0:15

Pushkin. I

0:23

hope you enjoyed our special episode celebrating

0:25

the International Day of Happiness and the

0:28

release of the World Happiness Report on March

0:30

twentieth. In case you missed it, I

0:32

asked several of my fellow Pushkin podcast

0:34

hosts to pretend that they were an author

0:37

on this year's World Happiness Report. I

0:39

asked each of them, what chapter would you

0:41

write? Okay, well, this one's really easy for me.

0:43

Mental chatter.

0:44

Oh yeah, I was objecting to

0:46

the phrase it's the journey, not the

0:49

destination.

0:49

The journey and the destination. It's

0:52

the journey and the destination.

0:53

Yes, I'll buy that.

0:55

Well. The World Happiness Report twenty twenty

0:57

four is now finally out, so over the

0:59

next few episodes, I'll be talking to the report's

1:01

real authors about the issues they

1:03

think are most pressing for the planet's well

1:05

being. Unfortunately, many people

1:08

never get a chance to learn about the full contents

1:10

of the annual report because the headlines

1:12

often focus on just one attention grabbing

1:14

part, the annual country rankings

1:17

of happiness around the world, which

1:19

does kind of make sense. I mean, we

1:21

all want to know how's my country doing. So

1:24

in this episode, I'll start by diving into

1:26

those rankings to find out what they do and

1:28

don't tell us about how to live happier lives.

1:31

And I have the perfect guide.

1:33

Hi am John Halliwell at the University

1:36

of British Columbia and the Vancouver School of Economics.

1:39

John knows all there is to know about the infamous

1:41

country rankings because he was there

1:43

at the founding of the first World Happiness

1:45

Report.

1:46

I've been in there right from the.

1:47

Beginning, starting more than a decade

1:49

ago. The International Day of Happiness

1:51

and its accompanying report. We're an attempt

1:54

by the United Nations to get governments to take

1:56

the happiness of people around the world more seriously

1:59

and to enact policies that would improve our

2:01

wellbeing. And the United Nations

2:03

quickly realized that ranking country level well

2:05

being was a big thing. But

2:07

how does it work well? The rankings

2:09

are compiled from data gathered by the polling

2:12

company Gallop, which asks people around

2:14

the world the same set of questions in a huge

2:16

survey known as the Gallup World Pole, which

2:18

is given to around one thousand people in each

2:21

country. The happiness ratings come

2:23

from people's responses to a metric known

2:25

as life evaluation, or the chantral

2:27

ladder. People are asked to rate

2:29

their current life as a whole, using the metaphor

2:31

of a ladder, in which the best possible

2:34

life would be a ten all the way at the top of the

2:36

ladder, and the worst possible life would

2:38

be a zero down at the bottom.

2:40

Everyone's ratings are then average together into

2:42

country level happiness scores, and

2:45

to make sure small fluctuations don't sway their

2:47

rankings, the scientists use a three year

2:49

average for each country. But the report

2:51

doesn't just measure people's life evaluations.

2:54

People in each country are also asked about

2:56

their emotions. They report on the positive

2:58

feelings they've experienced specifically

3:00

laughter, enjoyment, and interest, as

3:02

well as the not so positive ones worry,

3:05

sadness, and anger. And the gallup

3:07

world pole doesn't stop there. It also

3:09

includes a set of other questions that help

3:11

researchers explain why countries differ

3:14

in their overall well being, and

3:16

this year, researchers have discovered that

3:18

six of those other questions seem to matter a

3:20

lot. What's factor number one? It's

3:22

a country's wealth as measured by their GDP

3:25

that is the total value of goods and services

3:28

produced in one year, divided by the

3:30

total population. What's factor

3:32

number two, it's a citizen's average

3:34

life expectancy. This one takes

3:36

into account how the nation's health plays

3:39

into its happiness. The third and fourth

3:41

variables involve people's ability to act

3:43

freely without government intervention or corruption.

3:46

Those questions are are you satisfied

3:48

with your freedom to choose what you do with your life?

3:51

And is corruption widespread throughout

3:53

the government or businesses. The fifth

3:55

and six factors have to do with people's social

3:57

connection and generosity. People

4:00

are asked if you were in trouble, do you have

4:02

friends or relatives you could count on to help you?

4:04

And also things like have you donated money

4:07

to a charity in the past month. These

4:09

days, the World Happiness Reports country rankings

4:12

are a big annual event, But when the

4:14

report first started, Jonatus Co authors

4:16

had no idea it would have such a huge impact.

4:20

We were surprised that the first report

4:22

got as much public attention as

4:24

it did to us. It spoke to a

4:26

need for a broadly

4:29

available set of data reflecting

4:31

the quality of lives all over the

4:33

world. There was nothing like that

4:36

regularly available to the media

4:38

and to people in general, and

4:40

so we kept on producing the report.

4:43

The interest was broad and

4:45

it got broader, so that in each

4:48

report we had a bigger take

4:50

up, and it was

4:52

initially people, but

4:55

I think that then translated into

4:57

a broader interest that then encouraged

5:00

governments to actually focus on well

5:03

being, all of which, of course then

5:05

requires that you build a public

5:07

service that's trained in well

5:09

being science and knows how to

5:11

analyze policies to deliver

5:14

what's best for better lives.

