Obviously we don't know the answer to that, but we can perhaps narrow it down a little. I imagine that the world's happiest person is likely to be wealthy, healthy and relatively young. Perhaps also partnered. Does happiness research give us any other pointers about who the world's happiest person or people might be? (For example, are the stereotypically "rich and famous" (Picasso, Angelina Jolie) likely to be more happy than "big fish in little ponds", e.g. a provincial doctor or lawyer).

Related question: what's your best guess as to the world's happiest non-human animal?

Do you mean happiest on average, or happiest at this very moment?

Surely the highest concentration of extremely happy people reside in buddhist monastries?

DanielLC: happiest on average. (I suspect the world's happiest person right now might be someone on MDMA?)

RyanCarey: I'd love to see some empirical research on Buddhist monks and whether their efforts to avoid emotional extremes translate into better moods on average.

(Incidentally, there are many potential pitfalls in judging how happy we are. For example, it turns out we humans are very bad at knowing when we are actually happy. For example, many 9 to 5 workers talk about hating Mondays and looking forward to Friday evenings and weekends, but it turns out -- I think quite counter-intuitively -- that their happiness does not systematically vary throughout the week. Study)

He probably has the world's smallest commute.

I wonder if there are neurologically abnormal people who are pathologically happy all the time. Not like manic phases, but a hypersensitivity of the pleasure/positivity modules/pathways. I don't know of such a case, but maybe there are a few disabled people who are dysfunctional but superhappy?

I think people that work at jobs with a lot of responsability (lawyers, veterinarians, surgeons...) are prone to be less happier than people with another jobs. There will be bad experiences at job for sure, even with the best professional.

I'm a lawyer, and I'm not happy when I lose a case. I will lose several cases in the next years for sure, so I will suffer for sure. I think there are another jobs without a win or lose result (masseur, optician...), and it's likely they are prone to be happier.


I guess well-treated pets are the happiest non-human animals. They have a life without risks, and are happy with their owners.

Hedonic Treader wrote:I wonder if there are neurologically abnormal people who are pathologically happy all the time. Not like manic phases, but a hypersensitivity of the pleasure/positivity modules/pathways. I don't know of such a case, but maybe there are a few disabled people who are dysfunctional but superhappy?

Anders Sandberg claims to be at least partially like this.

Agree with HedonicTreader. The happiest person is probably some random individual with a genetically high setpoint.

It looks like the name of that condition is hyperthymia -- interesting NYTimes article on it here.

Of course you're right, neurological capacity to feel pleasure would probably be far more important than economic or social factors, when searching for the happiest human.