4 ms·

Love the blog, but this is one of the weaker pieces. There is ABUNDANT data on this topic, which all point to the large majority of people being mostly content

Love the blog, but this is one of the weaker pieces. There is ABUNDANT data on this topic, which all point to the large majority of people being mostly content with their life. This result holds true even for low income countries, but not for the poorest countries. Even without looking at data, the author should consider that his patients come to him to specifically talk about their problems, and not what is going well in their life. It gives him a skewed perspective.

WhompingWindows 7y ago
Can you link to that abundant data and provide evidence for your claim?
- 3minus1 7y ago
  In Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahneman talks about an experiment where they had people answer a quick questionaire about their immediate emotional state throughout the day, kind of like sampling. Something like are you stressed, angry, happy, etc. at this very moment. If I remember correctly, the results showed that most people are fine most of the time, but a small number of people are in constant emotional distress.
- Maxbunny 7y ago
  Sure, have a look here: https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction The second chart of the page shows the share of people who say they are either very happy or mostly happy, click on "Map" in the bottom right corner to see all the countries for which data is available. Sample: US: 90 percent say they are happy China: 85 % Ethiopia: 63 %
mnu 7y ago
He did consider this: >I have three non-mutually exclusive theories for this: > 1. The people who come to a psychiatrist are disproportionately the unhappiest and most disturbed. This is obviously true to some degree. But I got the same sort of people when I worked in general medicine and primary care. Even the people who come to a primary care doctor are going to be a little biased towards the sorts of conditions that produce or result from sickness, but people were still much worse off than I thought. Later on he runs a sample of twenty people to get an idea of the type of issues others around us might be facing using the statistics he provides earlier on.

WhompingWindows 7y ago

Can you link to that abundant data and provide evidence for your claim?

3minus1 7y ago
In Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahneman talks about an experiment where they had people answer a quick questionaire about their immediate emotional state throughout the day, kind of like sampling. Something like are you stressed, angry, happy, etc. at this very moment. If I remember correctly, the results showed that most people are fine most of the time, but a small number of people are in constant emotional distress.
Maxbunny 7y ago
Sure, have a look here: https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction https://ourworldindata.org/happiness-and-life-satisfaction The second chart of the page shows the share of people who say they are either very happy or mostly happy, click on "Map" in the bottom right corner to see all the countries for which data is available. Sample: US: 90 percent say they are happy China: 85 % Ethiopia: 63 %

mnu 7y ago

He did consider this: >I have three non-mutually exclusive theories for this: > 1. The people who come to a psychiatrist are disproportionately the unhappiest and most disturbed. This is obviously true to some degree. But I got the same sort of people when I worked in general medicine and primary care. Even the people who come to a primary care doctor are going to be a little biased towards the sorts of conditions that produce or result from sickness, but people were still much worse off than I thought. Later on he runs a sample of twenty people to get an idea of the type of issues others around us might be facing using the statistics he provides earlier on.