environmentalism and happiness
TRANSCRIPT
Olivia PercocoMarch 28, 2014Happiness
On Environmentalism and Happiness: The Causes of Environmental Despair and What This Means for Environmental Action
This paper aims to focus on the happiness of environmentalists, and more
specifically, whether or not acting out against the dominant culture serves to either
provide happiness to environmentalists (through feelings of solidarity, community,
understanding, etc.) or protect environmentalists from unhappiness due to the outcomes
of inaction. An environmentalist is defined as someone who is concerned with and
advocates for the protection of the environment. The definition of happiness in the
context of this paper has not been rigidly defined, considering participants were asked to
explain their answers. It also served to open the door for exploration of the wide range of
opinions environmentalists may feel towards a dominant culture that may threaten their
source of ontological security, and I didn’t want to limit explanation of emotions by
enforcing a definition of happiness that others might not understand or relate to. By
keeping the term happiness open to subjective interpretation, a definition formed
organically as survey participants were asked to reflect on what circumstances affected
their happiness; the constituents of this term is explored later in this paper.
Using a definition of happiness developed by the participants rather than the
researcher can also serve to broaden the conclusions of this paper, and leave room for
dialogue and further research into this subject area. Research in this area is important
because it addresses the rationale of environmental activists as well as the reason behind
inaction, which has implications for the quality of life of all organisms as our
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environment faces increasing amounts of devastation. Also, understanding motivation of
one sub-culture can aid in understanding the behavior of members of other minority or
underserved groups. It is important to understand the emotional and behavioral response
certain individuals have to changes in our world in order to gauge whether society is on a
path that increases the welfare of the people. This is especially true today, when our
world is changing and expanding at a rate never before seen prior to the age of the
computer, and when it is especially easy to lose touch with other people’s emotions
behind a computer screen.
There are two major factions of environmentalists: those who act out because
environmental degradation and resource shortages pose an immediate threat to the well-
being and aesthetic value of the ecological community, and those who focus on the social
aspect of environmental preservation, which includes the protection of human rights, the
upholding of justice, and the defense of quality of life for future generations. The former
ideology calls for a change in perception of and behavior towards the natural world; the
latter demands systems change in the established social and/or economic system (Guha
and Martinez-Alier 33.) There are differences, also, in how environmentalists pursue
policy change. Whereas one group might lobby, petition, utilize extensive media
coverage and so forth in an organized fashion, with organization leaders and funds for
litigation change, another might opt for direct action, such as acts of civil disobedience
and self-inflicted harm (Guha and Martinez-Alier 17.) While direct action is a more
popular method for single-cause campaigns in which the need for action is urgent and is
more traditionally seen in places where funding and knowledge of social movement
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organization is limited, this is becoming a more prevalent approach here in the United
States (Guha and Martinez-Alier 17.)
So then what is the cause for inaction, and where does happiness fit in to this
discussion? A common belief is that inaction is a result of ignorance, and educating the
population of the array of environmental issues that plague the natural world will get
people up and bullying their political representatives. However, the opposite has actually
been found to be the case; when people are introduced to the number and severity of
environmental crises, it is common for them to feel powerless and guilty and in turn
choose to block out the facts they have been presented with in favor of continuing with
their current lifestyles. This is because these environmental crises are a threat to a
person’s ontological security, their sense of the continuity of life (Norgaard, 174.) People
feel out of control of the situation because the environmental problems are often so large
that even governments can’t decide what to do about them.
The reason these troubling emotions make inaction a nationwide, and in fact,
global, phenomenon is because of emotional management-the act of suppressing or
changing emotions to fit societal standards (King and Auriffeille, 177.) Selective
attention is a strategy of emotional management that is often used to control helplessness
and fear, and it involves selecting what or what not to think about, meaning if a topic
causes one psychological distress, one will simply choose not to think about it (Norgaard,
178.) By not letting oneself think too far ahead or think too often about environmental
degradation, one insulates oneself from negative emotions and allows oneself to maintain
the societal status-quo of perpetual optimism while simultaneously letting the problem
worsen. A possible solution to this problem is shifting the culture’s expectations
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surrounding emotions from that of suppression to that of healthy release, allowing the
management of negative emotions to help instead of hinder societal change.
