Don’t worry, be happy! (Part One)

You certainly remember the song and you’ll agree with me that happiness is a very important yardstick in measuring our human condition. Organizations like the world population review try to establish a yearly hit parade. Is its definition of happiness valid and is it something meaningful or arbitrary? 

The World Population Review typically aggregates data from the World Happiness Report (published by the UN). While these rankings are statistically rigorous, whether they are "valid" depends entirely on how we define happiness. To a philosopher, they might seem arbitrary; to an economist, they are a vital metric of societal health. Here is the breakdown of the "validity" of the hit parade.

This type of study is more "Evaluative" than it is "Affective". It doesn’t measure how much people smile or laugh, instead it uses the Cantril Ladder. It works like this by asking a question, "On a ladder (or scale) from 0 to 10, where 10 is the best possible life for you and 0 is the worst, where do you stand?" It’s evaluative (Life Satisfaction), and measures how happy one is about their life upon reflection. 

Conversely, it often ignores Affective Happiness (Day-to-day Joy). You could have a "10" on the ladder because you are wealthy, safe, and healthy, yet still feel bored or lonely on a Tuesday afternoon. Still the report is highly meaningful because it identifies the six pillars that correlate with a stable, thriving society: 

• GDP per capita (Financial security) Social support (Having someone to count on) 
• Healthy life expectancy 
• Freedom to make life choices 
• Generosity (Donating to charity/volunteering) 
• Perceptions of corruption 

For governments, it’s a "valid" dashboard. It tells them that if trust in institutions (corruption) drops, the citizens' sense of well-being will plummet, even if the economy is booming. This is why the Nordic countries (Finland, Denmark) consistently win: they have "high-floor" societies where the fear of falling into poverty or illness is almost non-existent. 

The next question is whether such a report is arbitrary (based on cultural bias). From a Western culture viewpoint, the metrics prioritize our values like individual "freedom of choice" and "wealth. On the other hand, many Eastern or indigenous cultures define happiness as equanimity, harmony, or the absence of conflict, rather than the "pursuit" of a high-rung life. 

A person in a communal culture might feel "happy" through duty and sacrifice—things the Cantril Ladder isn't designed to capture. Then there’s what’s called the "U-Curve" of Age. For instance, at 78 and 74, me and my wife are statistically in the "happiness peak." 

Research shows that happiness tends to follow a U-curve: it’s high in youth, hits a rock-bottom "mid-life crisis" in the 40s, and then climbs steadily after 60 as we shed the stress of "becoming" and embrace the peace of "being." As a result, this is valid as a measure of "Human Flourishing," but it is arbitrary as a measure of "Human Emotion." If you look at the top of the list, you find the most secure countries. 

If you looked for the most passionate or joyful countries, you might see Latin American or African nations jump to the top, despite their lower GDP or higher corruption. Tomorrow, we’ll go over the real numbers...