Measuring Well-Being Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the Social Sciences and the Humanities

This edited volume focuses on both conceptual and practical challenges in measuring well-being. Leveraging insights across diverse disciplines, including psychology, economics, sociology, statistics, public health, theology, and philosophy, contributors consider the philosophical and theological traditions on happiness, well-being and the good life, as well as recent empirical research on well-being and its measurement. The chapters review what is known empirically about how different measures of well-being relate to each other and considers various arguments for and against use of specific measures of well-being in different contexts. Further, the volume includes discussion of how a synthesis of existing research helps us make sense of the proliferation of different measures and concepts within the field, while also foregrounding the insights gained by investigations and conceptual thinking occurring across diverse disciplines.

Matthew T. Lee is Director of Empirical Research at the Human Flourishing Program in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University and coauthor of The Heart of Religion (Oxford University Press). His research explores pathways to human flourishing, benevolent service to others, and the integration of social science and the humanities. Laura D. Kubzansky is Lee Kum Kee Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences and co-Director of the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She has published extensively on the role of psychological and social factors in health. She has served on the leadership team for multiple training programs for junior scholars and is PI or co-investigator on numerous grants. Tyler J. VanderWeele is the John L. Loeb and Frances Lehman Loeb Professor of Epidemiology in the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Director of the Human Flourishing Program, and Co-Director of the Initiative on Health, Religion, and Spirituality at Harvard University. His research concerns methodology for distinguishing between association and causation in observational studies, and his empirical research spans psychiatric, perinatal, and social epidemiology; the science of happiness and flourishing; and the study of religion and health.