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Tag: Subjective Well-Being

  • 2024 World Happiness Rankings: USA Falls Out of Top 20, Youngest Hit Hardest

    2024 World Happiness Rankings: USA Falls Out of Top 20, Youngest Hit Hardest

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    What are the top 20 happiest countries in the world? How do mental health and well-being trends look in the United States and Canada? The 2024 World Happiness Report is in!

    The World Happiness Report is a research initiative to compare happiness levels between different countries.

    The project first launched in 2012, surveying more than 350,000 people in 95 countries asking them to rate their happiness on a 10-point scale.

    Each year they release a new report and the 2024 full report was just published a few weeks ago. There are some interesting findings in it that are worth highlighting.

    First let’s look at the happiness rankings by country.

    Top 20 Happiest Countries

    Here are the top 20 happiest countries in 2024 according to the report.

    The scores are on a scale of 1-10. Each participant was asked to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a “10” and the worst possible life being a “0.” They were then asked to rate their current lives. The final rankings are the average score for each country.

    (By the way, this simple test for measuring subjective well-being is known as the “Cantril Ladder,” it’s a common tool used in public polling especially the Gallup World Poll.)

    The results:

      1. Finland (7.741)
      2. Denmark (7.538)
      3. Iceland (7.525)
      4. Sweden (7.344)
      5. Israel (7.341)
      6. Netherlands (7.319)
      7. Norway (7.302)
      8. Luxembourg (7.122)
      9. Switzerland (7.060)
      10. Australia (7.057)
      11. New Zealand (7.029)
      12. Costa Rica (6.955)
      13. Kuwait (6.951)
      14. Austria (6.905)
      15. Canada (6.900)
      16. Belgium (6.894)
      17. Ireland (6.838)
      18. Czechia (6.822)
      19. Lithuania (6.818)
      20. United Kingdom (6.749)

    The top 10 countries have remained stable over the years. As of March 2024, Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world seven times in a row.

    There was more movement in the top 20 rankings. Most notably, this is the first year that the United States dropped out of the top 20 (from rank 15 to 23 – an 8 place drop).

    More alarming are the age gaps in happiness reports. In both the U.S. and Canada, those above the age of 60 report significantly higher rates of happiness than those below 30.

    Above age 60, the U.S. ranks 10 overall on the world happiness rankings. Below age 30, the U.S. falls to rank 62, just beating out Peru, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

    Could this be a sign of a continuing downward trend in places like the U.S. and Canada?

    Potential Factors Behind Life Evaluation

    How to measure happiness is always a controversial topic.

    To this day, psychologists and social scientists don’t really have a reliable way to determine happiness besides simply asking someone, “How happy are you?”

    However, the World Happiness Report attempts to take the above findings and break them down into six main factors that contribute to overall life evaluation on a societal level.

    These factors don’t influence the final rankings, they are just a way to make sense of the results:

    • GDP per capita – A general measure of a country’s overall wealth.
    • Life expectancy – A general measure of a country’s overall health.
    • Generosity – The level of a country’s trust and kindness through charity and volunteering.
    • Social support – The level of a country’s social cohesion and community.
    • Freedom – The level of a country’s freedom to live life as a person sees fit.
    • Corruption – A general measure of government competence and political accountability.

    Each factor helps explain the differences in overall happiness between countries, with some countries performing better in certain areas over others.

    One benefit of this model is that it looks beyond GDP (or “Gross Domestic Product”) which has long been the overall benchmark for comparing countries in the social sciences. The U.S. has the highest GDP in the world and frequently ranks in the top 10 per capita, but the happiness rankings show there is more to the picture.

    Conclusion

    The World Happiness Report is a good guideline for comparing happiness and well-being between different countries. How does your country rank? It will be interesting to see how these rankings change over the next few years, do you have any predictions?


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    Steven Handel

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  • Positive Psychology Tools Are Most Effective For Those Who Practice Long-Term

    Positive Psychology Tools Are Most Effective For Those Who Practice Long-Term

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    A new study finds that a “Science of Happiness” university course, designed to teach students a variety of happiness hacks, provides the most long-term benefits when participants stick with the tools and exercises after completion.

    There have been many experiments showing the short-term benefits of positive psychological interventions like gratitude, meditation, kindness, and journaling, but not many studies have looked into these effects on a longer timeline.

    At the University of Bristol, there’s a popular course known as “The Science of Happiness” that aims to teach students how to use various happiness hacks to improve their mental health and well-being. This course has been running since 2019 and has been offered both online and in-person.

    The program balances practical advice with important information on topics such as: the nature of happiness, the role of biology and environment, cognitive biases, brain mechanisms, problem-solving, and the importance of social connection. At the end of each week, students are instructed to try evidence-based activities or “happiness hacks,” as a way of fostering positive mental well-being.

    In previous years, individuals who took the course reported significantly increased mental well-being from the first week to the final week, as shown by a 10-15% increase in their scores on the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale. Participants also reported reduced loneliness and anxiety. A follow-up after six weeks continued to show sustained benefits, but it was unclear how long these positive effects lasted.

    In a new study published in the journal Higher Education, researchers analyzed 228 undergraduate students from various disciplines who had completed the positive psychology course either 1 or 2 years ago. Interestingly, while most students reported short-term benefits, later group analysis revealed that these benefits did not persist uniformly across all participants during the long term follow-up period.

    A deeper look at the data revealed a crucial factor behind the program’s success: continued engagement. Approximately 51% of the students who actively practiced the recommended activities taught during the course maintained their increased mental well-being over the follow-up period. These students consistently applied positive psychology principles in their daily lives at least a year after they completed the class.

    Here’s a chart from the study illustrating the findings:

    As you can see, those who continued to follow the “happiness hacks” maintained their gains in subjective well-being during the long term follow-up.

    The most commonly reported technique that students continued to use was gratitude (37.17%), including writing letters of gratitude to others and making lists of things that they were grateful for (“three good things”). Other commonly reported techniques were mindfulness/meditation (33.63%), exercise (21.24%), journaling (17.70%) and kindness (10.62%).


    How to Create Sustained Positive Change

    The study recommends that schools and institutions consider the long-term impact of psychoeducational courses. While initial benefits are essential, sustained effects depend on prolonged engagement and commitment.

    Course designs should incorporate mechanisms to encourage continued practice:

    The goal of psychology – whether it’s with a course, book, article, therapist, or coach – is always to take what you learn and integrate it into your real world living.

    In the moment, learning about these tools and exercises can provide a nice temporary boost of relief, but then we quickly get bored, forget about them, stop applying them, and lose out on their benefits over time.

    Much like a diet or exercise regimen, you need to create a mental health system in your life that works for you and is sustainable into the future. Quick fixes are a myth. You’ll always snap back to your old ways if you don’t choose a course of action you can follow continuously and indefinitely.

    In theory, choose habits you can do for the rest of your life. That’s the mindset you need for continuous growth, happiness, and well-being. Gratitude, kindness, meditation, exercise, and journaling can become habits that are just as second-nature to you as tying your shoes or driving a car. Make self-care an everyday occurence.

    Ultimately, if you want to build a happy life, you have to be in it for the long haul.


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    Steven Handel

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