February 16, 2007 by Craig
A psychologist at the University of Leicester has published the results of a study showing the happiest countries in the world.
Canada comes in at #10. Costa Rica (my wife’s home country) is #13 (which makes the two of us average at about Ireland). The US places a respectable #23 (out of 178). 6 of the top 9 are all Scandinavian/Germanic countries (which are the usual suspects in studies like this one). The other 3 in the top 9 are the Bahamas, and (perhaps surprisingly) Bhutan and Brunei. Also surprising is that the really big names in Europe and Asia all do quite poorly, from Germany at 35 to Russia at 167. Considering the amount of wealth and/or power these countries have, I think it’s telling that they’re not performing better.
I should make one thing clear: in my opinion at least, these are really the only results that matter. Everything else we talk about (economics, politics, health, etc) is a means to the end of personal happiness.
(Via Guy Kawasaki).
I love these tests! When my europhile friends (contacts online, really) gush about how great things are in Europe–and how much they suck here–this kind of data is always, um, unwelcome (note: many/most are not European. Most of the guys in Europe I know are pretty happy too).
There are a lot of questions as to *why* these numbers are the way they are. Religion? Disparity in personal income between the haves and have-nots? A winning soccer team?
The one I like best is that the happiest countries have *low expectations* or *faith* in a better tomorrow. This means that everyone is equally wretched but the happier people are either cool with that–or irrationally believe things will turn around.
That fits the cynical side of my human-nature view like a warm fuzzy glove … mmmmmm ….
-Marco
Comment by Marco — February 16, 2007 @ 1:24 pm
I’ll post my response as a full blog post.
Comment by Craig — February 16, 2007 @ 1:31 pm