HOUSING AND HAPPINESS

ERNST GEHMACHER
I.F.E. S.
Vienne - Austria

Happiness Research is a steadily growing branch of social research,

concerned with the measurement of General Life Satisfaction, Well-Being
(Hedonic Level) and General Health (Physical and Psychic State) by
simple, broadly applicable questions in survey research. A large amount of
experience has been accumulated (Veenhoven 1984). Not only incisive life
events, like loss of job or of a loved person, imprisonment on the one hand,
marriage or social promotion on the other hand, affect happiness
(Dohrenwendt, 1980) - also minor, but long lasting circumstances
considerably influence our well-being.
Main areas of life circumstances are work, social ties (family, friendship),
leisure and housing. People's wishes and aspirations are centered on
objectives in these areas - and they can tell, how satisfied they are in these
respects, i.e. <<satisfactionwith housing.. . But to be satisfied with one's
housing conditons is one thing, to live morelless happily because one's
housing promotes/decreases one's well-being is another thing: both are
questions of happiness research, but the latter is more pertinent for builders
and providers of housing and unfortunately far more difficult to answer.
Happiness depends on many conditions at once - single causes contribute
only to a small degree and are not easily disentangled: multivariate
analyses of some sophistication must be used. Particular data sets are
needed on distinctly contrasting housing conditions (for comparison of
effects) and with enough background infomation (to assess the competing
influences on happiness).
In Austria research of this type has been commissioned by the state
(Wohnbauforschungsfonds), by the municipality of Vienna and by some
housing cooperatives (Wohnbaugenossenschaften) . A sizeable body of
research results exists and is disposible.
Only a few interesting findings can be presented here.
Happiness strongly correlates with youth, education, social position - less
with wealth and income, only the poorer benefit substantially from an
income increase. Satisfaction with partial life areas correlates with general
happiness in an overall pattern (strictly valid only for Austria, but typical
for most highly developed societies): Social integration and job
satisfaction, contribute to happiness (or unhappiness - if you consider the
difference from high to low) on a substantive level: path coefficients of
about 0,20. Housing satisfaction is, on a par with leisure activity
satisfaction, in a second rank (path coefficients of about 0,lO).
Comparisons between contrasting types of housing show, if and how much
housing quality criteria enhance happiness (as well a housing satisfaction).
In a fundamental research program for the development of methods,
commissioned by the municipality of Vienna and the Ministry of Science
and Research five communal housing estates (with 300 to 1000 apartments
each) were thoroughly investigated: 866 of the inhabitants were
interviewed twice, in summer and winter - additionally behavior
observations and a medical health check were applied (Freisitzer et al.
1988).
Four relevant clusters of differing housing conditions were found by a
factor analysis - and their effect on happiness was estimated by multiple
regression.

E F F E C T O N
HOUSING HAPPINESS
SATISFACTION SUMMER WINTER

S I Z E apartment, sleeping room, living

room, children's roo m

ENVIRONMENT: noise from outside, noise

protection from neighbour, open space

AESTHETICS: view from windows, sunlight,

design of access to apartment

INFRASTRUCTURE: shopping opportunities,

leisure opportunities
Happiness is more affected by environmental and infrastructure qualities
than by the conditions of the apartment itself - and this is still more so in
summer than in winter.
Housing satisfaction refers far more to the apartment itself and does not
fluctuate with the seasons.
The report says:
..The three factors size, environment and aesthetics are nearly equivalent in
their effect on housing satisfaction - whereas infrastructuie plays a
subordinate role (probably because there is no serious lack of infrastructure
in the observed housing areas). Happiness, however is far more influenced
by the ecological quality of the flat than by other conditions. This is an
essential difference: Housing satisfaction is highly dependent on ..learned>>
aspirations which can be modified by social influence - happiness,
however, depends predominantly on the harmony of biological,
anthropological regularities (need fulfillment) not subject to social norms
and fashions.>>
Three factors concerning use of communal facilities were also included in
the multiple regression analysis.

E F F E C T O N
HOUSING HAPPINESS
SATISFACTION

OPEN SPACE: p l a y g r o u n d s , c o u r t s ,
communal g r e e n

UTILITIES: l o u n d r i e s , communal
workshops e t c .

