A new report asked people around the world what made their life meaningful during the pandemic.
In the first half of 2021, the Pew Research Center surveyed almost 20,000 people in 17 countries. Their question was simple: “What aspects of your life do you currently find meaningful, fulfilling, or satisfying?”
Each of these advanced economies—including Canada, France, Greece, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and Taiwan—was having a different experience at the time. Some were ravaged by COVID-19 and some had very low case counts; many were in economic doldrums, while others were doing fine. In some of these countries, people traveled freely; in others, like Australia and New Zealand, movement was severely curtailed. And, of course, each country has a different culture and history, often encompassing many regional or minority traditions, values, and dialects.
Coders analyzed people’s open-ended responses for themes, which were separated into categories like family, friends, institutions, work, hobbies, and pets. In some ways, the overall results weren’t surprising. “Family is preeminent for most publics but work, material well-being, and health also play a key role” in people’s sense of meaning, write the researchers in their report. Indeed, people ranked family as their main source of meaning in 14 out of the 17 countries.
But what about those other three? The report gets interesting when we drill down into the results, to discover how varied meaning seems to be among human beings. While the findings suggest that there is no single “truth” for all people everywhere, they do reveal what we have in common—and how where we live might shape our search for meaning in life.
1. Some places embrace many sources of meaning—but some don’t
Since the question was open-ended, people could answer in many different ways.
For example, people in some countries tended to choose only one or two sources of meaning. In South Korea, a stunning 63% attributed meaning to only one thing—often material well-being—and a majority of Japanese also focused on one thing, usually either family or material well-being. In contrast, only a quarter of Americans and Australians mentioned only one source of meaning in their lives. In the United States, family, friends, and material well-being topped the list.
Despite this diversity, however, there is a common thread that runs through multiple domains of meaning: connection to others. People around the world feel that family, romantic partners, friends, community, and pets can all make life more meaningful—an insight that confirms decades of scientific studies into the roots of well-being.
2. Religion was almost never a source of meaning—except in the United States
“Outside of the U.S., religion is never one of the top 10 sources of meaning cited—and no more than 5% of any non-American public mention it,” write the researchers. “In the U.S., however, 15% mention religion or God as a source of meaning, making it the fifth most mentioned topic.”
Evangelical Protestants were the group most likely to look to religion to make their lives meaningful—often, it seems, because church provides a pathway to social connection. “My husband just died, so life is not very fulfilling right now,” wrote one respondent. “The support of family and friends, church, and his coworkers have helped me find meaning, as well as thinking about the good things we shared.”
No more than 1% of adults in France, Sweden, Belgium, South Korea, and Japan mentioned religion as a source of meaning. In those places and others, people were much more likely to turn to nature as a source of awe and meaning.
“We live in a country which has natural beauty and has a great deal of respect for nature which in turn helps us get a better connection to the country,” said an 18 year old in New Zealand, the country where people ranked nature most highly. “I like going outside, going for a run every day, and seeing blue skies, forests and the wonderful people and it has a positive impact on my mental health.”
3. Jobs were never a top source of meaning—but they usually ranked second or third
In no country did a substantial number of people claim their paying work was the primary source of meaning in their lives, but that doesn’t mean jobs were meaningless. They were among the top three sources in 12 of the countries surveyed. Work was most meaningful in Italy, mentioned by 43% of people, compared to the low of 6% in South Korea.
On average, the people most likely to find meaning in work were those under 50, as well as people with higher incomes and education. “The most important thing for me is work,” said one 25 year old in the Netherlands. “I think it is very important to build my career, to build my life, so that I’m doing better and better.”
However, people in many countries put the emphasis on material well-being, rather than work—indeed, it was one of the top five sources of meaning in nearly every country. In other words, people preferred to work in order to live, not the other way around, and derived fulfillment from daily life outside of work. This was most pronounced in South Korea, where paying work was rarely mentioned but material comfort was ranked as the number one source of meaning in life.
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“I work and lead a comfortable life in these hard times without any major worries,” explained one South Korean woman. A woman in Belgium put it this way: “Although I don’t have that much money, it’s enough to live decently. I don’t need to be rich to be happy. I know that one needs money to live, but should not live for money.”
Beyond work and material well-being, people often found meaning in things they did, like hobbies, sports, travel, learning, and community service.
4. In many places, people found meaning in society and institutions—especially if their country responded well to COVID-19
Society and institutions all ranked among the top 10 sources of meaning in every country. People found meaning and satisfaction in the availability of social services and health care, a good economy, public safety, public transport, and a good education system.
This seemed to be especially true in Asia, where, for example, 38% of Taiwanese and a quarter of Singaporeans mentioned society and institutions as a source of meaning. It was the top source of meaning in Taiwan, above family, occupation, and material well-being.
Why? Taiwanese emphasized the ease of living on the island: “Food, clothing, housing, and transportation are all convenient. Life is safe and tranquil,” said one woman. “There are many convenient stores in Taiwan,” said another. “The public health insurance system is good; medical service is convenient.” They were also happy with their country’s political system. One woman said that she is “fortunate to live in Taiwan, especially in the aspect of public health, democracy, and the rule of law and human rights, because it is very free.”
Around the world, in places with an effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic, people seemed to look to their governments and fellow citizens for meaning. In many Asian countries and in Australia and New Zealand, survey participants praised how well their governments handled the crisis—in stark contrast to other places, like the United States.
In some places, the pandemic simply helped people to see how important society and social contact were to them. “I find it remarkable how the COVID crisis affected our behaviors,” said one German man. “I, for one, appreciate very much personal contact with those around me.”
5. Hardships like COVID-19 can make life more meaningful—but only to a point
Things that are meaningful don’t always make us happy. When survey participants talked about family, society, or institutions as sources of meaning, they weren’t always positive—and hardships like economic distress or the pandemic were often mentioned as meaningful events. But challenges and difficulties can also interfere with our search for fulfillment; a median of 10% of people across all 17 societies mentioned examples of this.
