Science of Individual & Societal Well-Being
Dawn Kutza
Kelley School of Business
We will begin the course by virtually exploring the beautiful countries of Iceland and New Zealand. Both countries consistently rank in the top 10 of the world’s happiest people and at the top of multiple international well-being surveys, including the Global Peace Index and the Better Life Index, as well as on measures of income equality, gender equality, health, education, environmental quality, generosity, freedom, and absence of corruption.
In 2019, Iceland and New Zealand’s Prime Ministers enacted governmental Well-being frameworks to foster sustainable development goals put forth by the United Nations. Such systems—and the impact of prioritizing and measuring human and environmental well-being—is forward-looking and sits in contrast to countries who rely strictly on GDP (Gross Domestic Product) indicators (like the United States) to measure growth and success. Analyzing Icelanders’ and New Zealanders’ ways of living, culture, and governance can provide insights into socio-economic factors that influence well-being at the individual and society level.
We will compare and evaluate the governmental frameworks used to measure “development” and “success” in the US, Iceland, and New Zealand to explore their positive and negative impacts on humans and the environment. We will then identify specific socio-economic factors, policies, social programs, and human actions that influence the well-being, health, and life satisfaction of individuals, communities, and the environment.
Although we begin the class with a societal lens of well-being, we quickly transition to research gathered from individual well-being science, so that a large portion of the class will be spent learning about psychological factors associated with well-being and wholistic life satisfaction. Students will practice and reflect upon a wide variety of cognitive, behavioral, and physical strategies proven to increase individual human flourishing. The class will end with a final project in which students are asked to consider the interplay between individual and societal well-being, specifically how individual well-being is dependent upon and contextualized within societal well-being.
Catalog Information: HON-H 237 LAW AND SOCIETY