Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2019-20/The Issue of History in Wellbeing

The different aspects of well-being.

Introduction

The term “well-being” was first utilised in 1561, denoting that a person or a community is healthy, happy, or prosperous; physical, psychological, or moral welfare. It is commonly understood as the desirable state of life and, although the English term arose recently, well-being has always been pursued by mankind. It is therefore investigated in various disciplines, though each one has created its definition of it, prioritising certain aspects of well-being over others. In the following paragraphs, the current theories of “well-being” in various disciplines and historical root of disciplinary boundaries will be elucidated by presenting the possible formation of their paradigms.

Wellbeing in Disciplines

Wellbeing within Economics

Economics is a discipline that is built fundamentally on the belief that humans have unlimited wants but limited resources. Economists believe that efficiency and productivity are critical as this reduces scarcity, increasing the quality of life Before, wellbeing was present indirectly through the concept of utility (defined as the total satisfaction received from consuming a good or service)., which was integral to the discipline. Early neoclassical economists believed that goods and services could be assigned numerical values where consumption estimated the consumer's happiness.Thus, they believed that the Gross Domestic Product was an appropriate indicator of well-being and that maximising economic growth was the key to improving it. However, this seemed to shift starting from the 1970s due to Easterlin's research (1974) revealing that people in higher-income countries were not necessarily happier than those in lower-income ones. Henceforth, economists became more aware of their overly-reductionistic view of well-being; besides material well-being, there was a need to recognise subjective and relational well-being . This led to the rise of “happiness economics” (observing the effect of economic and social indicators on individual happiness) and quality of life indices, which saw a shift from a focus on GDP to economics becoming more people-centric.

Wellbeing within Philosophy

Philosophy (Greek ϕιλοσοϕία, love of knowledge) is a discipline exploring problems with the nature of existence, knowledge, morality, reason and human purpose. Due to the emergence of philosophical inquiry, when Thales questioned the beginning of things, philosophers started to adore reasoning the hidden truth of existence rather than deriving theories through empirical research. Wellbeing was widely discussed among historical moral philosophers. Common debates included how to ensure one’s life went well, how to live well and whether well-being was objective or subjective. The earliest theory, by Aristotle, claims that “eudaimonia” is the highest achievement of men, accomplished by pushing one’s life to its limits and thus attaining excellence (aretē). Another important theory is Hedonism, ( hēdonē, pleasure in Greek), argues that wellbeing is the experience of more pleasure over pain. Desire Fulfillment Theory emerged in the 19th century, partly due to the rise of welfare economics, holding the opinion that well-being lies in the fulfilment of one's desires. Lastly, "Objective list theories" holds that well-being is the result of a number of objective conditions rather than the subjective experience of pleasure or the fulfilment of subjective desires.

Wellbeing within Neuroscience (Psychology and Biology)

The key hypothesis of positive health is that well-being will be accompanied by the optimal functioning of multiple biological systems. This biopsychosocial interplay is proposed to comprise part of the mechanistic processes that help the individual maintain functional health, and thereby extended periods of quality living. Researchers argue that biological factors such as the hormonal and neurochemical levels produced by one’s brain play a significant role in the wellbeing of an individual. Neuroscience studies showed that parts of the brain and neurotransmitters play a role in controlling happiness, which contributes to one’s well-being. However, a study regarding antidepressants showed that though these medications immediately boost the concentration of chemical messengers in the brain (neurotransmitters) yet people typically don't begin to feel better for several weeks or longer. Experts have long wondered why, if depression was primarily the result of poor well-being, people do not feel better as soon as levels of neurotransmitters increase. This led to the paradigm shift that although a substantial proportion of the variance in well-being can be attributed to heritable and biological factors such as health, environmental, psychological and economic factors play an equally important role.

Evaluation

As expounded above, despite several overlaps, the four different disciplines demonstrate diverging perspectives and approaches towards well-being. This shows how, when faced with a subject as abstract and undefined as well-being, the history of disciplines can become an obstacle to interdisciplinary research. Firstly, the fundamental beliefs and focus of the disciplines led them to define well-being inconsistently. The reduction of opportunity cost, decision-making and resources are critical building blocks in economic theory and thus, the narrowed economists' viewpoint of well-being being dependent on materialistic gains. Thus, even though subjective well-being data arose in the 1970s in Economics, there was still a general aversion and sceptical attitude towards it until the 1990s when happiness economics finally took off. On the other hand, philosophy and psychology are more interested in the individual. This drives them to prioritise subjective well-being which is demonstrated by well-respected theories such as the Desire Fulfilment Theory. Unfortunately, this causes them to neglect the importance of material well-being. Secondly, methodology interferes with interdisciplinary collaboration. In philosophy, the theories about well-being were largely derived based on a process of intuition and logical reasoning. However, in medicine, such methods are not well-recognized as the discipline's approach is traditionally built on empirical science. Since many determinants of health can be measured which leads to the possibility of diagnosis and it is a struggle to quantify well-being, any other aspect of well-being beyond physical health is often difficult to incorporate within the discipline and its practices. Lastly, terminology that seems natural in a certain discipline could lead to misunderstandings and complications during interdisciplinary collaboration. For example, the definition of "happiness" is slightly different in Economics and Psychology. While Economics strongly ties "happiness" with prosperity, Psychology recognises "happiness" in terms of the pleasure one experiences. Thus, this leads to discordance when they attempt to collaborate on the topic of well-being.

Conclusion

For interdisciplinary research, it is important to understand the history of different disciplines. By tracing well-being’s development within relative disciplines, the differences in theories, lexicons，methodologies, threshold concepts and paradigms are glaringly obvious and demonstrate the factors resulting in interdisciplinary boundaries. However, an understanding of each discipline’s history helps overcome interdisciplinary conflicts, fostering collaborations. For instance, the emergence of experimental philosophy and analytic philosophy, which promotes the combination of empirical research with the traditional philosophical research methodologies, bridged the gap between Biology and Philosophy. When disciplines moved past their historical boundaries, the complex and multi-faceted nature of wellbeing could then be fully appreciated. For example, Carol Ryff’s six-factor model remains one of psychology’s most predominantly accepted models that measures an individual’s wellbeing to date. Her model amalgamates theories from John Stuart Mill, Abraham Maslow, Carl Jung and Aristotle. Comprising of six elements from different disciplines, her model insinuates that an individual’s psychological wellbeing is determined by his or her external environment and its various factors, which is the most balanced portrayal of well-being.