“Notably, Americans who mention something negative in their response are nearly 30 points more likely to bring up American society or where they live,” says the report. “Nearly half (41%) of those who bring up something negative in the U.S. mention society, compared with just 12% of those who do not mention anything negative.”
Responses to COVID-19 were especially complex. “In fact, how a topic like COVID-19 comes up—or doesn’t—highlights where the commonalities end and the differences between these 17 advanced economies emerge,” write the authors of the report. A median of 65% said that the coronavirus changed their lives “a great deal” or “a fair amount,” ranging from a low of 33% in New Zealand to a high of 87% in South Korea. Around the world, people under 30 were most likely to say that the pandemic changed their lives.
While some people felt that the pandemic made their lives meaningless, others saw it as an invitation to reflect on their lives and the importance of social connections, government, and a strong, cohesive society. “I had COVID and it was the scariest thing and it really changed my outlook on life,” said one American woman. Here’s a Dutch man describing how COVID-19 imbued simple health-maintenance routines with meaning:
What I find important for a fulfilling life are things like: to do sports, meaning active exercise two to three times a week; to eat a varied diet . . . now in this pandemic, you still have to make sure that you get enough exercise and try to bring structure into your life by making day or week schedules.
Through these results, a formula emerges for a more meaningful life: Stay connected with other people, and try to find the meaning in the things you do in daily life, like working, exercising, and volunteering. When hardship hits, look to something bigger than yourself—such as society, nature, or spirituality—for help and inspiration. People around the world find meaning in many different places. The trick is for you to discover where your own meaning lies.
It’s time for the Greater Goodies, honoring movies from the past year that exemplify optimism, love, empathy, and other keys to our well-being.
For many people, the past year was filled with ups and downs, to an unusual degree. Widespread vaccination against COVID-19 allowed our worlds to open up a bit more, but that promise of greater freedom seemed dashed when the Omicron wave rolled over us. That combination of hope and disappointment seemed to define 2021—and that’s true as well for the films we’re honoring this year with “Greater Goodies,” our version of the Academy Awards. We surveyed our contributors to ask them which films from the past year lifted them up or gave them insight about how humans get through difficult times. Here’s what they came up with.
The Bravery Award: Being the Ricardos
“I’m not funny,” Lucille Ball once said. “What I am is brave.”
You get the tiniest peek at how brave she could be in Being the Ricardos, Aaron Sorkin’s very soft look at a very bad week in 1953 for Ball (a tart Nicole Kidman) and her husband, Desi Arnaz (an affable Javier Bardem). She was America’s favorite redhead, he was her glamorous bandleader husband, and they were adored by millions who watched their pioneering sitcom “I Love Lucy.” But not everyone loved Lucy—sometimes not even Lucy and Desi themselves.
Lucy and Desi come off like nastier, edgier versions of their TV alter egos. “Lucy, I’m home,” Desi announces right at the start of the film at their real house. “Where the hell have you been, you Cuban dimwit?” she bellows. A minute later, they are pawing at each other, instigating a push and pull that continues throughout the movie.
The bigger drama arrives when powerful gossipmonger Walter Winchell drops a bombshell about Ball into his radio broadcast: “The most popular of all television stars was confronted with her membership in the Communist Party.” Joe McCarthy was hunting supposed communists and the Hollywood blacklist was in full effect; Winchell’s item was potentially career-killing and life-destroying.
Being the Ricardos is lively, chatty, and somewhat odd. It’s also an inspiring portrait of one woman’s bravery in facing her husband’s infidelity at home and the Red Scare in public. — Andrea King Collier
The Bridging Differences Award: CODA
“You’re the girl with the deaf family—everyone but you? And you sing…interesting,” observes Mr. V, new director of 17-year-old Ruby’s choir. As a child of deaf adults (C.O.D.A.), Ruby (Emilia Jones) is the only hearing member in her working-class, fisherman’s family.
From the start of this film, it’s clear that Ruby, like most teenagers, longs to individuate from her parents, but she feels weighed down by her responsibilities to them. She thinks they need her, as translator, business partner, and advocate. Yet she also finds herself nervously stumbling into a new elective choir course at school—and discovering that she has an exquisite singing voice that no one had ever heard before.
The film’s most poignant scenes feature her family’s communication struggles and victories, ranging from stark disconnection to profound emotional resonance. For example, CODA’s director cuts off all sound during Ruby’s rousing choir performance so that we experience the same painful, cavernous silence that her family does as they sit in the audience.
After the performance, Ruby’s dad is quiet and pensive. He wants to feel her joy, too—and to understand why music is so precious to her. So, he asks her to sing to him in their backyard later that evening. They are almost uncomfortably close as he tenderly places his hands on her throat, sensing the vibrations in her voice.
That moment of recognition and deep connection shifts the trajectory of the film. As Ruby expresses herself and is “heard,” she feels new agency in her life, and so does her family. “Let them [this community] figure out how to deal with deaf people,” says her brother. “We’re not helpless.” — Amy L. Eva
The Care Award: C’mon, C’mon
Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) is a lonely videographer immersed in a project interviewing kids about their thoughts about the future. His work is interrupted, though, when his estranged sister Viv (Gabby Hoffman) asks him for a favor: She needs him to watch her son, Jesse (Woody Norman), while she goes to assist her ex-husband, who’s having a psychotic episode.
Johnny agrees to help, and shifts from his bachelor solitude to being a caregiver to his nephew. But while you might expect silly comedy to ensue from this set up, C’mon, C’mon goes in a very different direction—aided, in part, by its being filmed in black and white, which creates a particular mood. Jesse has lost his father to mental illness and is clearly affected, creating imaginary worlds and elaborate rituals to help him cope. But, though just a kid, he doesn’t want to be pandered to—he wants answers to difficult questions, something that Johnny is not sure he’s equipped to give.
