
Happiness and Life Satisfaction (2017) - mgdo
https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction/
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lordnacho
My main question with the happiness surveys is whether what you're really
getting is the answer you want to hear.

So for instance if you're Scandinavian you're expected to say you're happy.
This is pretty much one of the first things everyone says when it comes to the
region. And if you haven't thought too much about it lately, perhaps you are
inclined to just tell the researcher a stock answer.

How do we know that people are not just saying what is expected of them? I
think there's at least some evidence that people tend to do that when asked a
question.

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tiborsaas
> So for instance if you're Scandinavian you're expected to say you're happy.

That implies that not only they are not that happy but they are systemically
lying for some reason. I find this scenario hard to believe.

> How do we know that people are not just saying what is expected of them?

I don't know much about statistics, but given a large enough sample size these
folks probably an edge case. Source: gut feeling.

~~~
MaxBarraclough
>That implies that not only they are not that happy but they are systemically
lying for some reason. I find this scenario hard to believe.

I don't think this is outlandish. In Japanese there are words for true
feelings vs reported, societally expected ones:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honne_and_tatemae)

~~~
robocat
The concept is also deeply British "stiff upper lip" etc, although I am
struggling to think of good words to describe the difference (the Wikipedia
article uses "private mind" which is deeply unsatisfactory).

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anoplus
I immediately searched for the word 'sleep' in this article.

> And various surveys have confirmed that people who say they are happy also
> tend to sleep better and express positive emotions verbally more frequently.

Couldn't better sleep be the cause for happiness?

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PedroBatista
I think so, but couldn’t happiness be the cause of better sleep?

Worried and anxious people don’t sleep very well.

~~~
DennisP
Maybe both ways are true, making it a feedback loop in either direction.

~~~
graeme
This is certainly my anecdotal experience. I sleep worse when in poor
health/stressed. But sleeping less makes me prone to poor health/stress.

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gombosg
Great statistics, thanks for sharing. I think that happiness is definitely
something we should care about more, personally and also in statistics and
political decision making.

Let me share this (free) book written by a psychologist that deals with
happiness.

It's not the kind of hooray-optimist positive psychology, it's actually backed
by research, with the results detailed in each chapter.

Tom Stevens: You Can Choose To Be Happy
[https://csulb.edu/~tstevens/](https://csulb.edu/~tstevens/)

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novaRom
It is important when exactly they ask that question. If they would ask me in
June vs in November I would certainly give different replies. Time of the year
with different amount of good weather conditions makes big difference.

~~~
tandav
Taking vitamin D shrinks that gap for a little.

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sirsuki
[https://www.grc.com/health/Vitamin-D.htm](https://www.grc.com/health/Vitamin-D.htm)

An amazing amount research on vit-d collected into a digestible web site.

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tim333
It's interesting that there seems to be a trend towards greater happiness
during the internet era. If you look at the "Share who say they are 'very
satisfied' or 'fairly satisfied' with their life" 1973 - 2016 graphs they are
fairly flat 1973-1994 and then go up noticeably after then. Maybe spending
time on the net isn't as bad as some make out. Personally I've found it a
major plus in my life.

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arberavdullahu
Interesting that Kosovo(fairly new country, with low GDP) have highest Cantril
Ladder in Balkan, and higher than some countries in EU

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TomMarius
Which also seems very weird if you have ever visited these countries

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account73466
Happiness is often about the change of your state rather than about the state
itself.

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TomMarius
I don't think the change that happened there really makes anyone happy. Have
you been there?

~~~
arberavdullahu
I'm not sure what you meant, because of the football match, Kosovo vs England
a lot England fans visited and really enjoyed the time there!

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TomMarius
[https://www.politico.eu/article/kosovo-hashim-thaci-un-
speci...](https://www.politico.eu/article/kosovo-hashim-thaci-un-special-
court-tribunal-organ-trafficking-kla-serbia-milosevic-serbia-ramush/)

I think people like their organs more than they care about football. Hopefully
that's history. I wouldn't derive nation's happiness from experience tourists
had during a football match.

~~~
account73466
Seems like you are consuming hate.

~~~
TomMarius
Not sure what that means but the stories I heard from the Kosovan (and Serbian
and Albanian) people about their dead relatives have certainly filled me with
a lot of hate towards pointless wars.

