A subject which I though might interest the utilitarian.

A somewhat recent survey by Gallup polls asked adults from all around the world questions about how much positive emotion they feel, such as asking whether they smile and laugh a lot, or if they feel respected.

The survey indicated that Panama is the most positive country, with 85% of adults answering positively to all the questions. The average income in Panama is about $15,600 and an ecological footprint of 2.87 hectares per person. It is unsurprising to find countries struck by disaster and war near the bottom, like Haiti and Afghanistan, but the least positive country was found to be Singapore, with just 46% answering positively to all questions, while the average income there is $61,000 and 5.34 hectares per person.

I am not to say that money is the opposite of happiness; in fact, Canada and The Netherlands can be found near the top of the list, as well as some impoverished countries near the bottom. However, I feel that this survey suggests that money is neither positively or negative correlated with happiness, and rather, it has to do with other factors. One man reported from Singapore that there is little work-life balance. Perhaps some of this is due to the country being entirely urban?

Furthermore, the survey suggests that happiness can be achieved without large amounts of wealth and without having a large effect on the environment. It is probably affected by environmental factors too, like temperature, landscape, hours of sunlight, etc.

Just thought I would bring this up. Here is the survey if you are interested:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/159254/latin ... rld.aspx#2

However, I feel that this survey suggests that money is neither positively or negative correlated with happiness

A quick Google search shows graphs stating that there is a correlation. It's much weaker than most people imagine, and it takes more money to make you happy than people commonly think, but it's there.

According to this graph: , it takes an increase in income of a factor of over 18 to increase life satisfaction by one point out of ten. Note that this is using different countries, so it's not just about relative amounts of money.

Furthermore, the survey suggests that happiness can be achieved without large amounts of wealth and without having a large effect on the environment.

That it does.

Of course, once you bring the repugnant conclusion into the picture, then it becomes clear that, if happiness does not require large amounts of wealth and environmental degradation, then your population is too small. Then it mostly just shows that overpopulation isn't that big an issue.

DanielLC wrote:According to this graph, it takes an increase in income of a factor of over 18 to increase life satisfaction by one point out of ten.

Interesting observation: They apparently only allowed positive numbers. So very strong unhappiness would be zero? How to interpret this? If they had asked for a number between -5 and +5, would the distribution have been the same? Does this mean almost half of the respondents believe that their lives aren't worth living, i.e. everyone who responded less than 5 on the 0 to 10 scale?

Thanks for the input.

A quick Google search shows graphs stating that there is a correlation. It's much weaker than most people imagine, and it takes more money to make you happy than people commonly think, but it's there.

Definitely a possibility. Cantril's ladder measures more of what people think of their life in general, while the survey by Gallup asks more specific questions as I mentioned earlier. Of course, both studies are rather subjective, and there may be some deviation of how happy people actually are as opposed to how happy they say they are, as well as cultural differences on how happiness is viewed. Perhaps there is some third variable that affects both wealth and happiness?

...very strong unhappiness would be zero? How to interpret this? If they had asked for a number between -5 and +5, would the distribution have been the same? Does this mean almost half of the respondents believe that their lives aren't worth living, i.e. everyone who responded less than 5 on the 0 to 10 scale?

Here is the exact wording of that survey:

Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to 10 at the top.

The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you.

On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time? (ladder-present)

On which step do you think you will stand about five years from now? (ladder-future)


I think what people who answered below 5 are saying is that they are less than halfway to reaching their ideal life, rather than saying their life has negative felicific value. Also, while 0 represents the "worst possible" life, this does not necessarily imply that 0 = life not worth living. Maybe some people still found their "worst possible" life still worth living?

I agree that -5 to +5 would be a better alternative, while making sure to tell the participants that everything positive is worth living, everything negative is worth not living, and 0 is not worth living but would not be bad to live. Then we could take life expectancy into account:

75 years of pleasure is better than 60 years of equal pleasure, while 60 years of pleasure is better than 75 years of suffering.


Here is another study by Gallup which measures people's negative emotions. Interestingly enough, many countries which recorded positive emotions of the previous study also reported high levels of negative emotion.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/155045/Middl ... ons.aspx#2

Existent wrote:Also, while 0 represents the "worst possible" life, this does not necessarily imply that 0 = life not worth living. Maybe some people still found their "worst possible" life still worth living?

Well, taken literally, the "worst possible" life would be something that contains constant torture with just enough room for regeneration that the person doesn't die. I know the "worth living" part is subjective, but to me at least that assumption would be absurd for the "worst possible" life.

We could also arbitrarily assume the exact opposite:

Also, while 10 represents the "best possible" life, this does not necessarily imply that 10 = life worth living. Maybe some people still found their "best possible" life still not worth living?

The point being that these assumptions don't come from the actual data.

Well, taken literally, the "worst possible" life would be something that contains constant torture with just enough room for regeneration that the person doesn't die.

If you do that, you don't end up with a very useful scale.

I'd say this scale is pretty useless for any absolute happiness value. It still might be useful for saying happiness in one area is higher than in another.

Well, taken literally, the "worst possible" life would be something that contains constant torture with just enough room for regeneration that the person doesn't die. I know the "worth living" part is subjective, but to me at least that assumption would be absurd for the "worst possible" life.

The point being that these assumptions don't come from the actual data.

Okay, according to this (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12195541) study, about 97% of people in the UK believe life is worth living. The UK had an average of about 7 for the 1 through 10 life satisfaction survey.

Now, if only we could know where the 3% who believed life not worth living ranked their life satisfaction, we would have some data from which to find "not worth living" on the life satisfaction scale. If we assume that most of those 3% put their life satisfaction below the average, and rule out (for the purposes of trying to establish a point of hedonic zero) how subjective the survey was, can we infer that in the UK the point at which life becomes not worth living is less than 7?