When his time with Jesse becomes unexpectedly extended, Johnny decides to take Jesse on his travels to interview kids, teaching him how to be an assistant videographer. Interspersed throughout the movie, these unscripted video interviews (conducted with actual kids, not actors) add substance to the story, revealing kids’ inner lives and their universal need to be heard—especially by the adults around them.
While Johnny may think he’s only helping his sister out of a jam, it’s he who ends up getting the most from caring for Jesse. By growing his capacity for empathy and compassion, he learns to understand better his own pain, the importance of his relationships, and what brings meaning to one’s life. — Jill Suttie
The Hard-Earned Happiness Award: Encanto
This Disney animated film is about the Madrigal family—three generations living together in the mountains of Colombia.
Each member of the family is gifted a power by their magical house, like healing with an arepa, shape-shifting, or controlling the weather with your mind. They seem perfect and happy. Everyone except 15-year-old Mirabel (voiced by Stephanie Beatriz), who was never gifted any powers.
But then the family’s power begins to weaken and the very foundation of their home begins to crack. Mirabel goes on a mission to find out why. In the process, she discovers that things are not as perfect as they seem. The siblings are unhappy. They put on a facade to support their family and their community, but they’re paying a price for being untrue to themselves.
For example, Louisa (Jessica Darrow), the eldest of three sisters in Maribel’s immediate family, can lift buildings and carry mountains—a metaphor for the weight that many eldest children know. The oldest child needs to support and nurture the rest. They’re taking care of others more than being taken care of. But under pressure, they can break.
Mirabel wasn’t given a magical gift. But in the quest to help her family, she develops her own gifts. She learns how to listen, to empathize, to work hard, and to have faith in her own strength and resilience. In doing so, she becomes the cornerstone of her family.
Encanto reminds us of a core value of the Greater Good Science Center: Happiness is not something that is given to you as a gift. Just like gratitude, compassion, and forgiveness, it’s something that is cultivated through our own inner reflections and outer efforts. — Shuka Kalantari
The Wise Love Award: I’m Your Man
My son is on his high school robotics team. Their goal is to get a machine to do things that we humans take for granted: picking up a ball and putting it into a basket, for example.
It may seem counterintuitive to some, but the quest to make a machine that can replicate humans is really a quest to understand how humans work. In the German film I’m Your Man, Alma (Maren Eggert) is a lonely archeologist who is roped into testing Tom (Dan Stevens), an android designed to be her perfect partner—and in the process Alma and Tom reveal something about how love, imagination, and happiness interact in the human mind.
At the heart of I’m Your Man, we find a series of interlocking questions. Is love simply a matter of finding someone who will meet your needs, or is it about learning to be alone with another, autonomous person? What happens to humans when all our needs are met at the push of a button? What is the difference between addiction and love? Is our “soulmate” something we must earn, or can they be willed into existence? Can someone become your soulmate if they have no soul? Can we ever be at our best with someone who has no needs?
If you’re looking for black-and-white answers to those questions, I’m Your Man is not your movie. As the film ponders the distance between the ideal and the real person we choose as our attachment object, we discover that both are constantly changing—and so too is our happiness, as we evolve, and as we see our mates evolve. What’s the alternative? According to this movie, it’s to love wisely, thoughtfully, mindfully. — Jeremy Adam Smith
The Perseverance Award: King Richard
There is so much written about the rise of tennis superstars Serena and Venus Williams. But King Richard is the story of their father, Richard Williams, and his singular drive to get his daughters to the top.
Today we might call Williams, who is masterfully portrayed by Will Smith, a helicopter dad. But King Richard gives us some real insight into what parents could do to not only protect and nurture their children, but show them that they can do or be anything with hard work and belief.
The portrayals of Black men as fathers and family members in film often omit fierce love and the desire for a better life. Richard Williams is a flawed person, and we get to see that. But we also get to see what makes him tick—and I was touched by his understanding that his girls also needed to have a childhood. For example, he rejects high-end tournament play for them as youngsters, in order to give them that anchor of normalcy.
Aunjanue Ellis gives a stellar (and Oscar-nominated) performance as the Williams girls’ mother Oracene. She is every bit as fierce in her mission to help lift her children up, but she is also determined to support the girls, even when Richard gets caught up in his focus for them. Despite the focus on the father, this movie is a wonderful success story about an entire American family. — Andrea King Collier
The Optimism Award: Licorice Pizza
When 15-year-old Gary (Cooper Hoffman) first meets 25-year-old Alana (Alana Haim), she’s assisting a photographer at his high school, and he’s in line to have his portrait taken. Immediately, he’s smitten with her and asks her out to dinner. While Alana has zero interest in dating a kid, she’s intrigued by his charisma and bravado—and she ends up meeting him for dinner anyway.
So begins this quirky coming-of-age story set in 1970s San Fernando Valley, California. Gary, a former child actor, is the eternal optimist and will not take “no” for an answer—in love or in life. He uses his wit, charm, and perseverance in pursuing Alana, as well as in ventures like a waterbed business. Alana, in turn, develops a warm friendship with Gary and tags along with him through a series of adventures and misadventures.
Gary’s self-confidence is endearing, and, as it turns out, a winning strategy. His attitude begins to rub off on Alana, spurring her to pursue new opportunities and gain self-esteem and agency. While her feelings for him zigzag throughout the movie, his youthful optimism and clear, loving attention toward her are just what she needs. — Jill Suttie
The Authenticity Award (tie): Passing
Passing is based on the 1929 novel by a Black author, Nella Larsen. It tells the story of two light-skinned Black women, childhood friends, who have “European” features. When they run into each other after many years in a segregated New York restaurant, they’re both passing as white. Irene (Tessa Thompson) is just passing for the afternoon in order to enjoy tea. For Clare (Ruth Negga), passing is a way of life. She has opted to live her life freely as a white woman, married to a white man.