BATH: swimming p o o l , s a u n a 0,OO 0,07

Open air activites and bathing within the housing area increases happiness
to a larger degree than it enhances housing satisfaction. This means that
demand in the housing market does not fully serve life quality.
These results are in itself very reliable and methodologically firm, but refer
to a particular narrow range of housing conditions: different municipal
apartment blocks (public housing) in Vienna.
A more representative sample of social housing in Austria (exclusive
owner-occupier tenure) was examined in a large survey of 3009 dwelling
units. Happiness was not assessed - but several indicators of housing
satisfaction and social integration.
New condominiums with a full set of infrastructure (community rooms,
open air spaces, greens, playgrounds, sauna and swimming pools - all
within social housing costs), called <<vollwert>>in allusion to upgraded bio-
food, and condensed urban one-family houses won the highest approval
marks. Old social housing, from the postwar period, fared worst - whether
rehabilitated (mostly by improvements in hygienic installations and
provision of lifts) or not. New houses, built in the BO's, in general, reach a
better level than old high quality houses, but cannot cope with traditional
one-family-homes.

HOUSING SATISFACTION
COMMUNITY
SATISFCTION WITH NEIGHBOURHOOD
BONDS
(1=very high ( 1 =very high (% high)
5 = very low) 5 = very low)

old houses (postwar period) - bad

state (C+D)

old houses - rehabilitated 2/81 2/50 -13

old houses - high quality (A+B) 2,16 2/49 17

new houses (after 1980) - smaller

buildings, postmodernistic

new houses - large estates 2/13 2/39 26

<<vollwer
t>>condominiums 1/50 1 ,91 65

condensed one-family houses 1,63 7/87 62

traditional one-family houes 7/79 2/28 37

houses built with condetermination

of users (participative building)

Remember that all this refers to <<socialhousing>>within a medium quality

standard - slums and luxury homes are excluded. The results are not more
than suggestive for other circumstances and other countries. But without
doubt these are important hints deserving to be tested in future building.
The use of happiness indicators for the assessment of housing quality has
raised some concern, that architectural and aesthetic values might be
neglected, if comfort, environment and social effects dominate the
judgement. To meet this challenge, at the Technical University of Vienna
(Technische Universitat Wien, Institut fiir Gebaudelehre) in research
seminars on architectural sociology and psychology, tests were developed
to measure the impact of buildings on the persons (passers-by) looking at
them.
It could be shown that buildings stimulate human observers to very
fundamental, probably biologicallly inherited or implanted reactions
(psychological impact) - and at the same time convey symbolic meassages
which act on learned patterns of reactions (social message).
The social message of buildings is as variegated and rich in connotations,
as dependent on the cultural background as any other work of art or
symbolic representation. No single test can cope with such infinity of
possible meaning - the flexible methods of communications research and
attitude measurement are pertinent here. But the psychological impact
proved to be amenable to a plausible and practical simplification: four
dimensions could be isolated:
1. ATTRACTION makes happy, cordial, feels like home, enjoyable
2. DOMINANCE dominant, serious, dictatorial, awe-inspiring
3. STIMULATION dreary (dull), weak, ugly, alienating
4. COMPLEXITY complicated, puzzling, perturbing, (not) clear
Attraction and Dominance are emotionally loaded relations: We can be
attracted by nice people and fine landscape, we can feel ourselves
dominated, awed or even threatened by persones superior in strength as
well as by natural forces.
Stimulation and Complexity are connected with our awareness of sensory
inputs. Lack of perceptions makes life dull, over-stimulation is stress.
Situations that cannot be understood can become quite disagreeable,
nobody likes to be outwitted. But too easily grasped phrases or pictures or
melodies soon grow uninteresting.
Buildings evidently have the same fundamental pattern of psychological
impact as co-humans or nature in general: The TU-Wien-Test was
developed on a series of public buildings and recently applied to a a sample
of municipal apartment houses in Vienna. The different houses had clearly
differing psychological impacts on the sample of persons recruited to look
from fixed angles at the buildings; houses have distinctly defined
<<personalities>>.
Indicators of positive-negative affect showed that strong impressions,
<<outspokenpersonalities>>,can be a handicap for emotional acceptance -
but need not be, if a harmonious balance is struck, for instance, between
high complexity and strong attraction.
One fact should be kept in mind. Inhabitants of a house know its
<<personality>>from inside - they see it often in a totally different way (just
as one rarely perceives a near friend or relative in the same way as helshe is
seen by a stranger). The psychological impact of houses makes the <<face>>
of a city or a district or a quarter: the TU-Wien-Test gave evidence that
buildings, even if only rarely seen and voguely remembered, are stored in
our memory with the rough picture of their <<personality>>. But to make
people happy with and by the houses they are living in needs more than an
agreeable or impressive <<face>> - and the life quality experienced in a house
tinges to a quite considerable degree even the perception of its facade.
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