Mapping Happiness

I don’t pretend to understand anything about psychology, but there is apparently a line of research into “subjective well-being” — which is, I guess, how people measure their own long-term happiness. And enough research has apparently been done to map it:

From White’s paper: “It is immediately evident that there is an effect of poverty on levels of SWB. The map itself mirrors other projection of poverty and GDP. This data on SWB was compared with data on access to education (UNESCO, 2005), health (United Nations, 2005), and poverty (CIA, 2006). It was found that SWB correlated most strongly with health (.7) closely followed by wealth (.6) and access to basic education (.6). This adds to the evidence that from a global perspective the biggest causes of SWB are poverty and associated variables.” But most research takes place in happy countries.

Thanks to Melissa Edwards for the link.

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Posted on Saturday, January 13, 2007 at 7:29 PM
Categories: Miscellany

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Comments

Catholicgauze:

I did a post on this map and paper earlier (http://catholicgauze.blogspot.com/2006/11/world-happiness-map-and-why-everyone.html) and the thing I noticed most was the horrible cartography that managed to get published in a journal. In the map there is the 1980s-style Yugoslavia, Ethiopia is regaining lost lands, there’s two Yemens, and more.

January 13, 2007 at 10:40 PM

Jonathan Crowe:

I thought this story sounded familiar, and that I’d seen it somewhere before.

I had thought maybe that the map reflects the available data — e.g., what SWB data exists, exists for Yugoslavia as a whole. But the table after the map lists Eritrea, Croatia, etc.

January 14, 2007 at 7:00 AM

Marc G:

Hmm, so happiness is defined in terms of health, education an wealth eh? Very Zen.
Culturally biased research & totally wrong in many cases.

Hint: once reasearchers know what happiness is then they can go about mapping it. Better luck next time eh.

January 15, 2007 at 5:25 PM

Johnny:

There is another study out there (sorry no map) but has Nigeria has the happiest country in the world:

1. Nigeria
2. Mexico
3. Venezuela
4. El Salvador
5. Puerto Rico

Ronald Inglehart et al. (eds.) HUMAN BELIEFS AND VALUES: A CROSS-CULTURAL SOURCEBOOK BASED ON THE 1999-2002 VALUES SURVEYS (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 2004).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3157570.stm

January 17, 2007 at 7:46 PM

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