Her husband doesn’t know her secret. In fact, when we see him talking about Black people, he is full of disdain and even hatred. But Clare brushes it off in order to live the comfortable life she has chosen. Irene has carved out a comfortable life, too, on different terms. She’s married to a prominent Black physician, and they both enjoy a robust social life in Harlem. After Clare inserts herself into Irene’s life, the tension is palpable. Each of the women is curious about the other one’s life; both of them doubt their own choices. As their lives intertwine, tragedy looms.
Passing doesn’t make any big loud pronouncements about race or racism in America. It instead shows how Black people shape-shift to survive in a racist society. It raises a question for all viewers: If you could make your life easier, and more comfortable, and safer by leaving family and friends to embrace a new identity, would you? There’s an answer embedded in the story: If you do choose to pass as something that you’re not, you always pay a price. — Andrea King Collier
The Authenticity Award (tie): The Power of the Dog
Toxic masculinity gets an innovative face lift in The Power of the Dog—and raises questions about what happens when you’re not able to live authentically.
In 1920s Montana, we meet the film’s main character, Phil (Benedict Cumberbatch). We learn that he probably had a secret homosexual relationship with an older friend and mentor, who eventually dies. Ashamed and unable to share that part of himself, Phil shows aggression toward those who don’t live up to his hyper-masculine standards.
Enter Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), the son of a widower who runs a local boarding house, who openly betrays the gender norms of the wild, wild west. The film centers on the initial tension and eventual metamorphosis of their relationship.
Never has the Western film genre explored themes of gender and sexuality with such beautiful cinematography, scoring, and poignant juxtaposition. The movie makes the viewer think about how social norms can harm society as well as the individuals perpetuating those norms.
When Peter is openly taunted by Phil about making paper flowers, an act deemed to be for a woman, Peter proudly accepts responsibility, as if oblivious to any gender norms that forbid him from such artistic expressions. And at the same time he is fiercely protective of his mother. Peter’s authenticity affords him curiosity and vulnerability, while Phil’s shell brings him, and those around him, only anger and sadness.
Unfortunately, a recent comment by the movie’s director Jane Campion (which touched upon another film on this list, King Richard), suggests that she could benefit from a widening of her own lens to understand how the theme of her movie can be applied to a variety of marginalized groups. — Shanna B. Tiayon
The Joyful Diversity Award: Summer of Soul
The Harlem Cultural Festival ran for six weeks in 1969–100 miles away from another big concert you might have heard of, in Woodstock, New York.
As the documentary Summer of Soul unfolds, we go well beyond this one event to see the rest of America through Black eyes at the end of the ’60s. A method emerges: As each act takes the stage, director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson threads present-day interviews with both artists and audience members through the performances. We discover the cultural significance of each band and the conflicts they embodied.
For example, members of the 5th Dimension talk about sounding white but being Black, and what it meant to them to be received by a Harlem audience. The gospel groups explore the tensions between their Christian faith and politics of the day, and we are able to see how the Black church incubated so much talent. There are Latino and African performers, as well, which allows Questlove to talk about East “Spanish” Harlem and the emergence of the Young Lords Party, as well as the struggles in Africa against apartheid and European colonialism.
Along the way, we discover why Sly and Family Stone looked and sounded so revolutionary in their time. We see Nina Simone as a charismatic elder stateswoman whose political and musical radicalism felt and still feels dangerous. We hear some brilliantly insightful commentary from Greg Tate, the legendary music critic who passed away last year.
“We are not African, we are not European, we are a new people,” says a young and vibrant Jesse Jackson onstage. “We are a beautiful people.” In Summer of Soul, you can hear the voice of that new people—and it is, indeed, beautiful. — Jeremy Adam Smith
The Revolutionary Representation Award: Turning Red
Although more than half the human population will experience menstruation, precious few films touch the topic. Pixar’s Turning Red centers this important human experience in a movie that’s both hilarious and heartwarming.
Director Domee Shi, the first Asian woman to direct a feature film for Pixar, centers a Chinese Canadian girl, Meilin Lee (Rosalie Chiang), whose hormonal changes turn her into a giant red panda whenever her emotions become volatile, in a metaphor for puberty.
The movie is smart and charming, showing Meilin and her group of best girlfriends plotting to attend a boy band concert. Meilin’s plans are nearly thwarted by her overprotective mother (Sandra Oh), in an expansive sub-theme about growing up in a Chinese immigrant family.
Domineering Asian moms are practically a cliché these days, but Oh’s vocal talent adds depth and empathy to her character—and Pixar’s animators nail Oh’s real-life expressive eyebrows perfectly.
And while the film’s witty imagery and wild plot twists have fun with the tropes of ’90s adolescence, from Tamagotchi to boy-band choreography, it takes its heroines’ budding (straight) sexuality seriously, inviting audiences to laugh with them, never at them.
Turning Red is a revolutionary production that for once does not hypersexualize or objectify Asian girls and women for the white-male gaze, but shows us in our human complexity: funny, fierce, confused, complicated, and even, yes, at times as smelly and hairy and wild as a giant red panda. — May-lee Chai
According to philosopher Martha Nussbaum, animal justice means allowing animals the freedom to live full lives.
Should a hummingbird be able to be a plaintiff in court? According to philosopher Martha Nussbaum, the answer is yes.
In her new book, Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility, the distinguished professor of law and philosophy at the University of Chicago offers a new theory of animal justice that is meant to inform our law and policy. Her theory is based on the “capabilities approach,” which looks not only at the harm done to animals, but whether we’re infringing on their freedom to live full lives.
