AUDIO: Fresno State prof to help measure happiness in the Himalayas

FRESNO

September 13, 2012
9:00pm

•  Picked for team to work on Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness project

•  ‘When you’re struggling economically, it’s very difficult to think beyond that’

Bridge in Bhutan

(Photo by Christopher Fynn, via Wikimedia)

Happy in your work? Good for you -- if you can say that.

But happiness as a measure of the economic well being of an entire nation? The government of the Himalayan nation of Bhutan has tapped Fresno State Psychology Professor Robert Levine to help measure happiness among its people as part of the world’s first – and so far only -- Gross National Happiness project.

Gross National Happiness, the Bhutanese measure of national progress, is about quality of life, educational attainment, physical, psychological and emotional well being, and cultural and ecological integrity.

(Robert Levine talks about the project and how it might provide lessons for American business – and life – in today’s exclusive CVBT Audio Interview. Please click on the arrow below to listen now or right-click on the link at the end of the story to download the MP3 audio file for later listening.)

He says a major part of happiness – or lack of happiness – is time, or its lack. This seems to be increasingly true in business, he says.

“The issue of time is now on the table more than it’s ever been,” he says. “There’s a sense the businesses have overdone short-term future orientation. Enough businesses have been through this process of living from quarter to quarter.”

Would some sort of Gross National Happiness index work in the United States? Probably not now, he says.

“We all know economically what people are living through right now. When one starts to stack up their hierarchy of needs, when you’re struggling economically, it’s very difficult to think beyond that,” Mr. Levine says.

Mr. Levine, a professor at Fresno State since 1974, received his appointment in a letter from Bhutanese King Jigme Singye Wangchuck.

He will learn more about his role on the working group when he meets with Bhutan Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley in New York in coming weeks.

Mr. Levine has published many articles in professional journals as well as articles in trade periodicals such as Discover, American Demographics, the New York Times, Utne Reader, and American Scientist. His book, “A Geography of Time,” (Basic Books, 1997), was the subject of feature stories around the world, including Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine, CNN, the BBC, ABC's Primetime, and NPR's All Things Considered and Marketplace. It has been translated into six languages.

His recent book, “The Power of Persuasion: How We're Bought and Sold,” (John Wiley Sons, 2003), has been translated into seven languages.