Despite an existing variety of people, their beliefs, and their unique preferences, there are still many things in common, including the desire to judge the quality of life and compare personal results with the achievements of others. In psychology, the judgments of the quality of life (QOL) are numerous, and researchers continue introducing their approaches to understand better the conditions under which people live and develop their skills. In his article, Ron Amundson thoroughly evaluates attitudes toward disabled people and develops a new hedonic perspective to prove the fallacy of bioethical and healthcare standards about QOL in modern society. He addresses several concepts, like happiness, adaptation, contextual effects, and immune response, to question and compare the effectiveness of the concepts regarding physical disability offered by rights activists and philosophers. Amundson believes hedonic psychology allows people to look at disability from another standpoint and remove biased and unreliable judgments. However, as soon as some arguments emerge, objections and contradictions are inevitable in most cases. Thus, this paper will critically evaluate Amundson’s position in hedonic psychology, with close attention to its strong and weak arguments about the connection between QOL and disability.
One of the first thoughts that comes to the human mind when a person hears about physical disability is that the quality of such life is dramatically lower compared to people without impairments. Amundson does not want to follow the same way and makes an attempt to explain why such misjudgments should be recognized and how they can affect QOL and overall interpersonal relationships. At the beginning of the article, Amundson (2010) reminds an old but working scenario of the happy slave to illustrate the differences between what people think about their lives and what others think about the same life. On the one hand, there is a slave who considers his life happy and complete due to the offered conditions, treatment, and opportunities. On the other hand, many free people will define the slave’s life quality as low because the person lacks independence and freedom. Thus, his QOL cannot be high according to the standard view of human life, which is probably imposed by free people. In fact, this scenario proves that the more people think about what is good and what is not good, the more controversies arise.
Almost the same situation occurs when one group of people tries to understand physical disability and associated QOL standards. Amundson (2010) mentions the differences in human age to prepare the reader to apply the concept of adaption in his discussion. He believes that younger people have a tendency to adapt to new conditions more quickly compared to middle-aged individuals. This difference can be explained by the level of experience, personal observations, and even judgment tendencies. It seems that living with a disability since birth can be easier than facing a disability abruptly. However, one should understand that any disability requires some time to get used to it, and people of any age should be ready to work hard. Amundson (2010) uses the intrinsic effect of an impairment as a biological explanation of adaptation speed and impact. If a person has a birth defect, there are fewer opportunities to compare something with better life quality. Still, today, people get access to various sources of information where they can observe the achievements of people without disabilities and realize that their physical problems cannot be neglected.
To facilitate the introduction of a new concept to the field of psychology, Amundson makes a sound decision to specify the essence of the standard view, according to which other definitions and comparisons can be made. There is a belief shared by nondisabled people who consider the QOL of disabled people low (Amundson, 2010). Still, the author does not want to accept this fact as it is and proves the presence of apparent falsification and the QOL anomaly based on self-reports. Thus, no generalization about QOL is appropriate in the discussion due to the impact of adaptation levels, bioethical aspects, and healthcare issues. To remove ambiguities and misjudgments, Amundson (2010) introduces a new research field to maintain empirical and experimental evidence in social psychology research and calls it hedonics. There is no need to have specific degrees and practice because any social psychologist may join the field and contribute to its development.
One of the main conclusions developed by Amundson is that contemporary hedonic psychology creates a solid background for modern psychologists to improve their awareness of physical disability and recognize the existing misjudgments. One of the goals defined by the author is to identify who is right about disabled people and their QOL: the supporters of the standard view or those who define it as mistaken (Amundson, 2010). The essence of hedonistic belief is that human experiences vary in terms of understanding and accepting pleasure and pain due to the existing biological, social, and emotional factors. Thus, Amundson’s conclusion is that hedonic psychology affects the evaluation of physical disability and its misjudged opinion about the QOL of disabled people.
Another explanation introduced by Amundson addresses people’s understanding of happiness and its impact on further judgments and evaluations. According to the author, there are two main categories of disagreement about happiness: direct (or contemporaneous) reports about expectations and indirect estimates that produce corresponding discoveries (Amundson, 2010). The combination of these reports and estimates defines hedonic judgments, which are commonly predetermined by two groups of factors, namely the nature of hedonic adaptation and contextual influences. Following the principle of hedonic adaptation, physical disability is characterized by low QOL lives compared, for example, to the individuals who win a lottery. However, if the same individuals are compared after some period of time (so they could adapt to a new condition), the level of happiness among lottery winners is lower than the same among physically disabled people. It means that hedonic adaptation plays an important role in understanding and comparing human experiences through a prism of time.
To support his argument and remove the impact of biases, Amundson discusses the role of the immune system, contrast effects, and indirect respondents as the elements of hedonic adaptation. For example, the immune system works effectively if a change is not temporary but permanent (Amundson, 2010). Indirect responses prove that people are able to return to their hedonic baseline with time, and the level of happiness or satisfaction is defined by an overall situation, not an immediate change. Finally, there is always something to compare and contrast in human life, and these contrast effects also affect the level of pleasure and the quality of life. In this complex system of hedonic adaptation, the evaluation of human needs is ineffective or biased because different events or circumstances make people think or judge in their specific ways. The existence of a hedonic baseline and the inevitability of returning to it one day prove that physical disability is a permanent change to which people can get used one day and adjust their QOL.
