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This discussion skips any consideration of the underlying premise that "self-reported happiness" is always significant Populations in different countries often
by 1vuio0pswjnm7 7mo ago
This discussion skips any consideration of the underlying premise that "self-reported happiness" is always significant
Populations in different countries often have very different pyschologies and societal customs, including propensity or reluctance to be outspoken, to express "feelings", to complain, etc. Populations may differ in how they respond to questions about "happiness"
For example, a country with relatively high "self-reported happiness" may also have a relatively high rate of suicide
If a "happy" population is the objective, then there may be more to examine than simply "self-reported happiness"
- cortesoft 7mo agoSure, but this whole thing is about trends over time, so the societal customs shouldn't change drastically in a specific country in such a short time.
- fl4regun 7mo agohow would you measure "happiness" if you were tasked to do so for a study?
- hunterpayne 7mo agoWell, for one...if Ireland and Finland come out on top, you are doing it wrong. That should have been your first clue that the "study" is clearly doing something wrong. Also, if you don't know how easy it is to game a study...well then you have never conducted a study.
- jltsiren 7mo agoThe "happiness" in the World Happiness Report is an imperfect translation for a Bhutanese concept. Most discussions about it go astray when people assume that the report is supposed to measure the translated concept. Roughly speaking, GDP is often used to measure the performance of the economy and as an imperfect proxy for the wellbeing of the people. Bhutan developed the "Gross National Happiness" index and convinced the UN that it should also measure something similar. The Human Development Index already measured the objective aspects of wellbeing, and the World Happiness Report ended up measuring the subjective aspects. In other words, happiness in this context is not supposed to be about how people feel but about if life is good in general. And you are supposed to compare it to HDI and GDP per capita to see if a country is perfoming better or worse than it's expected to.
- fl4regun 6mo agoyou didn't answer my question, and you didn't provide a methodology for measuring something like this in a study, so one has to ask, how do YOU know that ireland and finland shouldn't come out on top anyways?
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 7mo agoPerhaps there is more to being happy than just being rich (as in "If America is so rich ...")