5:16

My understanding is the rankings have been in there since

5:19

the original twenty eleven report.

5:20

Correct, there was some disagreement among

5:23

our three founding editors. I

5:25

didn't want to have rankings at all. I said,

5:27

that's not the way in which happiness

5:30

is not a zero sum game. It's for

5:32

everybody to improve their happiness. It doesn't

5:35

matter whether they're happier or not than their

5:37

neighbors. So we didn't even put in numbers,

5:40

but I had to go down with my finger

5:43

and count out because people wanted

5:45

to know what number they were in the list.

5:47

So in the next one we put in the numbers,

5:49

and the numbers have been there ever since.

5:52

We use the rankings as a

5:54

way because quite clearly it's a

5:56

primary point attention for people.

5:59

They want to know how their country does and

6:01

how that does in comparison with other

6:03

countries whom they think of as their peers.

6:06

The rankings may be what brings

6:08

the area clicks, but our

6:10

purpose is not to stop there, not

6:13

even to emphasize those, but

6:15

to dig deeper into

6:17

what makes for better lives so that people

6:20

can do more about their own lives and the

6:22

lives of those around them and

6:25

help move the arrow.

6:26

This is why I'm so excited that you've taken the time to

6:28

talk to us today, because I feel like sometimes

6:30

when I see the news coverage of the World Happiness

6:32

Report, it's just like, this is the country that's number

6:34

one, and then it ends there. But I think as we dig

6:37

deeper and try to understand where those rankings

6:39

come from and what we can do differently, that's the part that's

6:41

going to matter so much more.

6:42

I agree.

6:43

And so before we kind of jump into

6:45

the rankings this year, I wanted to talk about

6:47

what goes into the measurements

6:50

that make up the World Happiness Report. So

6:52

where do these data come from, and when we're

6:54

talking about happier countries, what are the specific

6:57

measurements that are going into that.

6:59

It's an important question to talk

7:01

about because we keep emphasizing

7:04

to people this is not our opinions

7:07

that they're hearing, it's their own opinions,

7:10

because what we report are

7:12

the average value of the

7:15

answers to a single question

7:17

how people evaluate their lives on

7:19

a scale of zero to ten. And

7:22

those rankings don't tell you anything,

7:25

of course, they just tell you the state of

7:27

play within a country. And then

7:29

the next interesting question, which we started

7:31

answering in more detail, was

7:34

why are these countries different? And

7:36

some people treat our explanations as

7:38

the primary measure, and we keep trying

7:41

to remind them that what we're presenting

7:43

as not our expertise, but

7:45

simply telling them what people

7:48

in their countries have said.

7:50

What are the questions that people are answering in these surveys.

7:52

Well, when I entered

7:54

this field more than twenty five years ago,

7:57

I thought of myself as Aristotle's research

8:00

assistant, because he had said

8:02

millennia ago that if you want to find

8:05

out what makes for a good life, you ask people

8:07

in a reflective moment to think about their

8:09

life as a whole. Then he listed a lot

8:11

of factors that ought to underlie

8:13

that, including living a good

8:15

and virtuous life, and he said

8:18

Aristotle that positive

8:21

emotions, laughter and fun were a part

8:23

of that. So the emotions are important.

8:26

Nobody thinks not did you feel

8:29

anger, stress, worry yesterday?

8:32

And did you feel positive emotions

8:35

yesterday? Yes or no. But some

8:37

people think, because the World Happiness

8:39

Support is called the World Happiness Report,

8:41

that it's all about affective measures

8:44

or emotional measures or short term

8:46

measures of people's well being,

8:49

and or answer to the people

8:51

who say this is all about short term

8:54

moods and it isn't a serious business,

8:56

it's all fluff, by reminding

8:58

people that are two ways of using

9:00

the word happiness. One is as an

9:02

emotion, how happy were you yesterday?

9:05

And the other is how happy are you about

9:07

something? That could be

9:09

the baggage retrieval system they have

9:12

at Heathrow, or it could be anything.

9:14

But the point is it doesn't require the

9:16

emotion of happiness. It's saying

9:18

how satisfied are you with that? And

9:21

so the judgmental use

9:23

of the word happiness is our main

9:26

focus in the report. We also

9:28

include, of course, the affect of

9:30

measure and people sometimes and rightly

9:33

so, get confused about these

9:35

two different uses of the word, because

9:37

we use the word both ways ourselves.

9:39

But for us, it's these overall

9:41

life evaluations that are of fundamental

9:43

importance.

9:44

And so now that we've gotten the history of the report out

9:46

of the way, let's get to the thing that I think is on

9:48

everybody's mind, which is, you know, who's the

9:50

highest right country this year? Who are

9:52

you seeing coming out in the newest

9:54

data as the highest on the list?

9:57

Because the rankings are based on a three

9:59

year average, and Finland

10:02

was pretty well ahead of the average last year,

10:04

it's no surprise that Finland is

10:06

in number one again.