In addition to hedonic adaptation, there is a list of contextual factors that might prove that people continue misjudging the impact of physical disability on human life. Such manipulations as the focusing illusion, response shift, and misconstrual help differentiate social psychology and hedonic psychology (Amundson, 2010). In traditional psychological approaches, people have to respond to a particular stimulus within a particular context. Hedonists add the factor of focusing illusion that allows psychologists to identify and consider the impact of all aspects. Another important issue in analyzing the current psychological states is a response shift or a failure to compare all subjects in a situation. In most cases, only the answers of direct reporters have to be examined, while indirect estimations are neglected. However, the power of influence of indirect opinions is great as it sheds light upon the conditions under which the event occurs.
Finally, Amundson’s objection to the existing misjudgments is based on the misconstrual factor. The level of the participants’ awareness is hard to evaluate or improve, and what a person knows at the moment of examination determines his/her further interpretations. Despite the intention to gather as much background information as possible, it is difficult to predict all biases about a situation. It means that people can misjudge their own skills, abilities, and conditions, which leads to incomplete or wrong answers and judgments. Thus, Amundson (2010) underlines that direct reports cannot misconstrue their circumstances, while indirect estimators may be affected but false consciousness. Hedonic psychology is necessary to identify the differences between participants and their situations and reduce the impact of biased attitudes and evaluations.
Taking into consideration the presence of the two basic opinions – direct and indirect, and the impact of adaptation and other contextual factors, Amundson develops several strong conclusions about physical disabilities and human judgments. People’s judgments about disability and the quality of life are rooted in bias and characterized by unreliability (Amundson, 2010). The point is that when there is an opportunity to choose, people usually prefer to evaluate their options and compare their expectations under different conditions. As a result, their changes remain temporary, and their level of adaptation is low and weak. In case there are no other options but to live under a particular condition (a physical disability, for example), the person’s adaptation level is high. The disability should not be interpreted as another reason to believe that the human QOL should be low since a physical impairment occurs. Amundson makes people pay more attention to other conditions and factors that measure QOL or happiness. His objection aims not to prove someone’s mistake or wrong approach but to disclose new methods of social and psychological evaluation.
The benefits of hedonic psychology vary, depending on the nature of change, the existing baselines, and people’s knowledge. On the one hand, Amundson succeeds in using this type of psychology as a reason to think that people misjudge the impact of physical disabilities on QOL. He develops interesting examples comparing people who win lotteries and experience happiness and thrill about their current achievements and people who suffer from paraplegia after an accident. First, it is correct to remove previously formulated judgments and attitudes toward a condition. Then, it is important to examine all contextual factors that might affect evaluation. Finally, it is necessary to underline that the opinions of direct and indirect participants are both vital and determinant.
On the other hand, some objections to his argument cannot be ignored. The idea of comparing physical disability and a lottery is ambiguous and even unethical. These two conditions have nothing in common, and the evaluation of people’s emotions and adaptability to such situations is hard to imagine. Hedonic psychology is a good practice to admit the impact of external factors on human emotions and moods. However, talking about human disabilities, the comparison between those who have an impairment and those without it is inevitable. All people are exposed to the same natural resources, social policies, and legislation that define their behaviors and rights within their communities. A physical disability differentiates people regardless of their personal experience, knowledge, abilities, and environment. QOL is affected by physical disability because the number of people without disabilities still prevails. Most schools and jobs are organized in a way convenient for individuals without disabilities. Still, it should not mean that the rights of disabled people are diminished. Modern communities do their best to support such individuals and create fair conditions.
Therefore, Amundson’s argument about the impact of unreliable bias is not strong enough to remove all misjudgments about physical disabilities and life quality. The principle of hedonic adaptation is clear to understand the importance of time and skills in accepting a disability and learning how to live with it. Still, QOL is measured from the point of view of healthy people, and their standard view will hardly disappear. Although Amundson wants to prove an apparent falsification of that point by means of hedonic psychology, public opinion is impossible to re-do or change. It needs time, and, according to Amundson, adaptation is low when a change is not permanent. In other words, modern society has a chance to ignore or re-state a possibly false standard view, but people would hardly do it without any significant reason. As such, Amundson’s idea has the right to exist as it contains several critical aspects. The impact of direct and indirect reporters cannot be rejected, as well as the presence of internal and external factors.
In general, Amundson’s arguments for hedonic psychology as a better way to explain the impact of physical disability on quality of life have their strong and controversial characteristics. People’s judgments based on biases and personal experiences cannot be ignored because they become a significant part of human nature. At the same time, such evaluations prevent the development of fair and impartial conclusions. Instead of removing or neglecting some parts of discussions, it is better to introduce a new method of analysis for direct and indirect reporters. An objection to Amundson’s ideas underlines the necessity to implement additional psychological interventions and clarifies how adaptation or focal illusions must be interpreted. Still, the success of the chosen article is evident because it contains interesting hedonic approaches that question the standard view and disclose a new vision of physical disabilities, QOL measures, and interpersonal relationships affected by unpredictable changes.
Reference
Amundson, R. (2010). Quality of life, disability, and hedonic psychology. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 40, 374-392. Web.