“Languishing” is the buzzword for today’s widely shared sense of pandemic unease. According to some psychologists, you can stop pining in a few simple steps: Savor the little things. Do five good deeds. Find activities that allow you to “flow”. Change the way you think and what you do, and today’s languor can become tomorrow’s fulfillment.
But in an unjust world plagued by competing threats — war, a pandemic, the smoldering climate change — does this argument ring true? Can simple activities like these really help us – all of us – thrive?
As social scientists who study flourishing and health, we’ve seen this psychological approach attract attention — and massive investment. Much of this work is rooted in positive psychology, a growing field that views individuals as largely responsible for their own flourishing. This new research, mostly survey-based, aims to reshape health and social policy, nationally and globally. It may well achieve this – which concerns us.
What could be wrong with a global effort to help people thrive? Our concern is that a narrowly psychological approach overstates individuals’ control over their own well-being, while underestimating the role of systemic inequalities, including those that well-designed laws and policies can help address.
Here’s what people told us affecting thriving
As researchers who combine surveys with interviews, we know that thousands of data points can tell us a lot – but not what you learn from sitting down with people to talk and listen.
In a new article based on our collaborative research, we asked open-ended questions that polls can’t answer. Not just “Are you thriving?” but also: “Why, or why not? What helps you thrive? What’s bothering?”
We took our questions to public libraries and private conference rooms, coffee shops and kitchen tables in Greater Cleveland, Ohio, speaking with 170 people from all walks of life: men and women, rich and poor, liberals and conservatives, blacks, whites and Latinos. Would their answers line up, we wondered? Would they be in touch with the experts?
In one area, our respondents’ views align with leading polling research: for more than 70%, social connections had a powerful impact on their sense of fulfillment. But other topics people raise are overlooked in most cutting-edge studies of fulfilment.
For example, 70% mentioned stable income. Almost as many reported what public health professionals call the social determinants of health – reliable access to things like healthy food, transportation, education and a safe place to live. Some also cited discrimination, unequal treatment by the police and other factors described as structural determinants of health.
Poverty, inequality and racism stand in the way
For people facing inequalities in their own lives, the links between adversity and fulfillment were crystal clear.
More than half of those surveyed describe themselves as fulfilled. But less than half of those earning $30,000 or less a year were thriving, compared to nearly 90% of those with household incomes above $100,000. More than two-thirds of white respondents were fulfilled compared to less than half of black respondents. And nearly three-quarters of those with a bachelor’s degree were thriving, compared to just over half of those without.
A Latina we interviewed explained how poverty and other forms of structural vulnerability can hinder flourishing: “If you have a house infested with cockroaches, mold, lead and water, then after working if hard, you come home and I just want to rest. And then you’re like oh, I don’t have any food, and you didn’t want to cook… so you eat unhealthy.
She described how all of these factors also affect relationships: “You’re not a good mother because you’re angry. … You can’t give 100% at home. …You can’t give 100% to work, and you can’t give 100% to social life, and you don’t have any friends because you’re so mad no one wants to talk to you .
Other interviewees told us how ingrained racism hinders growth. A black woman described the crushing toll of racism as “exhausting” and “so heavy every day”. She compared it to a game of chess requiring “strategizing all day”. The constant vigilance and pressure she described is what health researchers call the impairment or premature deterioration of health.
In such circumstances, would savoring the little things and doing good deeds really help?
For us, the answer is clear: without the conditions that allow growth, psychological exercises will inevitably fail. More importantly, they risk leaving behind those who already face adversity and injustice.
Collective fulfillment requires structural change
The path to fulfillment is not simply a matter of mind over matter. It also depends on the systems and structures of society: Safe and affordable housing. A living wage. Solutions to Systemic Racism. Affordable, quality food and health care, including mental health care. As decades of public health research have shown, factors like these profoundly affect health and well-being. We argue that thriving research and policy must also take these factors into account.
There’s nothing wrong with taking concrete steps to cultivate kindness, gratitude, and connection with others. On the contrary, they are excellent ways to improve mental health and strengthen social solidarity. But advice like this is probably most helpful to people whose lives and livelihoods are already secure. For those struggling to meet their basic needs and those of their loved ones, it will take more than just activities to thrive. It will take structural change.
“Hostile environments hinder growth; pleasant environments promote it,” says disability justice specialist Rosemary Garland-Thomson. Unless political leaders are willing to tackle the root causes of social inequality, the chances of prosperity will inevitably be unequal.
Positive psychologists tend to view flourishing as a psychological issue, separate from social and political conditions. Our interviewees tell a different story. Policy proposals that ignore real-world perspectives like theirs risk misleading policymakers.
Old visions of fulfillment can help chart the way forward. For Aristotle, flourishing isn’t just about happiness or satisfaction, it’s about realizing one’s potential. According to him, this responsibility falls on everyone. But modern public health research shows that the ability to fulfill your potential is highly dependent on the circumstances in which you are born, raised and lived.
In hostile environments – of exclusion and oppression, of scarcity and risk, of war and forced displacement – no one can thrive. Unless all of us – citizens, policy makers and researchers – are prepared to confront the root causes of today’s hostile environments, efforts to promote flourishing will inevitably fail.