.
7) April 5th- April 6th- Update wiki. Complete Project.

------------------------------------------- ISSUES ENCOUNTERED THUS FAR----------------------------------------------------------------
The following issues were encountered in the calls made thus far.

1) The biggest issue is understanding. Accent is a barrier while communicating on the phone ( both the live speaker and the automated voice had the same trouble). We rectified this issue on the first day of calling by speaking a lot slower while communicating one-on-one and by repeating each question twice while using the automated survey.
2) People are not familiar with UCSD and it seemed to confuse or throw a lot of people away when we said "researchers at UCSD". So rather than mentioning UCSD or "researchers", on the one-on-one conversations, we said "Namaste! I am a college student calling from America doing a quick survey about people's happiness". It was noticed that mentioning the terms 'college student' and 'America' made the listener a lot more comfortable and willing to take a survey. It puts the listerners at ease.
3)There was significant problem in understanding what the automated survey was saying and responding appropriately. People did not recognize that it was an automated survey and were unable in many situations to answer the question appropriately.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- INDIA SURVEY RESPONSES --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
India Phone Survey Responses

1.) male

Happy or unhappy: “mentally satisfied with my girlfriend who will eventually become my wife”
(I think he thought I said “happy with your wife” not “life”)

Happiest moment of life: “When I got my first bicycle from my father on my 10th birthday.”

Unhappy moment: “When I got my diploma…no friends.”

2.) male

Happy or unhappy: "happy"

Why are you happy: “Because I love I wife.” (might also have thought that I meant “wife” instead of “life”)

Happiest moment: “When I come back from the office and she is waiting for me.”

Unhappiest moment: “When I came back from the office one day and my wife was not in the house, got angry because she went out without any information, I scolded her.”

3.) male, knows Derek, responses can be used for research

Happy or unhappy: “happy”

What makes you happy: “I’m doing stuff that I like to do and want to do. I am excited about my career. I am a workaholic so my happiness depends on my work situation in life.”

Happiest moment: “When I am not that busy and have time to walk around and have time to write and listen to music, and do things at my own pace.”

What makes you unhappy: “Being hassled, being away from someone I want to be with. My wife is away until next month, so next month I will be happier.”

4.) male, responses can be used for research

Happy or unhappy: “neither”

Happiest moment of your life: “The first time I finished my first short film (filmmaker).”

What makes you happy: “fitness, being healthier, learning stuff like drawing”

What makes you unhappy: “When someone tells me that I might get a gig but it falls through, expectations that don’t happen (cinematographer).”

What can be done to make you happier: “I think if I find a group of collaborative, creative people. Great conversations and making things makes
me happy.”

5.)male, knows Derek, responses can be used for research

Happy or unhappy: “happy”

What makes you happy: “I guess television.”

Happiest moment of your life: “When I got into film school.”

What makes you unhappy: “Would I be wrong if I said women, I’m just kidding! Hypocrisy.”

Unhappiest moment: “When I broke up with a girlfriend of six years, that was the unhappiest moment of my life and it happened five years ago.”

What would make you happier: “To get to direct a feature film.”

Do you think you are close to that goal: “Yes, about a year away, already talking to some people.”


Issues:

1. understanding English with a heavy Indian accent
2. people kept asking me how I got their number, in a very suspicious way
3. people kept thinking I was asking if they were happy with their “wife” instead of their “life”
4. a lot of people still hang up when they hear that I am conducting a survey

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Chinese Survey from Eugene

The goal of this survey is to measure the level of happiness that Chinese people achieve in their recent time. During this weekend, I designed a survey and distributed them to 62 persons. In fact, the design and format of this survey is direct and simple, the questions included what is the reason of time make you feel happy, what is the period of time make you feel upset, and the utility of happiness you are currently. For the utility index, we use 10 as the signal of the most happiness and 1 as the least happiness. All questions are multiple choices which would make people feel more comfortable to fill out. Furthermore, to get the data more accurate, part of the questions permit more than one choice. In order to analyst the relationship on the happiness with the gender and age, I also request some basic information from them. In general, I do forward this survey to some Chinese people in Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and the United States. Since this survey is done by online, hence this survey is worthy of reading because the result is not only represent the Chinese people, but the Chinese people all over the world. For example, the group of Australia represents the Chinese on Australia, the group of Canada and the United States representing the Chinese on North America, and the rest representing the Chinese on Asia. To get the data easily, I just forward this survey to my friends, and them to forward to other Chinese people. Therefore, the flow of the survey is just like a tree diagram and wide spread to other network. After getting the data from survey, I use the Excel to calculate the percentage and the standard derivation.

