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World Happiness Report, 2019

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Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#11

Post by WhompingWindows »

Leary wrote: post #4

The World Happiness Report numbers are based only on the Cantril ladder. I don't get why they don't use an average of the Cantril ladder, positive affect, and negative affect. The Cantril ladder asks respondents the following question: "Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder repres…

My question is: how temporary is happiness? Is it an emotion or a personality trait or a mixture of the two?

Considering some hypotheticals: Is it possible to both be living your best 10/10 life and be unhappy at times? Is it possible to be living your worst 0/10 life and be happy at times?

If happiness is an emotion, then it is by its nature fleeting and you couldn't maintain a 10/10 or 0/10 happiness as your biochemistry/environment changes constantly, indeed much faster than you'd change the ladder-steps of Cantril. If happiness is more of a personality trait, a semi-permanent descriptor, then it seems more closely associated with the Cantril ladder and life satisfaction.

Personally, I believe happiness results from genetic, short, and long term causes. Every person has a genetic baseline happiness proclivity, then a medium-term multiplier based on their life circumstances (job, relationships, meaning, etc), then a short-term mood-multiplier (I'm happier exercising, playing music, etc. than sitting in traffic or filing paperwork).

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#12

Post by KyleOS »

nemo1618 wrote: post #5

Interesting that GINI coefficient doesn't seem to be correlated with happiness (except in Europe, for some reason). Reminds me of Taleb's assertion that people don't resent the rich simply for being rich, they resent rich people who have no skin in the game. Perhaps rich Europeans are perceived as having less skin in the game?

I thought the same - that inequality isn't having more of an effect on happiness. It seems that the 3 strongest predictors are actually GDP per cap, social support and the freedom to make life choices.

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#14

Post by KyleOS »

leowoo91 wrote: post #13

How about the hedonic trademill?

Doesn't that relate only to life changes or specific events, so that shouldn't apply no? The report looks at relatively constant factors in peoples' lives, such as social support GDP per capita, corruption, life expectancy (unless you move), etc. Maybe I'm wrong?

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#15

Post by amelius »

Leary wrote: post #4

The World Happiness Report numbers are based only on the Cantril ladder. I don't get why they don't use an average of the Cantril ladder, positive affect, and negative affect. The Cantril ladder asks respondents the following question: "Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder repres…

Perhaps they used this question in previous surveys, and they can't change the question because it would complicate the interpretation of time-series data (?)

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#17

Post by eoinmurray92 »

https://kyso.io/eoin/world-happiness-gdp-per-capita-scaled

I forked OP's study and graphed out how Happiness vs GINI looks when you scale the markers by GDP per capita, there is a clear trend of increasing happiness with increasing GINI, but it snaps back for the highest GDP per capita countries

(disclaimer - I founded Kyso - the company these studies are hosted on)

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#18

Post by badpun »

nemo1618 wrote: post #5

Interesting that GINI coefficient doesn't seem to be correlated with happiness (except in Europe, for some reason). Reminds me of Taleb's assertion that people don't resent the rich simply for being rich, they resent rich people who have no skin in the game. Perhaps rich Europeans are perceived as having less skin in the game?

The idea that people resent inequality always seemed incredibly sketchy to me. Imagine a super-wealthy country where 99% of population has a yearly income of $200k, and the 1% has an income of $200m. This society would be very unequal, and yet somehow I can't imagine the 99% there being resentful of the rich, voting for populists etc. So, I think that people resent the rich only if they themselves are struggling to get by - but, as soon as their needs would be met, they would stop caring about other people's bank accounts.

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#19

Post by eoinmurray92 »

nemo1618 wrote: post #5

Interesting that GINI coefficient doesn't seem to be correlated with happiness (except in Europe, for some reason). Reminds me of Taleb's assertion that people don't resent the rich simply for being rich, they resent rich people who have no skin in the game. Perhaps rich Europeans are perceived as having less skin in the game?

See my other comment but I've made a new graph where the markers are scaled by GDP per cap: https://kyso.io/eoin/world-happiness-gdp-per-capita-scaled

Re: World Happiness Report, 2019

#20

Post by brm »

dawhizkid wrote: post #16

I feel like I’ve always led myself astray trying to pursue happiness. Meaning & purpose seem to give me more “contentment” than optimizing my life for constant ecstasy-like highs.

You may be leading yourself astray by improperly defining happiness...
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