Paul Dolan/ Elaine Fox/ Andrew Oswald/ Ben Page
Wednesday 15 January 2014, 6.30 – 8pm
Old Theatre, Old Building, LSE
Paul Dolan, Professor of Behavioural Science, LSE
Elaine Fox, Professor of Cognitive & Affective Psychology and Director of The Oxford Centre for Emotions and Affective Neuroscience, University of Oxford
Andrew Oswald, Professor of Economics, Warwick University
Ben Page, Chief Executive, Ipsos MORI
Chair: Tali Sharot, Faculty Member and Director of the Affective Brain Lab, Department of Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences, UCL and Forum for European Philosophy Fellow
In 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron launched the ‘happiness index’ initiative, to calculate the wellbeing of the nation alongside financial data like GDP. The first reports regarding the nations’ happiness were published last year. What does it mean to measure happiness? Can it really be measured? If so, how? Is this a more meaningful indicator of the state of the nation than GDP? What have we learned about the happiness of UK citizens? This session brought together neuroscientists, psychologists, and economists to discuss these issues.