Self-Transcendence, Virtue and Happiness: A Psychological Investigation of Buddhist Perspectives on the Self and Well-Being

Abstract

The proposed project aims to study self-identification as a major impediment to virtue and hap-piness, and self-transcendence as a reliable path to higher personal well-being. Approaching age-old philosophical questions using current psychological theorizing and an empirical methodolo-gy, we will put to test Buddhist ideas on the relationship between self, virtue, and happiness (eu-daimonia). In particular, we will study a family of virtues and character strengths that approxi-mate self-transcendence in the Buddhist sense, such as humility, perspective, and a sense of in-terconnectedness with humanity. We plan a three-stage project with distinct contributions at every stage: In the first stage, we will develop implicit, non-self report measures to capture the aforementioned virtues (methodological contribution). The second stage will employ the measures developed in the first stage to investigate the relationship between self-transcendence and well-being (theoretical contribution). Finally, in the third stage, insights from the previous stages will be utilized to create scientifically validated exercises that can help people cultivate virtue and happiness.