Life, Civic Engagement, and the Pursuit of Happiness
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” But are happiness and usefulness mutually exclusive goals? A study from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) suggests they could go hand in hand.
The AEI Survey on Community and Society provides interesting insight into the relationship between how people show up for and engage in their communities, and how happy they are. Additional survey analysis was presented at AEI’s “Bridging the Divides Summit” in Denver this June. The data provide compelling evidence that civic engagement in communities is one way to not only boost personal satisfaction and happiness, but to combat broader conditions of social isolation, loneliness, and deep-seated division.
I sat down with Ryan Streeter, AEI’s Director of Domestic Policy Studies, to dive into the survey a bit more.
Kristen Cambell: Can you start by telling me about the inspiration for the survey and what you hoped to learn from it?
Ryan Streeter: The American Enterprise Institute has always been interested in the health of American families, neighborhoods, and communities — it’s something we’ve been studying and writing about for over 40 years. The purpose of this survey was to contribute to the literature on social capital, civil society, and quality of life in the United States. We wanted to put America’s community life under the microscope and evaluate the overall health of our civil society.
KC: It’s called the “Survey on Community and Society.” How do people think about what their community is? Where or with whom do they find belonging?
RS: After asking Americans what gives them a strong sense of community, the top three responses were (in order): their friends, their city, and their American identity. This is interesting because it shows a natural hierarchy of community. When we think of community, we tend to rank things based on our level of contact with the group. But the list of things that do not give Americans a strong sense of community is just as interesting. In our survey, some of the groups that were least likely to give Americans a sense of community were their political ideology, their ethnicity, and groups on social media. Yet, when we look at our national conversations on community, we are overwhelmingly focused on the latter, and ignoring the former.
KC: What did you learn about the relationship between peoples’ sense of connection to community and their involvement in that community through civic engagement?
RS: The relationship between a person’s level of civic engagement and their connection to the community is incredibly strong. We discovered that, on almost every single measure, people who are civically engaged are significantly more connected with their community than anyone else. The civically engaged are much more likely to help their neighbors, work with them to solve community problems, and say that their community is an excellent place to live.
KC: There’s a lot of public discourse today about loneliness and social isolation. Did you see civic involvement in communities translate to feelings of purpose, happiness, or connection?
RS: Yes we did — and the effects were quite large. For example, people who were civically engaged and involved in their communities were significantly more likely to say they are happy these days than any other group. Additionally, we found that socially active, civically engaged Americans were half as likely to suffer from loneliness as Americans who were not civically engaged or socially active.
KC: We know that civic engagement can be defined in a variety of ways and include many different types of activities. Are there specific types of civic activity that have more (or less) influence on happiness or loneliness?
RS: Great question, and the answer is pretty interesting given our current political climate. We asked our respondents if they were active members of any civic organizations — such as a trade union, religious organization, veteran’s organization, cultural or hobby association, etc. When you look at the loneliness levels of the members of each civic organization, they are all lower than the national average. All except one: political or policy oriented organizations. Political organizations were the only civic group whose loneliness levels were higher than the national average.
This trend seemed to be even stronger among young Americans. In one analysis, we focused on socially active young Americans, and separated them into two groups: those who were regularly lonely and those who weren’t. After looking at their personal characteristics, we discovered that the people in the socially-active non-lonely group were much more likely to be active members of a religious organization. Meanwhile, those in the socially-active lonely group were 7 times more likely to be active members of a political organization. And this finding was consistent across almost all of our measures of political engagement. The socially-active and lonely group was significantly more likely to ask their friends and neighbors to support a political candidate, display political bumper-stickers/campaign signs, and express their support for political candidates on social media. Interestingly enough, one of the only political activities that the socially-active happy group did at a higher rate than the lonely group was voting in national elections.
KC: What would you say are the implications of (or the call-to-action from) these findings for those of us who seek to increase levels of civic engagement, civic education, and participation in our democracy through self-governance?
RS: The key takeaway is that our mediating institutions — marriage, churches, clubs, civic organizations, etc. — are pivotal in developing the behavioral prerequisites of self-government. People who are actively engaged in their communities are happier, more optimistic about the future, more willing to lend a helping hand, and have much higher levels of trust in their neighbors and people in general. In short, civic-minded Americans have more of almost everything we need more of in our country, so producing more of them and basing our policy decisions on this goal is critical.
KC: Overall, what does this survey tell us about Americans’ attitudes and aspirations for themselves, their communities, and our society?
RS: The survey tells us that, contrary to what we hear in the news, the American Dream is alive and well. Moreover, we learn that Americans overwhelmingly associate the American Dream with family and freedom of choice in how to live one’s life, and that it has very little to do with material wealth. We learn that those who are civically and socially engaged are happier, more optimistic, less lonely, and more confident that they can have a positive influence in their community.
