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Jeanna Bryner
livescience.com Thu Jul 1, 10:45 am ET
The United States may be the richest nation on Earth, a new study indicates,
but it's not the happiest.
The new analysis of Gallup World Poll data suggests, however, that trying to
compare the happiness of one nation to another is not straightforward.
Rather, there are two major categories of happiness: overall life satisfaction;
and more moment-to-moment enjoyment of life. And while overall satisfaction of
life is strongly tied to income, meaning richer nations and individuals have
more of this overall bliss, how much one enjoys life (by measures such as
laughing and smiling) depends more on social and psychological needs being met.
These include having social support and using one's abilities, as opposed to
sitting at a mind-numbing job.
The United States, which had the highest gross domestic product per capita,
came in at No. 16 for overall well-being and No. 26 for enjoyment, referred to
as positive feelings. The No. 1 spot for overall well-being went to Denmark,
and New Zealand landed the No. 1 slot for positive feelings. [Happiest States
Revealed]
"Everybody has been looking at just life satisfaction and income," said study
researcher Ed Diener of the University of Illinois and the Gallup Organization.
"And while it is true that getting richer will make you more satisfied with
your life, it may not have the big impact we thought on enjoying life."
The positive feelings aspect of happiness could have evolutionary roots.
"Whereas life satisfaction reflects whether people are obtaining their values
and goals in a long-term and big picture sense, positive feelings seem to arise
from momentary things that are prewired, since feeling good about the support
of others and about using skills are both necessary for humans to thrive and
survive," Diener told LiveScience.
The findings are detailed this month in the Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology.
Tallying happiness
The data was collected from a representative sample of more than 136,000 people
across 132 nations from 2005 to 2006. The poll used telephone surveys in more
affluent areas, and door-to-door interviews in rural or less-developed regions.
For global life satisfaction, respondents indicated how they would rate their
lives on a scale from zero (worst possible life) to 10 (best possible life).
Participants also answered questions about positive or negative emotions
experienced the previous day.
On average respondents were relatively happy, judging their current life as
slightly above neutral and experiencing frequent positive feelings and
infrequent negative ones. While the majority of participants indicated their
psychological needs are met, about 25 percent don't have basic needs met.
Overall satisfaction with life went up with both personal and national income,
suggesting societal circumstances play an important role in happiness. But
positive feelings, which were slightly higher in relation to higher income,
were much more strongly tied to feeling respected, having autonomy and social
support and working at a fulfilling job.
"Some of the nation rankings are indeed surprising, at least if we assumed that
money was the only type of wealth," Diener said. "How do some mid-level nations
in terms of income, such as Costa Rica, do so well? And conversely, why do some
relatively rich nations such as South Korea do less well than expected? In
part, because of the quality of social relationships."
Of course there were places that got either mostly stellar or mostly dismal
happiness marks. No. 1 in overall satisfaction, Denmark also came in at No. 7
for positive feelings. Impoverished nations in Africa generally scored low on
both happiness measures.
While Northern European and Anglo societies are currently most successful in
the economic area, Latin American societies proved to be relatively high in
social-psychological well-being. Sierra Leone scored consistently low, but
other nations showed divergent rankings across the measures. For instance,
Russia and South Korea had substantially lower scores for meeting
social-psychological needs and in positive feelings than for income.
Why money brings overall happiness
Some economists think money increases happiness at the low end of the pay scale
as it helps people meet their basic needs, but doesn't do much once a person is
lifted out of poverty. This new study suggests the link between money and
happiness goes beyond basic needs. While the steepest rise in overall
well-being with money occurred in the poorer individuals and nations, there was
still a bump in overall happiness at the higher socioeconomic status regions.
"Money is an object that many or most people desire, and pursue during the
majority of their waking hours," Diener and his colleagues write.
Since most people want money, they use their financial success as a measure of
overall success and a reference for how "good" their lives are.
The study also showed the income-happiness link was tied to a person's
ownership of luxury conveniences and their satisfaction with standard of
living.
"We don't know why there's a strong link between income and life satisfaction,
but most economists would say it's because dollars buy stuff and humans like
stuff," said Andrew Oswald, a professor of behavioral science at the Warwick
Business School in England, who was not involved in the current study.
He doesn't think "stuff" fully answers the happiness question. In addition, and
possibly a more critical link between money and life satisfaction, is security.
"I think it has more to do with money providing a kind of buffer against the
bad shocks and insecurities of life. If you have a low income and little money
in the bank, you feel much more vulnerable to the threat of layoff or the
threat of sickness in your family," Oswald said in a telephone interview.
As for what happiness really means, Oswald said, "We're only beginning to
scratch the surface on what happiness means and ways to measure it. It's a
multifaceted concept and researchers will be working for the next 200 years
trying to get to the bottom of this."