I happen to be watching Fox News at 11:20pm on Monday, August 29th, 2011.
Correspondents are discussing the new Obama appointment of Alan B. Krueger as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA).
Alan is the Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University.
In addition, he has published widely on the economics of education, unemployment, labor demand, income distribution, social insurance, labor market regulation, terrorism and environmental economics. Since 1987 he has held a joint appointment in the Economics Department and Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.
He is the founding Director of the Princeton University Survey Research Center. He is the author of What Makes A Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism and Education Matters: A Selection of Essays on Education, and co-author of Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage, and co-author of Inequality in America: What Role for Human Capital Policies? He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Russell Sage Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and the American Institutes for Research, as well as a member of the editorial board of Science (2001-09), editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives (1996-2002) and co-editor of the Journal of the European Economic Association (2003-05).
Professor Krueger served as Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2009-10. In 1994-95 he served as Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor.
He has been a member of the Executive Committee of the American Economic Association (2005-07) and International Economic Association, and Chief Economist for the National Council on Economic Education (2003-09). He was named a Sloan Fellow in Economics in 1992 and an NBER Olin Fellow in 1989-90. He was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 1996 and a fellow of the Society of Labor Economists in 2005. He was awarded the Kershaw Prize by the Association for Public Policy and Management in 1997 and Mahalanobis Memorial Medal by the Indian Econometric Society in 2001. In 2002 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and in 2003 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. He was awarded the IZA Prize in Labor Economics with David Card in 2006. From 2000 to 2006 he was a regular contributor to the "Economic Scene" column in the New York Times. He received a B.S. degree (with honors) from Cornell University's School of Industrial & Labor Relations in 1983, an A.M. in Economics from Harvard University in 1985, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1987.
Yet all the pundits are talking about is the fact that ANOTHER ACADEMIC has been appointed to an influential post. What, may I ask is wrong with appointing a person that has devoted his life to studying economics at this level to such a post. What would make people happy? Why are academics so unqualified for such positions?
Baffled...
(15,375)
Monday, August 29, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
Be the ball.
A while back, I wrote a post about happiness.
Back then I asked, ”If you were to consider all the things in your life (relationships, work, socioeconomics, et cetera) as a whole, how happy would you say you are on a scale of one to ten, with one being the least happy and ten being the most?”
I was not surprised (more like glad) to read in the article below that, while not otherwise impossible, we tend to be happier when those around us are also happy.
But all is not necessarily well.
As a nation, it seems that we've grown sadder and more anxious during these times of recession and debt ceiling limitations, even amidst the continued airing of Jersey Shore.
As a nation, it seems that we've grown sadder and more anxious during these times of recession and debt ceiling limitations, even amidst the continued airing of Jersey Shore.
At the same time, studies say severe mental illness is more common among college students than it was a decade ago, with most young people seeking treatment for depression and anxiety. A study presented at the American Psychological Association found that the number of students on psychiatric medicines increased more than 10% over the last 10 years.
According to The Happiness Project, there are 10 myths about happiness (each “myth” is clickable, if you so desire):
No. 3: Venting anger relieves it.
No. 5: A “treat” will cheer you up.
No. 6: Money can’t buy happiness.
No. 10: It’s selfish to try to be happier.
Perhaps the most interesting advice I found came from a Facebook page:
Don't go with the flow. Be the flow.
Very zen. reminds me of this:
Here is the article.
Posted on 6/29/2011 and by Diana Yates, Life Sciences Editor.
CHAMPAIGN, lll. — In 1943, American psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed that all humans seek to fulfill a hierarchy of needs, which he represented with a pyramid. The pyramid’s base, which he believed must come first, signified basic needs (for food, sleep and sex, for example). Safety and security came next, in Maslow’s view, then love and belonging, then esteem and, finally, at the pyramid’s peak, a quality he called “self-actualization.” Maslow wrote that people who have these needs fulfilled should be happier than those who don’t.
In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois put Maslow’s ideas to the test with data from 123 countries representing every major region of the world.
