{"id":300,"date":"2024-03-22T22:16:15","date_gmt":"2024-03-23T02:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/psychologymtdisupplement\/chapter\/where-in-the-world-are-the-happiest-people\/"},"modified":"2024-08-22T17:05:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-22T21:05:52","slug":"where-in-the-world-are-the-happiest-people","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/opentextbc.ca\/psychologymtdisupplement\/chapter\/where-in-the-world-are-the-happiest-people\/","title":{"raw":"WB.3: Deep Dive - Where in the World are the Happiest People?","rendered":"WB.3: Deep Dive – Where in the World are the Happiest People?"},"content":{"raw":"

[pb_glossary id=\"390\"]Approximate reading time:[\/pb_glossary] 2 minutes<\/p>\nIn the last 30 years, there's been a lot more research on happiness. One big question is: How happy are people generally? It turns out, most people around the world are pretty happy and feel more positive than negative (Diener, Ng, Harter, & Arora, 2010). When people from over 150 countries rated their lives on a scale from 0 (worst life) to 10 (best life), the average score was 5.2. People in North America, Australia, and New Zealand scored the highest average at 7.1, while those in Sub-Saharan Africa scored the lowest at 4.6 (Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs, 2013). The top five happiest countries are Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Sweden, with the United States ranked 17th (Helliwell et al., 2013).\n\n \n\n[caption id=\"attachment_299\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"650\"]\"Photograph Figure SUP WB.3. Happiness.<\/strong> (a) Surveys of residents in over 150 countries indicate that Denmark has the happiest citizens in the world. (b) Americans ranked the United States as the 17th happiest country in which to live.[\/caption]\n\nA few years back, a Gallup survey found that 52% of American adults said they were \u201cvery happy\u201d and over 80% were \u201cvery satisfied\u201d with their lives (Carroll, 2007). But a recent poll showed only 42% of American adults feel \u201cvery happy.\u201d Happiness has dropped mostly among people of colour, those without a college degree, and Democrats or independents (McCarthy, 2020). This might mean that tough economic conditions are linked to lower levels of happiness. This raises a question: How much does money influence happiness? What other factors play a role?\n

Image Attributions<\/h1>\nFigure SUP WB.3.\u00a0<\/strong>Figure 14.26 as found in Psychology 2e by OpenStax<\/a> is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License<\/a> and contains modifications of the following works:\n\ncredit a: modification of work by \"JamesZ_Flickr\"\/Flickr;\n\ncredit b: modification of work by Ryan Swindell","rendered":"

Approximate reading time:<\/a> 2 minutes<\/p>\n

In the last 30 years, there’s been a lot more research on happiness. One big question is: How happy are people generally? It turns out, most people around the world are pretty happy and feel more positive than negative (Diener, Ng, Harter, & Arora, 2010). When people from over 150 countries rated their lives on a scale from 0 (worst life) to 10 (best life), the average score was 5.2. People in North America, Australia, and New Zealand scored the highest average at 7.1, while those in Sub-Saharan Africa scored the lowest at 4.6 (Helliwell, Layard, & Sachs, 2013). The top five happiest countries are Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Sweden, with the United States ranked 17th (Helliwell et al., 2013).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Photograph
Figure SUP WB.3. Happiness.<\/strong> (a) Surveys of residents in over 150 countries indicate that Denmark has the happiest citizens in the world. (b) Americans ranked the United States as the 17th happiest country in which to live.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A few years back, a Gallup survey found that 52% of American adults said they were \u201cvery happy\u201d and over 80% were \u201cvery satisfied\u201d with their lives (Carroll, 2007). But a recent poll showed only 42% of American adults feel \u201cvery happy.\u201d Happiness has dropped mostly among people of colour, those without a college degree, and Democrats or independents (McCarthy, 2020). This might mean that tough economic conditions are linked to lower levels of happiness. This raises a question: How much does money influence happiness? What other factors play a role?<\/p>\n

Image Attributions<\/h1>\n

Figure SUP WB.3.\u00a0<\/strong>Figure 14.26 as found in Psychology 2e by OpenStax<\/a> is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License<\/a> and contains modifications of the following works:<\/p>\n

credit a: modification of work by “JamesZ_Flickr”\/Flickr;<\/p>\n

credit b: modification of work by Ryan Swindell<\/p>\n

definition<\/span>