What makes us happy?

According to the 2016 World Happiness Report, Denmark is (once again) the happiest country in the world, and thus we should study their society closely to see what they're doing right ... But is it that simple?

Here, Andrew G. Ryder, associate professor and director of clinical training in Concordia’s Department of Psychology, evaluates the methodology behind the fourth edition of the global survey and shines a light on how metrics and indices are at play:

For millennia, philosophers, theologians and many others have argued about what constitutes the “good life.”

While some thinkers have emphasized objective markers, particularly economic indicators, others have advocated a broader view that encompasses personal and/or collective well-being. Aristotle’s eudaimonia is not merely happiness as maximizing positive emotions, but encompasses wisdom, personal virtue and so on. Social scientists have joined the fray in recent decades.

Beyond the GDP

The rankings, and the accompanying report, have several advantages. First, the coverage of the study is impressive, and considers most countries in the world — ranging from Denmark (top rank) to Burundi (bottom rank).

Second, the resulting index and rankings help move the debate beyond economic indicators. This encourages societies to evaluate policies in terms of their impact on the well-being of their citizens, not merely on whether Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is increased.

Of course, it may well be good to increase GDP, but we could then judge the benefits of such an increase in terms of their impact on human-centred goals, rather than treating economy-centred goals as ends in themselves.

Third, the approach taken in this survey was to ask respondents to rank their relative position on a 10-rung ladder from “the best possible life for you” down to “the worst possible life for you.” This method is a marked improvement from older cross-national surveys that used rating scales to measure “happiness” levels.

Fourth, the end results are easy to understand, communicate and discuss, helping to fuel a debate about what really matters both within and across different societies.

Assumptions behind the numbers 

My major concern with these kinds of studies — with the straightforward presentation of national "league tables" and their seeming ease of interpretation — is that there are a lot of assumptions buried in these numbers. The authors themselves do an admirable job of covering many concerns, exceptions, interpretive challenges and so on in their report — but the number of people who will read the report will surely be dwarfed by the number of people who read the news coverage and quickly look up their own country’s standing.

But is happiness actually the end goal against which we would want to evaluate all other goals? What if certain kinds of wisdom make us less happy, but better in other ways? What if happiness within a country is boosted at the expense of happiness in a neighbouring country, or if present happiness is being boosted at the expense of future generations?

Complicating matters further, it’s not entirely clear that happiness is the best word to use. Unlike many previous studies, the word happiness is not actually used in the main task, which assesses self-perceived quality of life.

This approach represents a methodological advance in many ways, but it does complicate the interpretation: the jump to happiness, to the high arousal positive emotional state signified by the English word “happiness” is not straightforward.

Cross-national comparisons

These kinds of problems are inevitably compounded by cross-national comparisons, especially when people shaped by different cultural contexts respond to the task in different ways. For example, is it possible to raise people’s self-perceived quality of life by lowering expectations, so that one’s vision of “the best possible life for you” is constrained?

In my field of cultural psychology, we have learned that cross-national comparisons are hampered by the "reference group effect" where people in different cultural contexts respond to rating scales by comparing themselves with their perception of average people living in their own local environment.

Cultural psychologists have also found that people in different cultural contexts vary in terms of which emotional states are most desirable in the first place: whereas many Americans place a premium on “the pursuit of happiness,” many people living in East Asian societies show a marked preference for low arousal positive emotions such as “tranquility.” There is even evidence from Russia showing that people can even value negative emotions as more useful, as more authentic, as part of a richly lived life.

Beware of national stereotypes about emotions

Another problem with these sorts of cross-national analyses is that subgroup differences are masked. I can just about believe a single score to represent Luxembourg, but what does a single score for China or India even mean? Should we really average Tibet’s happiness into China’s overall score? These are vast countries with considerable regional diversity, not to mention ethnic, religious, urban-rural and many other important distinctions.

To be fair, the authors are admirably clear about this issue, noting that there are wide discrepancies across various groups within each country. But the average reader is likely to miss these points and focus instead on the rankings.

We are then a short distance from aggregate “happiness” scores to national stereotypes about emotions. A conclusion such as: “Denmark’s sociocultural, political, and economic situation has helped it to become a country where many people rate themselves as at or close to the best life they can imagine for themselves,” becomes: “Danes are the happiest people in the world!”

Alternate indices, different results 

So I am pleased to see that this ambitious study is helping to move the discussion about national priorities beyond GDP, but hope the discussion continues to move beyond happiness rankings.

Remember, we could change the survey question to reflect a different view of happiness, or change the criteria to yield different rankings. We could decide that societies should be judged on the happiness of the poorest 10 per cent, or the happiness of the most disadvantaged demographic subgroup or the ratio of happiness to environmental footprint, etc.

There are numerous alternative indices that could help get us beyond GDP, each one with particular assumptions, and each one of which would yield somewhat different results.

Clinical psychologist Andrew G. Ryder is affiliated with the Centre for Clinical Research in Health at Concordia.

Find out more about research in Concordia’s Department of Psychology.

Read the World Happiness Report in its entirety.