“Anyone who has ever completed a psychology class has heard of Abraham Maslow and his theory of needs,” said University of Illinois professor emeritus of psychology Ed Diener, who led the study. “But the nagging question has always been: Where is the proof? Students learn the theory, but scientific research backing this theory is rarely mentioned.”
The researchers turned to the Gallup World Poll, which conducted surveys in 155 countries from 2005 to 2010, and included questions about money, food, shelter, safety, social support, feeling respected, being self-directed, having a sense of mastery, and the experience of positive or negative emotions. Diener, a senior scientist for the Gallup Organization, helped design the survey.
The researchers found that fulfillment of a diversity of needs, as defined by Maslow, do appear to be universal and important to individual happiness. But the order in which “higher” and “lower” needs are met has little bearing on how much they contribute to life satisfaction and enjoyment, Diener said.
They also found that the fulfillment of more basic needs – for money, food or shelter, for example – was more closely linked to a positive life evaluation, the way an individual ranked his or her life on a scale from worst to best. The satisfaction of higher needs – for social support, respect, autonomy or mastery – was “more strongly related to enjoying life – having more positive feelings and less negative feelings,” Diener said.
An important finding, Diener said, is that the research indicated that people have higher life evaluations when others in society also have their needs fulfilled.
“Thus life satisfaction is not just an individual affair, but depends substantially also on the quality of life of one’s fellow citizens,” he said.
“Our findings suggest that Maslow’s theory is largely correct. In cultures all over the world the fulfillment of his proposed needs correlates with happiness,” Diener said. “However, an important departure from Maslow’s theory is that we found that a person can report having good social relationships and self-actualization even if their basic needs and safety needs are not completely fulfilled.”
“Another revision of his theory is that we found that different needs produce different types of well-being,” Diener said.
“Anyone who has ever completed a psychology class has heard of Abraham Maslow and his theory of needs,” said University of Illinois professor emeritus of psychology Ed Diener, who led the study. “But the nagging question has always been: Where is the proof? Students learn the theory, but scientific research backing this theory is rarely mentioned.”
The researchers turned to the Gallup World Poll, which conducted surveys in 155 countries from 2005 to 2010, and included questions about money, food, shelter, safety, social support, feeling respected, being self-directed, having a sense of mastery, and the experience of positive or negative emotions. Diener, a senior scientist for the Gallup Organization, helped design the survey.
The researchers found that fulfillment of a diversity of needs, as defined by Maslow, do appear to be universal and important to individual happiness. But the order in which “higher” and “lower” needs are met has little bearing on how much they contribute to life satisfaction and enjoyment, Diener said.
They also found that the fulfillment of more basic needs – for money, food or shelter, for example – was more closely linked to a positive life evaluation, the way an individual ranked his or her life on a scale from worst to best. The satisfaction of higher needs – for social support, respect, autonomy or mastery – was “more strongly related to enjoying life – having more positive feelings and less negative feelings,” Diener said.
An important finding, Diener said, is that the research indicated that people have higher life evaluations when others in society also have their needs fulfilled.
“Thus life satisfaction is not just an individual affair, but depends substantially also on the quality of life of one’s fellow citizens,” he said.
“Our findings suggest that Maslow’s theory is largely correct. In cultures all over the world the fulfillment of his proposed needs correlates with happiness,” Diener said. “However, an important departure from Maslow’s theory is that we found that a person can report having good social relationships and self-actualization even if their basic needs and safety needs are not completely fulfilled.”
“Another revision of his theory is that we found that different needs produce different types of well-being,” Diener said.
Willa Cather: “One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them…”
(14848)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
-
There is a staring contest in the works. For the uninitiated, a staring contest is a game in which two people stare into each other's... -
Our Strategic Plan , for the past three years, has focused on retention, persistence, and ultimately, completion. We have seen some measura... -
I received an email from a community person a couple weeks ago that said, “This video and web site should revolutionize education at Parkl...