Granting animals the rights, under the law, that they deserve has never been so urgent, Nussbaum contends.
Animals are being threatened as a direct result of human activity. “The habitats of large land animals are shrinking. In the seas, plastic trash is choking whales and dolphins,” she says. “Oil drilling is polluting the sea with [damaging] noise. And in the skies, air pollution is choking migratory birds.”
“Human domination is doing a lot of harm,” says Nussbaum. “We need to forge a human consensus to do something about the problem.”
Nussbaum hopes her theory could be integrated into a “virtual constitution,” adopted across the globe. She believes that the most egregious offenses—factory farming, puppy mills—should be the first we shut down.
I talked with Nussbaum about how we should think about animal rights and how laws might change to allow animals to live peacefully and freely. Here is our conversation, edited for clarity.
Hope Reese: Why now, more than at any point in history, should we consider animal rights?
Martha Nussbaum, Ph.D.
Martha Nussbaum: Science has made enormous progress in the last 30 years. It’s clear that animals are not brute beasts; they have complicated forms of perception, some of which humans don’t even have. There’s a lot of evidence that animals have complicated behaviors—social behaviors that are learned, not just genetic. They are like humans—they develop their behaviors through learning.
Thirty years ago, people thought birds had no intelligence at all. They thought, “Oh, if you don’t have a neocortex, you don’t have any intelligence.” But birds, by a different evolutionary path, have converged on a lot of the abilities that humans and other mammals get through the neocortex. And they’re some of the most intelligent creatures. They communicate in languages that even involve syntax. They do wonderful feats of social interaction. They’re also really resourceful in the way they plan ahead. Birds can navigate by sensing magnetic fields. That’s something that humans can’t do.
HR: Why is it important that animals have social learning?
MN: The key behaviors of marine mammals are learned through social teaching. They’re not automatons; they’re much more like humans than we thought. It tells us what harm we do when we rip their social fabric apart. When we kidnap young whales and put them in a theme park, this deprives them of the chance to learn to be a whale or a dolphin—just as a human being who’s brought up without any human company would be deformed beyond recognition.
HR: What kind of animals should be granted justice, in your view?
MN: It’s important to ask which animals are sentient—that is, capable not only of feeling pain, but of having a point of view of the world. Right now we believe that vertebrates and many invertebrates have those capacities. Scientists think the crustaceans probably don’t and that insects probably don’t. It’s important to develop ethical criteria, but then to be prepared to use them in accordance with what we know.
HR: What is the difference between your theory and others? Why do you think yours is better?
MN: The Nonhuman Rights Project does a lot of litigation on behalf of animals, using what I call the “so-like-us” approach—which judges animals by an alleged likeness to human beings, using the old traditional idea of a ladder of nature with us securely at the top. It’s a religious idea, which means we’re closer to God and the others straggle behind.
Steven Wise uses this approach because he thinks he’ll be able to make progress on behalf of animals such as elephants, that he judges to be very human. But if you use the wrong approach, it sends you down the wrong path. It means that these animals are cut off legally and morally from the other animals who are suffering greatly, and who are very intelligent in their own way. It also presents a false picture of nature. There is no vertical ranking of creatures—each has their own idiosyncrasies, their own abilities. What we really should be doing is relating to each creature in its own way.
The utilitarian view of Jeremy Bentham and Principles of Morals and Legislation issued a clarion call for concern for animals. He pointed to the fact that animals are just as capable of suffering and dying as humans are. He thinks suffering is the key thing. The problem with that is, first of all, it’s an average. It doesn’t look at the world in terms of how each being gets to live. It asks: What is the average pleasure or the average pain? So it has trouble doing justice to those who are at the bottom of society’s ladder.
Animals need freedom from pain. Absolutely. But they also need sociability with creatures of their own kind. They need stimulation of their senses. They need to have a diverse sensory environment, which they would seek out if they could. And they need to have room to move around. Elephants typically cover 200 miles a day. We need to know these things about creatures—and the utilitarian approach doesn’t capture that.
The important thing is for each animal to have opportunities. I do think, over time, there can be convergence between these theories.
HR: What do animal rights currently look like, legally? You mention a case involving whale protection in your book.
MN: The U.S. Navy sonar program is now ruled illegal because it disrupts the behavior of whales. Well, the question was, what’s bad? If you thought that only pain is bad, then you would think the sonar program is good because it does not inflict pain. But it does disrupt life activities. For example, interrupting reproduction, interrupting migration, creating heightened emotional stress.
This law that’s been on the books for a very long time, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, was not held to create any problems for the U.S. Navy’s sonar program. But when judges really looked at whales and looked at how they live and act, they realized that these disruptions caused an adverse impact.
HR: So you argue that the whales themselves should have the right to go to court as plaintiffs of a legal action, right?
MN: Standing means the ability to go to court as the plaintiff of an action. You have to show under the law of standing that you’ve suffered a particularized injury.
[Right now,] to challenge harm to animals, some human has to be able to go in and say, “I have suffered a particularized injury because of this abuse.” And only certain kinds of injuries are admitted. But where are the animals?
Of course, animals don’t walk into court themselves. But neither do most humans. We always have lawyers. Furthermore, there are lots of humans who have guardians: young children, people with severe cognitive disabilities, elderly people with severe cognitive disabilities, and so on. But those people, because they’re human, have legal standing.
HR: Hypothetically, if animals are granted this right to defend themselves or have somebody defend them, how does that work?
MN: There are many humane organizations and NGOs trying to get into court representing animals. In the whale case, at least the Natural Resources Defense Council was allowed to go to court on behalf of the whales—that was a departure from previous practice. But that’s always tricky and it requires judges who are sympathetic.
