Module 2: Paradoxes of Happiness
  Lecture 4: Quality of Life: Evidence from Surveys
 

At the end it may be said that although important from policy and academic points of view, the happiness measurements add very little to our understanding of level and correlates of happiness. Such researches are important in their own rights but they need to be combined with the philosophical and speculative works on the subject. There is also a need to use qualitative methods such as narratives and participatory rapid (or relaxed) appraisal techniques to understand people’s understanding of happiness and values. Through such researches we can know about happiness and its correlates more from people’s perspective rather than experts’ perspective. These researches can bridge the gap between purely positivistic research on the subject and the demands of the developing theory of happiness at the individual level.