Gender	Population	(%)
- male	40	64.5
- female	22	35.5
Total	62	100

Age	Population	(%)
below 15	0	0
15-24	60	96.8
25-34	2	3.2
35-44	0	0
45-54	0	0
55-64	0	0
65 or above	0	0
Total	62	100
Average	8.857143

Background	Population	(%)
- employed	10	16.1
- unemployed	2	3.2
- student	50	80.7
- retired	0	0
- housewife	0	0
Total	62	100

What are the reasons make you feel happy?				(%)
- good relationship with friends			43	69.4
- being admire by others			38	61.3
- succeed in matrimony or love			38	61.3
- succeed in achieveing personal ideal			36	58.1
- being rely on by others			36	58.1
- succeed in studies			35	56.5
- family safety			32	51.6
- succeed in handling problem			32	51.6
- family harmony			30	48.4
- on vacation tour			29	46.8
- liberty			29	46.8
- matter of enjoyment			27	43.5
- feel successful on doing things			25	40.3
- successful on bussiness			23	37.1
- think positive way			17	27.4
- rely on religious			5	8.1

What are the reasons make you feel upset?				(%)
- argue with friends/ feel lonely			34	54.8
- being misunderstood by others			32	51.6
- feel stressful on studies			32	51.6
- cannot depend on somebody			30	48.4
- unable to solve the problems			28	45.2
- being ignored			27	43.5
- anxios on variety of matter			25	40.3
- failure in love/ matrimony			25	40.3
- bad relationship with family			24	38.7
- perplexity of family			24	38.7
- feel useless			23	37.1
- illness			21	33.9
- failure on achieveing the personal goal			20	32.3
- very on work/ lack of relaxation			19	30.6
- always think of the sad experiences			19	30.6
- in poverty			15	24.2
- cannot fully satisfy on the matter of enjoyment			12	19.4
- unemployed			9	14.5

The factor of happiness					(%)
A) Personal relationship and Social network				262	29.7
- the relationship with family				54
- the relationship with friends				77
- matrimony/ love				63
- reliable/ misunderstanding				68
B) Self-esteem and Ability				283	32
- stress on studies				67
- stress on business				43
- the ability on handling problems				60
- appreciation/ being ignored				65
- self respect/self abased				48
C) Freedom				102	11.6
- leisure/ busy				48
- liberity				54
D) Personal health and Goal				173	19.6
- a frame of mind				25
- the view of optimistic/ pessimistic				36
- goal achievement				56
- religious/ reliabilty				35
- healthy				21
E) Sence of security				63	7.1
- money				15
- employment				9
- matter of enjoyment				39
Total				883	100

The index of Subjective Happiness				(%)
1 to 2			3	4.8
3 to 4			13	20.6
5 to 6			16	25.4
7 to 8			25	39.7
9 to 10			6	9.5
Total			63	100
Average Happiness Index			12.6
Standard Derivation			8.677557

Conclusion

As the data we collect is from the Chinese people all over the world. Even I only have 62 survey within 2 days, the result would still be valid. Certainly, we can get more accruate estimate if we can collect more data.

Do Chinese people live happily?

In fact, do Chinese people live happily? The result clearly identify that Chinese people is not how upset that we expected. To sum up the result of the survey, I found that the average subjective happiness index is 8.667, which means the happiness level from Chinese people reach to 87 out of 100. Although I do not have any other indexes from other countries, the index of Chinese is already reached to 8.667 out of 10. In fact, able to reach 8.667 is already better than a lot of countries. For example, during the 90 century, Switzerland is 8.30, the United States is 7.67, Australia is 7.58, South Korea is 6.69 and Hungary is 6.03

The factors of happiness

the followings below are the top 10 factors that may make people feel happy			(%)
- good relationship with friends			69.4
- being admire by others			61.3
- succeed in matrimony or love			61.3
- succeed in achieveing personal ideal			58.1
- being rely on by others			58.1
- succeed in studies			56.5
- family safety			51.6
- succeed in handling problem			51.6
- family harmony			48.4
- on vacation tour			46.8

the followings below are the top 10 factors may make people feel upset			(%)
- argue with friends/ feel lonely			54.8
- being misunderstood by others			51.6
- feel stressful on studies			51.6
- cannot depend on somebody			48.4
- unable to solve the problems			45.2
- being ignored			43.5
- anxios on variety of matter			40.3
- failure in love/ matrimony			40.3
- bad relationship with family			38.7
- perplexity of family			38.7

the catlogies identify the element of happiness and unhappiness		(%)
- Personal relationship and Social network		29.7
- Self-esteem and Ability		32
- Freedom		11.6
- Personal health and Goal		19.6
- Sence of security		7.1

How to live happily?

In fact, money is important and we simply satisfy our wants by spending. Thus, people would generally believe that wealth would be the main factor to deterimine the happiness. Surprisingly, the survey revealed that personal wealth may not be the main factor or the only factor of happiness. In fact, I discovered that personal relationship and social network, self esteem and ability, and freedom would be more important than wealth (sence of security). In order to live more happlier, we should develop good social network and realtionship with other people, and develop self confidience.