If the whales themselves would be the plaintiffs, then the NRDC would be their legal representative. There are many other organizations. The Humane Society of the United States does a lot of litigation on behalf of puppy mills. There’s no shortage of qualified representatives. And the more local it is, the easier it is to do relief.
In Chicago, we have a Department of Child and Family Services where if I witness any abuse to a child on main campus, I am required as a mandatory reporter to call up the D.C. office and report that. I’m proposing something similar for animals. Of course, these things are covered by law, but the laws are not enforced. So the way we get enforcement is to have this mandatory reporting mechanism where people are required to call up the Department of Animal Welfare and report that I saw a dog being detained or I saw a dog that looks malnourished.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act have been delegated to certain federal departments like the Department of Commerce. The thing is that their hands are tied—no one can really sue.
If animals had standing, then those departments—in addition to some humane organizations—would be their legal representatives.
HR: This subject is personal to you—your daughter, Rachel, an animal rights lawyer, died in 2019. What did you learn, and how are you trying to carry on her work?
MN: As I was doing the work with Rachel earlier, I learned a lot through her about whales and dolphins—because that was her particular passion. That was the biggest surprise.
During the work on the book, I learned a lot more about farm animals, and pigs in particular. I really knew zero about birds. The pleasure of learning was so great—it didn’t actually change the direction of my theory, but it made me think it’s much more urgent.
Shame and shunning make mental illness worse. But new studies suggest that attitudes are changing for the better—and that’s largely due to young people.
Today, people in the United States know far more about mental illness than did previous generations. They might know what it looks like: changes in emotions, thinking, or behavior that make function in daily life difficult, if not impossible. They’re much more likely to understand that most of us will experience some form of mental illness in our lifetimes, like depression or anxiety. And they know that smaller numbers of people will experience more severe conditions like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or PTSD.
Despite this progress, for decades attitudes toward people with mental disorders have hardly budged. How do we know this? One of the crucial ways we measure prejudice is to ask about “social distance.” In this case, that involves asking: How close would you be willing live to someone with a mental illness? Would you live in the same state? Be in the same classroom or workplace? Participate together on a project? Ride next to them on public transportation? Go out with them? Let your offspring marry them?
When friends, family, and society shame people for their illness, and shun them, that’s stigma. This shaming can take many forms, from stereotypes (“they’re dangerous”) to moral judgments (“you’re just a coward”) to dismissive labeling (“you’re crazy”). There can be real consequences of stigma, such as lost job opportunities and social marginalization, as well as giving up on seeking treatment. Overt discrimination is a big part of stigma, too: People with mental disorders, in many states, cannot run for office, serve on a jury, keep a driver’s license, or retain child custody. Most perniciously, the stigma of mental illness can lead people to hide their troubles and refuse to get help—which is likely to worsen their condition and create a vicious cycle.
Until very recently, studies consistently showed that the desire for social distance from people with mental illness had not improved over the past 50 to 60 years. In fact, in some ways it had actually worsened, as more people than before automatically linked mental illness with aggression and violence.
At the same time, studies also showed that people had greater knowledge of ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and more—but just “knowing” more facts about mental illness can actually make things worse. For example, if you learn that people with schizophrenia may hear voices and become paranoid, you might consider that to be quite frightening, even threatening. Similarly, understanding that people with severe depression may come to feel that their lives are not worth living—and may therefore consider suicide—can trigger the belief that such individuals are utterly self-centered. What might not be understood is that severe depression can foster the belief, in people affected, that everyone else would be better off without them.
In other words, factual knowledge about mental disorders, alone, can actually fuel stereotypes. In addressing stigma, the missing piece isn’t knowledge—it’s contact, empathy, and humanization.
A recent study published in December by the JAMA Network Open suggests that things may finally be starting to change. But the picture is complicated: Some kinds of illness are becoming less stigmatized, true, but people still want to keep distance from other forms. The good news is that young people are much less likely to stigmatize mental illness than older generations—and that there are specific steps we can take, as individuals and society, to keep making progress.
Generational shifts driving acceptance
In surveying a representative group of U.S. adults during a period of over two decades, sociologist Bernice A. Pescosolido and her colleagues found a significant and important decrease in desire for social distance related to depression over the past few years.
That is unprecedented, and of real importance. However, in the same paper, the researchers found that attitudes related to conditions like schizophrenia and substance-use disorders did not show signs of improvement—and had actually worsened.
Even though the participants in this study were many—over 4,000 adults—it would take even larger groups to understand how socioeconomic, ethnic, or racial characteristics affected changing attitudes toward mental illness. Still, from this study and a number of others, it does appear that improvements are driven mainly by younger people.
In fact, research hints at a massive generational shift in how mental illness is perceived and socially experienced. Multiple other surveys and studies besides the one by Pescosolido and her colleagues suggest that both millennials (those born from the early ’80s to the mid-’90s) and Generation Z (who were mostly born in the 21st century) are much more accepting and knowledgeable about mental illness than previous generations.
Why? Rates of diagnosed mental illness have been rising among young people. For example, one 2019 study found almost half experience depression, peaking at 60% for teens aged 14–17—considerably more than previous generations. More recent work conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic hints at a profound mental health crisis.
When the CDC surveyed almost 8,000 high school students in the first six months of 2021, researchers found that depression, anxiety, and other disorders permeated the lives of adolescents during the pandemic. All groups reported more persistent sadness since spring 2020, though the rate rose faster among white teens than others. Nearly half of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender teens reported seriously thinking about suicide, compared with 14% of heterosexual peers. One in four girls did so, twice the rate of boys.
Did that translate into higher suicide rates? Yes, and decidedly so, especially for girls. Some emergency departments have reported a significant increase in teens coming in for suicide attempts. (Note that these numbers are only provisional and could go up with time.)