With this in mind, it is not a surprise that survey participants identified troubling
emotions (such as frustration, stress, anxiety, loneliness, etc.), as one of the circumstances
considered to lower happiness levels. This is congruous with other research, which
suggests that subjective wellbeing is affected by emotional state. However, life
satisfaction does not seem to be affected by any particular circumstance (Kahneman and
Krueger, 8-17.) Subjective wellbeing has been found to be between 40% and 80%
heritable, and other factors, such as personality, also affect one’s long-term happiness.
What this research means for the purposes of this study is that emotions such as anger,
fear, resentment, and even love, while affecting an individual’s current happiness level,
don’t seem to have an effect on an individual’s life satisfaction because despite
experiencing these unpleasant emotions, happiness levels tend to bounce back to a certain
set point. However, there is one exception: if a particular life event does not have a one-
time effect, but instead steadily worsens over time, this set-point hypothesis may not
apply (Jasper, 78.) Environmental catastrophes like the ones environmental activists
strive to prevent may very well fall into this category of inadaptable life events.
Another proven factor in subjective wellbeing is empowerment, which is defined
as the actual ability to control one’s environment as well as the feeling that one can do so
(Diener and Biswas-Diener, 125.) Empowerment does not exist unless both conditions
are met, and both conditions are necessary for action. Without feelings of competency
and self-efficacy, and with repeated failure at attaining goals, action is unlikely and
negative feelings towards oneself are common (135.) In the same vein, it has been found
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that a high level of internal empowerment is likely to result in a high level of subjective
wellbeing. The implication of empowerment for societal change is that increased positive
emotions increase feelings of empowerment, and vice versa.
Although it is true that negative emotions often lead to inaction, it is also true that
in extreme cases the opposite can occur. Suicide is one example, and this pattern can be
applied to both environmentalists and dominant culture. Not surprisingly, the same
emotions that cause people to commit suicide cause people to take action for the
protection of the environment. These emotions include hopelessness, desperation,
anxiety, and rage ((Hendin, Maltsberger , Pollinger Haas , Szanto, and Rabinowicz 387,
389.) Suicidal patients have an intense fear of personal disintegration, just as
environmentalists have an intense fear of ecological disintegration (Hendin, Maltsberger ,
Pollinger Haas , Szanto, and Rabinowicz 391.). That’s not to say that environmentalists
are suicidal because of their environmentalism, but it does seem that desperation is an
intense affect that leads to action. Similarly, suicidal patients have a tendency to break
apart their body from their minds, mistakenly believing that their physical bodies are the
reason for their suffering and therefore easily subjecting their bodies to physical attack.
These transient episodes cause the suicidal person to feel paranoid about his or her
renounced flesh and therefore feel the need to destroy it (Maltsberger, 660.) A case could
be made that dominant U.S culture1 acts towards nature the way the suicidal person
1 The dominant culture is, for the purposes of this paper, the state-corporate capitalist system, defined as “a complex web of symbols, narratives, and rituals that embody and enshrine the spirit of acquisitiveness, which is manifested in the corporate aims of profit and market share expansion” (LaMoth 21.) This system increases anxiety because of the objectification and easy elimination of the individual due to the profit interests of the corporation; in this system, corporate loyalty only goes as far as one’s ability to increase productivity does. Anxiety from this model is coupled with financial and existential insecurity, which stems from the understanding that corporations do not stand for social welfare so long as social good inhibits the productivity and profit of the corporation.
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behaves towards his or her own body. Separating ourselves from nature (through the
opinion of human exceptionalism) creates the desire to control, dominate, and annihilate
the environment, which we have mistakenly attributed the foundation of human suffering
to. The only result of this, however, is the subsequent destruction of ourselves. From this
deep ecological standpoint, the behavior of dominant culture mirrors that of a suicidal
person.
Methods
In order to verify the claims regarding the relationship between happiness and
empowerment, whilst putting happiness in the context of environmentalism, I conducted
a survey of UVM Honors College students, environmental Facebook group members
(Student Climate Culture, Paradigm Shift, Rutland Area Climate Coalition), and
Facebook friends.
The survey began by asking participants to rate their happiness on a scale of one
to ten (one being miserable and ten being completely satisfied.) Participants were then
asked to describe the circumstances that could currently be affecting their happiness.
Furthermore, the survey asked them to characterize current society, characterize their
ideal society, describe what they feel should be done to achieve their ideal society, and
rank on a scale of one to ten how empowered they feel to take those actions. All
participants were then asked to rate their happiness again, in order to gauge whether or
not participating in the survey and thinking about their emotions made them more or less
happy than how they felt at the start.
