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Which is the happiest country? Does the World Happiness Report nail it?
Mar 27, 2024, Vox
We know that America is really unhappy. And Finland is the happiest country. Right?
Well, that’s what it says in the World Happiness Report, a wide-ranging survey on global happiness levels released last week. But before you pack your bags and move to Northern Europe, you might want a sneak peek at how the experts figure out who’s happy and who’s not.
Believe it or not, it typically comes down to one question. The pollsters use something called the Cantril Ladder. They ask: “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?”
Before you read any further, think for a second about how you would answer the question. Would you say your life is … a five? A seven? A nine?
When I first did this exercise, I said my life is a seven out of 10. But behind this answer was a more complicated truth. I’d initially thought about rating my life a six. Yet there was a voice tugging at me, from my years of reporting on people living in extreme poverty. Compared to their lives, I figured mine was probably pretty easy. So I bumped up my rating.
Did you implicitly find yourself doing something similar? Comparing yourself to others — either positively or negatively?
A new paper from researchers in Scandinavia and the US suggests that’s actually very common — and it may be a flaw in the question itself. By showing a picture of a ladder and saying to imagine some people “at the top” and others “at the bottom,” the question may be influencing respondents to consider not so much their actual happiness as their status.