What’s responsible for these negative trends? That’s a topic hotly debated by scholars, with most suggesting some combination of factors like the pandemic, climate change, political and economic instability, increased educational competition, and technological changes like phones and social media. Even more, for teenage girls in particular, a toxic “triple bind” of impossible expectations (be supportive and nurturing, be super competitive, and do both of the above effortlessly while looking “hot”) plays a key role.
However, as depression and anxiety spread among young people, it does seem as though these conditions are becoming normalized—and that youth are becoming more open and compassionate with one another. And high school clubs, as well as college programs, that focus on reducing stigma with respect to mental disorders have been shown to create real benefits.
All evidence to date suggests that many kinds of mental illness carry less stigma for younger generations. As these young people attain full maturity, the tide could eventually turn even for disorders like schizophrenia—the way it has, convincingly, for issues like same-sex marriage over the past 20 years. There are steps we can take to keep pushing this process forward.
What can create more positive change?
First, from a “top-down” perspective, enforcement of anti-discrimination policies, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, can help to drive acceptance. Title I of the ADA blocks employers from discriminating against people with disabilities, including mental illness, and requires them to make reasonable accommodations. Last week, a man in Kentucky won a half-a-million-dollar judgment against the employer who fired him for having a panic attack at work, which will surely discourage other companies from doing the same.
Beyond employment protection, we need enforcement of laws mandating “parity” for coverage of mental and physical disorders, and there’s much work to do with police and the courts to make a distinction between criminal activity and mental health crises.
Such steps can limit the consequences of stigma, but they can’t erase its existence. Though we’ve learned that information all by itself doesn’t reduce stigma, that doesn’t mean we should stop educating people from early ages about diagnosis and treatment—and there is evidence to suggest public health campaigns can reduce stigma if properly funded and executed.
For example, surveys conducted two years after Scotland’s multiyear, multiplatform “See Me” campaign—which aimed to normalize mental illness—showed a 17% drop in fear of people with serious mental illness, among other good outcomes. A much briefer social media campaign in Canada called “In One Voice” resulted in a “small but significant” decrease in a desire for social distance one year after it ended—though the same study also found that people didn’t feel more motivated to actually help someone in a mental health crisis.
The contrasting results of these two campaigns suggest that size and scope matter when it comes to changing attitudes. Scotland’s much more comprehensive approach made more of an impact than “In One Voice.” And it emphasized personal contact, not just factual knowledge, asking us to “see” real people in all their complexity.
The California Mental Health Services Act is a statewide prevention and early intervention program directly addressing stigma and discrimination, including “a major social marketing campaign; creation of websites, toolkits, and other informational resources; an effort to improve media portrayals of mental illness; and thousands of in-person educational trainings and presentations occurring in all regions of the state.” An independent evaluation found that it succeeded in reducing stigma in California, “with more people reporting a willingness to socialize with, live next door to, and work with people experiencing mental illness.” Participants also reported “providing greater social support to those with mental illness.”
Policies and education do work to reduce stigma, but they alone cannot change human hearts.
It has probably helped a lot for more and more people to talk about their experiences with mental illness, on social media and through popular media like magazines and television. In 2013, the New York City chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness teamed up with marketing company JWT New York to launch the “I Will Listen” campaign. They asked people to publicly pledge on social media to hear and support individuals struggling with mental illness.
That early effort encouraged others to later speak out about their experience with depression and addiction on platforms like TikTok and Facebook, making private struggles public in a way that previous generations only glimpsed with books like William Styron’s groundbreaking 1990 memoir Darkness Visible. Or, more recently, books like Kay Redfield Jamison’s memoir An Unquiet Mind (1996), Andrew Solomon’s The Noonday Demon (2001), and Brian Broome’s Punch Me Up to the Gods (2021).
It’s important to note that there is little solid evidence to date that talking about mental illness on social media reduces stigma—and, in fact, at least one study found that social media (if it promotes stereotypes) can actually increase stigma. That doesn’t mean people shouldn’t try. It could simply mean that it isn’t enough for people to talk about their own experiences with mental illness; we might also need concerted efforts to limit hate speech and misinformation on social media about people with mental illness. And that personal disclosures of mental disorder need to be grounded in rehearsal, support, and timing, as is the case with stigma expert Pat Corrigan’s program, Honest, Open, and Proud.
Beyond social media, news and entertainment media have a long way to go in representations of mental illness. Many studies through the years have shown that stigmatizing portrayals result in more social stigma and can make suffering much worse in people suffering from mental illnesses. Although more accurate and humanized accounts do appear, the predominant themes are ones of incompetence and violence. We simply need better, more accurate, and more humanized media portrayals—and perhaps that needs to start with targeting journalists and other content creators with specialized education in college, graduate school, and professional development courses.
As well, better access to evidence-based treatments is a huge priority for the entire mental health profession. We now understand that many forms of psychotherapy and family-based treatment, as well as medications when needed, can combat some of the most serious symptoms and impairments related to mental disorders. But distressingly low proportions of those in need of such care actually receive evidence-based treatments. For many, even just regular therapy is financially out of reach. At an overall per-capita level, funding for mental health research, via the National Institute of Mental Health, remains far lower than for conditions like cancer.
That is quite ironic. Several generations ago, cancer was highly stigmatized as a disease triggered by one’s loss of will to live. Indeed, if your relative died from cancer, you would instead put in the obituary that she passed away from an unknown illness. Today, though—given the huge spike in disclosure and acceptance—cancer has become a true cause, engendering support and large economic outlays in the battle against it. Understanding that treatment can be effective might help reduce stigma of mental illness, if we can grow to see it as just another human problem that medicine can address, given the time and tools.
Finally, as noted above, young people appear, in many surveys, to be the drivers of changed attitudes and behaviors. A devastating kind of stigma is self-stigma—and the evidence indicates that millennials and Gen Z are turning away from seeing themselves as broken for feeling depressed and anxious, toward seeing themselves as having common illnesses that can be managed and even overcome with treatment, group support, and solidarity.