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This survey, although taken by a number of individuals, was meant to target
environmentalists. Because of this, the survey was designed to create an environmentalist
sub-group by making the self-proclaimed environmentalists answer additional questions
that the other participants left blank. This group was asked to describe what motivates
their environmentalism, how they feel about the current state of the environment, whether
or not they have participated in any form of activism, and how activism makes them feel.
Next, environmentalists were asked what they think would happen if they ceased their
activism, and how this inaction would make them feel. Finally, environmentalists were
asked whether or not they consider themselves happier for their environmentalism. This
section of the survey was designed to determine whether the actions of environmentalists
were motivated by affective (love, solidarity, dread, moral outrage) or reactive (anger,
grief, shock) emotions, both outside and inside of movements (Jasper 406.)
Results
Reason for Happiness/Unhappiness # of Responses
Family/friends/social networks 28School/ school related work/lack of time 23
Physical state 17Expectations for future 4
Financial concerns/material possessions 3The environment/weather 3
Mental Disorder 3Feeling of purpose 2
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For the circumstances that affect happiness levels, participants mentioned school
or work and family/friends/social networks, and physical state the most often, followed
by expectations for the future, financial concerns/material possession, mental disorders,
the environment/weather, mental disorders, and feeling of purpose.
None of the participants consider themselves non-environmentalists, with 56% of
respondents identifying themselves as environmentalists and 44% identifying as “latent”
environmentalists- those who are concerned about the protection of the environment but
don’t advocate for it. Of those who consider themselves environmentalists, 55% consider
the degradation of the environment a threat to their identity and 45% do not.
Discussion
Happiness
Figure 1: Response to "on a scale from one to ten, how happy are you right now?”
Figure 2: Response to "On a scale from 1-10, how close do you consider current society to your ideal society?"
Figure 3: Response to how empowered participants feel to pursue the actions they identified as necessary to obtain their ideal society, on a scale from 1-10.
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Happiness, based on participant answers, is most affected by factors such as status
of relationships, physical and financial condition, and amount of work and work- related
stress. A number of participants expressed that at the moment, they “knocked off” a few
points because of a current difficulty, implying that their normal happiness level is even
higher. This reinforces the theory of a set-point happiness level that, regardless of
circumstance, people return to. Environmental degradation was not listed as a reason that
affected current happiness level, although environmentalists identified this as a reason
that affected happiness later on in the survey, which leads me to believe that whereas
concern for the environment doesn’t affect current happiness, it does have an effect on
longer-term happiness and life satisfaction.
Ideal society and empowerment
As far as respondents’ ideal societies, emphasis was put on peace (global and
domestic), equality, respect, selflessness, and the eradication of regional boundaries that
separate people by nationality, whereas current society was characterized as selfish,
corrupt, profit-driven, and “top heavy” in terms of concentration of power. Participants
expressed uncertainty about how exactly to attain their ideal society, with some
respondents claiming it is impossible. Of those who did not discount its possibility, many
said that by educating people, leading by example, and adopting a new system of
government, we could achieve ideal-society status. The spectrum of empowerment was
roughly equal, with about 50% of participants rating themselves between a 1 and 5, and
50% rating themselves between 6 and 10. Surprisingly, participants who rated themselves
the least empowered also gave themselves higher happiness rating (at or above 6.)
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However, of the three participants who rated themselves at a ‘10’ for empowerment, one
rated himself or herself as an ‘8’, one a ‘9’, and one a ‘10’ for happiness.
Because of these incongruous survey results, it cannot be concluded that
empowerment to change current society has a direct effect on current happiness levels.
This could be due to the emotional management strategies discussed earlier in this paper,
in that while rating happiness, participants were not focusing on the big issues outside of
themselves because if they allowed those issues to consume their thoughts everyday, their
current happiness would in fact be affected.
The Environmentalists
The environmentalists, as with the rest of society, fall into two “camps”: those
who protect the environment for the good of people, and those who protect the
environment for the ecological services and beauty nature provides. A disproportionate
number of participants in this study claimed the wellbeing of nature and preservation of
beauty was their motivation versus societal benefits (2/3 responses.) Also, participants
were motivated to actually take action by affective emotions more often than responsive
emotions, reporting that certain individuals, as well as obligation to society as a whole,
lead them to action. Time pressures were the number one identified reason for
environmentalists to not take action. Unidentified lack of drive was also a duplicated
response.
