> The Gallup World Poll, which remains the principal source of data in this report, asks respondents to evaluate their current life as a whole using the image of a ladder, with the best possible life for them as a 10 and the
worst possible as a 0. Each respondent provides a numerical response on this scale, referred to as the Cantril Ladder. Typically, around 1,000 responses are gathered annually for each country. Weights are used to construct population-representative national averages for each year in each country.
We base our happiness ranking on a three year average of these life evaluations since the larger sample size enables more precise estimates
Huh... Finland is #1 in happiness but has the third highest suicide rate in Western Europe (behind Belgium, France, and Switzerland) [1]. Belgium is medium happy, but has the 15th highest suicide rate in the world, substantially above the US. The UK is second lowest happiness, but has one of the lowest suicide rates in Europe. The difference in happiness between Finland and the US appears huge, yet their suicide rates are similar (Finland is next after the US of the countries on the happiness list)
I vaguely recall reading before that happiest countries had increased suicide rates because if everyone around you is doing great and you're not, it increases feelings of shame and hopelessness, that there's something wrong or broken with you specifically. If life is tough and everyone is struggling, it sucks but feels less personally damning.
Anecdotally, the most depressed times in my life were when circumstances were objectively fine and I still couldn't manage to feel any less than terrible. Like, "This is as good as it's ever going to get???" Ironically having actual problems gave me both something to attribute the bad feelings to, and hope that I would feel better once I resolved the problems.
Well Mexico seems to be quite happy and with not a lot of suicide, but they have incredibly cheap recreational drugs and it's quite accessible and not particularly frowned upon to enjoy a putería on the reg and on the side.
Yeah, when people try to bring these "X country is happier than Y" studies into conversations, I always tell them: the only thing those studies capture is how well the population's been trained to report that they're happy.
The training goes the other way in the US. Politicians, advertisers and the media all have a stake in telling you how unhappy you should be and it's surprisingly effective.
Happiness can be studied in a lot of ways, and none of them is complete or accurate. Momentary happiness is possible in a miserable life and vice versa.
I suspect this survey does tell us something over time, if methodology is stable.
I don't think this survey tells us anything at all. Happiness is hard to define, personal, and capricious. It's better to not have studies than to have pretend science that people mistake for real science.
Maybe not going bankrupt because of medical expenses as the only first world country with universal healthcare? When it comes to the hierarchy of needs, not dying because of unaffordable or unavailable healthcare I’m sure ranks near the top.
There is no objective measure where the median American is better off than the median European.
I’m saying this as a born and bread American citizen who is fortunate enough to be on the better side of the economic divide.
What a disappointing comment on HN. Did you check who published it, what the methodology used was, before commenting?
Of course not. Easier to be snarkier than to research and understand.
For the record: The World Happiness Report is published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, in partnership with Gallup, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and an independent editorial board.
That's an argument from authority, essentially saying that it is not possible for such a group to have released nonsense data. One can believe the data was gathered according to strict principles but still believe that the data gathered is nonsense due to errors in self-reporting.
I might report higher happiness right after lunch than right before lunch. I might be happier right after getting a kind text from a friend than before. Or after having sex. Or after watching a funny video. Or after petting my cat. Need I go on?
Any one of those and more could be the singular reason for a 7 instead of a 3 in a given report. There are too many confounding factors to draw any meaningful conclusions from the reports.
I absolutely did not say that. It's not an argument from authority if I trust a specialist in their field with issues in their field.
My problem is with drive-by snarkiness and cynicism comments. If OP had a problem with the study methodology and results, they should've said that.
You yourself are not criticizing the study. You are positing a issue with the data, without checking first if the study addresses the issue at all, and then writing off the whole thing without doing your research first.
And, finally, are you saying oxford professors and, can't overstate this enough, Gallup researchers (Gallup!) are not aware of the problems of self-reported data?!
> It's not an argument from authority if I trust a specialist in their field with issues in their field.
Yes, it kind of is an argument from authority to simply "trust" them. You chastised someone on not checking "what the methodology used was," then cited only the names of the groups who carried it out and said nothing about the methodology.
I trust Einstein and everyone else on the relativity theory. I trust Andrew Wiles and the dozen of people who understood his proof.
I trust my doctor.
You do too.
Of course, I was criticising the way they argue, a meta-argument, not the argument itself. I have no interest in discussing the methodology or result of this study.
They're criticizing the lack of commentary on the actual methodology. You can't defend a methodology from someone who doesn't not specify any mentioned weaknesses. It's sowing doubt with no basis, and that is worthy of criticism in itself.
There was, and still is, absolutely nothing indicating you read the study.
Like I mentioned in another comment, I was not interested in the actual study, but in your approach to arguing and criticizing the study (i.e. cavalier drive-by snark and cynicism).
Asking people how happy they are is exactly as scientific as asking them what Disney princess they are. There just isn't much more to say. It doesn't deserve more than drive by snark.
It always has been. Obviously no offense to any country, but Palestine and Ukraine which are quite literally in the middle of conflicts are “happier” than places like India tells you that happiness is a vague concept and the methodology to measure it is quite dubious.
You can’t even do that. The number of samples vary across the years and the number of samples do not account for population size. Australia for a population of 27M has a sample size of 1000 meanwhile India with a population of 1.5B gets a sample size of 3000. At that point the data might as well be just an error. It’s like going to NYC and asking 17 people whether they like Katz’s Deli. You will not get a representative sample at all on whether NYC likes Katz’s Deli. Might as well ask the Ouija board at that point.
> This is another article in a long tail of anti-American and anti-Western content that has been cropping up online for about two years now. It's getting to be a very popular subject.
1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Iceland
4. Sweden
5. Netherlands
It's just an interesting assertion you're making, I suppose.
It is anti American not in the sense of “I think America is a bad/immortal place” but much more in the sense of “we objectively can measure that in accordance to Americans, America is bad for Americans”..
Now this could be true or not. It is anti American. If it is fair/true or not it’s an other question.
It’s pretty wild how people lump the collective West and the US together. Maybe that worked in the past, but the US as it is today is definitely not how one would imagine a western country.
Being the dominant western force, it is the current model for “the west”. It’s pretty wild how people say “the west” and are intending to not include the US front and center of that.