Young people are the key. Not just because they are always the ones who will shape the future, but because today’s youth are facing formidable mental health challenges. If we can support their mental health through these waves of stressful social change, they might have the compassion and the wisdom to alleviate the suffering of those with mental illness, instead of making it worse with stigma.
If we want a healthy, happy mind, we need to move our body more, a new book explains.
Movement and exercise feel good, as you know if you’ve ever experienced a runner’s high, the restorative power of a pandemic afternoon walk, or a heart-pumping Zumba class. But what accounts for these benefits?
The answer offered by science journalist Caroline Williams in Move!: The New Science of Body Over Mind is deeper and more provocative than just endorphins, and it highlights how our bodies and minds are interconnected in ways we may not even realize.
Drawing on the work of neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, Williams explains that our bodies are constantly processing signals from the world and making adjustments to keep us healthy. At the same time, they’re sending signals to the brain about the state of our bodies. As she writes:
The unconscious messages coming from the body provide not only the basis for the self but also a kind of undercurrent to our consciousness that sets the mood for everything else that happens. These ‘background feelings,’ as [Damasio] calls them, act a bit like the soundtrack of a film: They have the power to make us feel happy, sad, hopeful, or on edge, for reasons that we can’t quite put our finger on.
In other words, while we may not recognize it, our moods and feelings have a lot to do with how our bodies are functioning—and that’s where movement comes in.
If our body is communicating to our brain that we are sedentary or weak, that might create underlying feelings of depression or anxiety, insecurity or uncertainty. On the flipside, moving and building strength could create positive changes in our bodily systems that, when passed along to the brain, give us a subtle sense of happiness, confidence, and positivity.
Williams’s book provides an overview of the many ways that moving our bodies can influence our brains for the better—and she offers tips for incorporating mood-boosting, mind-nourishing movement into our busy lives.
How movement helps our minds
But first, the bad news: Sitting may be “the new smoking,” but the ills of a sedentary lifestyle aren’t just for our physical health. Our mental health seems to suffer when we don’t move, as well. For example, people with more sedentary lifestyles have a greater risk for anxiety and depression, as well as lower self-esteem.
Our big brains evolved partly to help us move, explains Williams. For our ancestors, movement meant the ability to run away from danger and run toward food and reward. In fact, one evolutionary anthropologist theorizes that we developed the capacity to think into the future because we needed to plan our movements, back when we were still swinging from tree branches.
So when our brain has no movement to oversee, we suffer. In fact, our brains actually reduce capacity when we’re more inactive, removing cells from areas like the hippocampus.
“Moving is at the heart of the way we think and feel,” Williams writes. “If we stay still, our cognitive and emotional abilities become seriously compromised.”
Meanwhile, the emotional benefits of movement are well-documented. For example, strength training can boost our self-esteem and self-worth, reduce depression and anxiety, and make us feel more capable of meeting emotional challenges. In other words, the strength in our muscles—signaled unconsciously to our brains—may translate to a sense of strength and confidence in the world.
“Having the physical skills to get out of sticky situations makes a big difference in how mentally capable and emotionally resilient we feel as we battle our way through life,” writes Williams.
Similarly, covering distances as we walk or run could give us a sense of moving forward in life—and, in fact, walking does make us feel more distant from our pasts.
Dancing is another potent form of movement. Dancing to music releases dopamine, and dance therapy can help teen girls with depression improve their emotional health, reduce stress hormones, and increase feel-good serotonin. Dancing also makes us more aware of our own emotions. The mind-body connection here? Finding new and creative ways to move our bodies as we groove or waltz may help break up rigid emotional patterns and allow us to find new ways of thinking, feeling, and coping.
Exercise even seems to help budge post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Research suggests that resistance training and yoga can both alleviate PTSD symptoms, and that adding a physical component to therapy makes it more effective for veterans and others with complex PTSD.
In general, the more physical activity you do, the more you’ll tend to have a sense of control over your life. (There’s even some research suggesting that movement can help resolve conflicts with other people.)
“The truth is that brain, body, and mind are part of the same beautiful system,” writes Williams. “And the whole thing works better when it’s on the move.”
How to add more movement to your life
Luckily, since our bodies are designed to move and all, we don’t need much guidance on how to be more active. But in her book, Williams offers some ideas for different ways of moving that have different kinds of mental health and cognitive benefits.
In addition to strength training, walking, and running, we can try synchronized movements like tai chi and group exercise to tap into feelings of connection with others. Moving to music can also create that sense of connection and allow us to get lost in the rhythm and disconnect from rumination.
We might also try out what some call “functional movements,” or exercises like jumping and climbing that mimic the way we would move if we were surviving in the wild. Obstacle course races or swimming in nature can be a fun opportunity to conquer physical challenges.
Moving more doesn’t require going to the gym every day (or at all). It’s more a matter of incorporating movement into our daily lives, says Williams. If your job is sedentary, she suggests getting up to move every half an hour. You can do a little gardening, go for a walk, or just have a “movement snack”—a couple minutes of walking like a crab or balancing on one leg. It sounds silly, but what could be sillier than sitting with our butt in a chair for eight hours straight?
With all these benefits in mind, Williams argues that we could do more as a society to acknowledge the importance of movement. That might mean prioritizing recess and PE classes, which more and more U.S. schools are cutting. Elders need encouragement and fitness classes designed for them, not a culture that surrenders to the inevitability of frailty in old age. And Williams would like to see more practitioners incorporating movement and body-based modalities into therapy.
Maybe then more of us would grow up to be adults who move not to burn calories or get our steps in, but just because it feels good for our bodies to do what they’re meant to do.