In response to how ceasing to advocate for the environment would make the
activists feel, participants claimed they would feel “empty,” “out of touch with reality,”
“sad,” “defeated,” “without purpose,” “like I’m giving up,” “like I’m contributing to the
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death of what I love,” etc. When asked about their feelings about the state of the
environment, most respondents said “sad,” “furious,” “pessimistic,” “fearful,” or
“worried,” while others said “optimistic” or “all right.” The ratio of positive comments to
negative comments was 1:6. For the environmental subgroup these results seem to
indicate a positive correlation between taking action and happiness with oneself, and
suggests that the motivation for activism is indeed due to the desire to keep oneself from
experiencing troubling emotions. However, the motivation behind environmentalism
itself, “latent” or otherwise, seems to be due to the positive emotions nature provides for
environmentalists. The distinction here is that people care for and want to protect the
environment due to its intrinsic value, while the fear of losing oneself or experiencing
negative feelings acts as an extrinsic motivator to take action to protect the environment.
In other words, environmentalists are extrinsically motivated to protect what intrinsically
makes them happy.
Drawbacks of this study
While there seems to be a correlation between ceasing to take action and
unhappiness with oneself for the environmentalists, this doesn’t answer the question of
whether or not environmentalism affects happiness. Some people said that they are happy
with themselves because they are environmentally friendly, others said that being an
environmentalist exposes them to issues that make them upset. In fact, 8 out of 14
respondents said that they consider themselves happier (or at least satisfied with their
efforts) because of their environmentalism, whereas only 4 expressed unhappiness, which
they attributed to a feeling of powerlessness and “people shitting on my beliefs.”2
2 2 of the 14 results were inconclusive. 3 of the 8 respondents who mentioned happiness overlapped with those who also mentioned unhappiness.
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Because of the limits of time and sample size for this study, I don’t consider this
sufficient evidence to suggest a correlation between happiness and environmentalism.
However, as stated above, there does seems to be a relationship between the motivation
for environmental action and preserving happiness.
The survey also failed to differentiate between internal and external
empowerment and have participants analyze why they do or do not feel empowered. This
information would have been useful in confirming Diener and Biswas-Diener’s model of
empowerment and action (psychological and external empowerment leads to action.)
Conclusion
There is a wide range of circumstances that affect an individual’s happiness level,
from social relationships to physical health to the weather. Environmentalists, while
faced with severe threats to their identity and source of pleasure at the hands of dominant
culture, don’t altogether seem unhappier because of this. On the contrary, their love of
the environment seems to strengthen them and help them cope with other issues they
face. Many claim their consciences guide their environmental behavior, while others are
fueled by anger and fear. Overall, it seems that motivation for environmental behavior
and action has more to do with individual disposition rather than collective desperation.
One commonality exists, however, and that is that environmentalists, regardless of
temperament, respect the environment for its intrinsic value and act on its behalf in order
to protect its immeasurable worth.
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References
Guha, Ramachandra; Martinez-Alier, Juan. Varieties of Environmentalism: Essays North and South. London: Earthscan Publications, Ltd., 1997. Print.
Norgaard, Kari. "People Want to Protect Themselves a Little Bit." Environmental Sociology: From Analysis to Action . . 3rd ed. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2014. 177-183. Print.
Jasper, James. "The Emotions of Protest: Affective and Reactive Emotions in and around Social Movements." Sociological Forum. 13.3 (1998): 397-424. Web. 20 Mar. 2014
Lucas, Richard. "Adaptation and the Set-Point Model of Subjective Well-Being: Does Happiness Change After Major Life Events?." Current Directions in Psychological Science. 16.75 (2007): n. page. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.
Diener, Ed, and Robert Biswas-Diener. "Psychological Empowerment and Subjective Well-Being." Trans. Array Measuring Empowerment: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives . Washington DC: World Bank, 2005. 125-139. Web. 21 Mar. 2014.
Maltsberger, John. "The descent into suicide." International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. 85. (2004): 653–668. Web. 21 Mar. 2014.
LaMothe, Ryan. "State-Corporate Capitalism, Political Polarization, and a Culture of Unquiet Desperation: A Pastoral Analysis and Responses." Pastoral Psychology . 61. (2-12): 15–29. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
Hendin, Herbert, John Maltsberger , Ann Pollinger Haas , Katalin Szanto, and Heather Rabinowicz. "Desperation and Other Affective States in Suicidal Patients." Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. 34.4 (2004): 386-393. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
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