Number of the Week: Pursuit of Happiness Gets More Difficult - Real Time Economics - WSJ:
By Justin Lahart
29%: Share of Americans who say they’re “very happy”.
The General Social Survey, out of the University of Chicago, polls U.S. residents on everything from how often they attend church to how much they trust one another. In the latest poll, the number of people who said they were “very happy” fell to 29% last year. That is down from 32% in 2006, the year before the recession started, and the lowest level the survey has registered in its 39-year history.
Before the recession, the survey’s measure of happiness saw little reaction to the ups and downs of the U.S. economy. The record low speaks to the downturn’s severity. But that it took such a deep recession to move the happiness needle also points to the difficulty of measuring well-being with surveys.
You would expect these polls — and their respondents — to be more sensitive to the ups and downs of employment and other important forces in our lives. Yet, no matter how pollsters frame the question, people tend to measure how happy they are not just by the impact of such forces on their lives but also by comparing their circumstances with their neighbors’.
Research has also shown that when pollsters ask about happiness after asking about politics, respondents tend to have much glummer assessments of their lives than when political questions are left out. Asking college students about dating, or married couples about their marriage, also colors their assessment of their wellbeing. On the other hand, it may not be a bad idea to ask people about the weather.
People are, of course, more upbeat on sunny days and more downbeat on rainy ones, and as a result the weather tends to color how they answer happiness questions. But Norbert Schwarz at the University of Michigan and Fritz Strack at the University of Würzburg in Germany have found that asking “By the way, how’s the weather down there,” undid the weather effect.
“People realize they may feel bad because of the weather and it isn’t that their whole life sucks,” explains Mr. Schwarz.
'via Blog this'
By Justin Lahart
29%: Share of Americans who say they’re “very happy”.
The General Social Survey, out of the University of Chicago, polls U.S. residents on everything from how often they attend church to how much they trust one another. In the latest poll, the number of people who said they were “very happy” fell to 29% last year. That is down from 32% in 2006, the year before the recession started, and the lowest level the survey has registered in its 39-year history.
Before the recession, the survey’s measure of happiness saw little reaction to the ups and downs of the U.S. economy. The record low speaks to the downturn’s severity. But that it took such a deep recession to move the happiness needle also points to the difficulty of measuring well-being with surveys.
You would expect these polls — and their respondents — to be more sensitive to the ups and downs of employment and other important forces in our lives. Yet, no matter how pollsters frame the question, people tend to measure how happy they are not just by the impact of such forces on their lives but also by comparing their circumstances with their neighbors’.
Research has also shown that when pollsters ask about happiness after asking about politics, respondents tend to have much glummer assessments of their lives than when political questions are left out. Asking college students about dating, or married couples about their marriage, also colors their assessment of their wellbeing. On the other hand, it may not be a bad idea to ask people about the weather.
People are, of course, more upbeat on sunny days and more downbeat on rainy ones, and as a result the weather tends to color how they answer happiness questions. But Norbert Schwarz at the University of Michigan and Fritz Strack at the University of Würzburg in Germany have found that asking “By the way, how’s the weather down there,” undid the weather effect.
“People realize they may feel bad because of the weather and it isn’t that their whole life sucks,” explains Mr. Schwarz.
'via Blog this'
