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Overall self-reported life satisfaction seems comparable between Western Europe and the US, with the US sitting middle of the pack, and nordics reporting the hi

Overall self-reported life satisfaction seems comparable between Western Europe and the US, with the US sitting middle of the pack, and nordics reporting the highest life satisfaction. That suggests that some of the extra wealth effect in the US is balanced by social safety nets in Europe, when it comes to life satisfaction. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/happiness-cantril-ladder?tab=chart&country=USA~FRA~DEU~ESP~GBR~NOR~FIN~SWE~POL https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/happiness-cantril-ladder?... All of these countries are pretty wealthy in the scheme of things: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-vs-happiness https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-vs-happiness

sam0x17 3y ago
American exceptionalism probably affects this quite a bit, I would imagine, in terms of biasing US residents to overestimate their own happiness because of a skewed understanding of what the rest of the world is like by contrast
- Calamitous 3y ago
  > overestimate their own happiness ? How can you overestimate your own happiness? Either you happy or you aren’t. In my experience, comparing yourself to others, regardless of circumstances, only leads to unhappiness.
  - throw0101c 3y ago
    > How can you overestimate your own happiness? Either you happy or you aren’t. Wishful thinking for one: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishful_thinking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishful_thinking E.g., how many people are "happy" in abusive relationships?
    - sam0x17 3y ago
      Yeah anyone working for FANG probably also an example
  - bildung 3y ago
    It's actually pretty common and one of the hurdles of getting comparable data. An anectode from an Amartya Sen book: Uneducated women in rural India, when asked anout their health status, effectively said everything is fine. After getting access to better healthcare and health education, self reported health scores went down. Classic case of unknown unknowns: The women didn't know that live actually could be better than what they experienced so far. The same is true for this discussion: I'd wager that thanks to Hollywood and world news coverage, the average citizen of a small EU country like Norway has (or at least thinks they have) deeper knowledge of live in the US than the average US person about live in Norway. So the Norwegian, when asked about their own happiness, can position themselves in context of this knowledge.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
I don’t think any of this is comparable across all of the US or the other countries due to extremely large differences in quality of life for different socioeconomic classes. Maybe comparing each decile by country would be a meaningful comparison, if even possible.

sam0x17 3y ago

American exceptionalism probably affects this quite a bit, I would imagine, in terms of biasing US residents to overestimate their own happiness because of a skewed understanding of what the rest of the world is like by contrast

Calamitous 3y ago
> overestimate their own happiness ? How can you overestimate your own happiness? Either you happy or you aren’t. In my experience, comparing yourself to others, regardless of circumstances, only leads to unhappiness.
- throw0101c 3y ago
  > How can you overestimate your own happiness? Either you happy or you aren’t. Wishful thinking for one: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishful_thinking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishful_thinking E.g., how many people are "happy" in abusive relationships?
  - sam0x17 3y ago
    Yeah anyone working for FANG probably also an example
- bildung 3y ago
  It's actually pretty common and one of the hurdles of getting comparable data. An anectode from an Amartya Sen book: Uneducated women in rural India, when asked anout their health status, effectively said everything is fine. After getting access to better healthcare and health education, self reported health scores went down. Classic case of unknown unknowns: The women didn't know that live actually could be better than what they experienced so far. The same is true for this discussion: I'd wager that thanks to Hollywood and world news coverage, the average citizen of a small EU country like Norway has (or at least thinks they have) deeper knowledge of live in the US than the average US person about live in Norway. So the Norwegian, when asked about their own happiness, can position themselves in context of this knowledge.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

I don’t think any of this is comparable across all of the US or the other countries due to extremely large differences in quality of life for different socioeconomic classes. Maybe comparing each decile by country would be a meaningful comparison, if even possible.