10:08

What's interesting to see is how this

10:10

plays out in Finland. Frequently

10:13

the Finns say we're not the happiest country

10:15

in the world, and what they're thinking of, in

10:17

part is the other version of happiness

10:20

that they don't see, all the laughter

10:22

in the streets that they're used to thinking of

10:24

as happiness. But then you ask them, how

10:27

is life in Finland? Tell us about

10:29

it? Where are the things you enjoy and what do

10:31

you value about it? It turns out they

10:33

end up seeing the importance

10:36

of trust, of warm social

10:38

relations, of caring about each other.

10:40

They're not surprised to hear that

10:43

when wallets were experimentally dropped,

10:46

the highest proportion anywhere

10:48

ten out of ten, was in Helsinki. And

10:50

so they see that, they appreciate it,

10:53

they understand that it's maybe not

10:55

that way elsewhere. They don't boast about

10:57

it. That's another feature of the

10:59

Finns. Some of the Finnish researchers

11:02

say that above the other Nordic countries,

11:04

even though the other Nordic countries are richer

11:07

and more outfront than some other ways,

11:10

is that they don't take themselves so seriously.

11:12

They don't rank themselves with each

11:14

other as much. They're less materialistic

11:17

and more concerned with each other, and

11:20

that's quietly okay with them. I

11:22

would have to say that a country that

11:24

boasted about its high position is

11:27

probably not likely to sustain it long

11:29

because that's not the point. And when Denmark

11:32

was highest, they didn't boast about it,

11:34

but they set about trying to

11:36

learn the lessons from the science of happiness

11:39

and spread them not just in Denmark

11:41

but in other countries. And that's

11:43

a classic Nordic way, and it's one of the

11:45

reasons why the five Nordic countries

11:48

are always in the top ten, that

11:50

they are also among the world leaders

11:53

in untied foreign aid, in the

11:55

receipt of refugees, of leading

11:57

the international movements to

12:00

spread well being around the world.

12:02

Those all hang together and

12:04

they make a consistent package.

12:07

So that's thing number one about the report that's kind of not very

12:09

surprising. Finland's at the top yet again,

12:11

and they're up there with all these other Scandinavian countries.

12:14

Something else that's occurred in other happiness reports

12:16

in the past is that there's big gaps between

12:18

the top of the list and the bottom. Is that something

12:21

that you also saw in the most recent report.

12:23

The gap, if anything, has

12:25

become a little wider, And

12:28

that's I guess because Afghanistan

12:30

is dropping further and further still

12:33

having been last for several years, it's

12:35

now further behind the rest.

12:37

One of the surprises that I saw in the report was that

12:39

there are a few countries that kind of you jumped

12:41

up much higher than they'd been historically, and a few

12:43

other countries that had fallen down. And so

12:46

let's talk about some of the countries that jumped up.

12:48

Any big kind of like surprises in terms

12:50

of who got much higher in terms of their happiness

12:52

it.

12:52

Was nice to see Costa Rica back in the top

12:55

twenty. They were in the position twelve in

12:57

twenty thirteen. Here they are

12:59

back because they're a very good example.

13:01

They're always the happiest country

13:03

in Latin America and they touch

13:06

bases on all of the six factors

13:08

we talked about. Another thing

13:10

that we highlight this year because

13:13

we're talking especially about happiness

13:15

at different ages, is that we're

13:17

seeing a continuation of

13:21

the gap between Central and

13:23

Eastern Europe and Western Europe, which

13:25

was very big before the Wall

13:27

came down. It's been gradually narrowing

13:29

over that whole period, and

13:32

we find this year, especially for the young,

13:35

so low. The gap for the old

13:37

between Central and Eastern Europe and Western

13:40

Europe is still about a full point on

13:42

the ten point scale. For the young, the

13:44

gap is gone. So the young in

13:47

Central and Eastern Europe are essentially the same

13:50

appreciation of their lives as in Western

13:52

Europe, and so there's a transition.

13:55

To see. The overall transition

13:57

isn't complete yet, but for the young it

13:59

is. It's quite notable the young

14:01

have become less happy in other parts

14:03

of the world, especially in North America.

14:06

So Costa Rica seems to be going up in the rankings,

14:08

but you also identified a few countries that seemed

14:10

to be going down. Which were those the.

14:13

Drops that we know because

14:15

they were going out of the

14:17

top twenty was Germany

14:19

in the United States United States

14:21

just above Germany last year, just above

14:24

Germany this year. But what was

14:27

fifteen and sixteen is now twenty three

14:29

and twenty four in

14:31

both cases, especially the United States,

14:33

due to drops in all age

14:36

groups, but especially in the young.

14:37

So this is sort of pretty bad for me being from the United

14:40

States, thinking that my country is now no longer

14:42

in the top twenty. I mean, was this something that shocked

14:44

the researchers or is this something that you all expected

14:46

to find?

14:47

The underlying trends have been there

14:49

for a while. It was not COVID

14:52

related, So these things essentially

14:54

are trends that started before COVID.

14:56

It's more or less carried on the same

14:58

way with only modest changes

15:01

in balanced during COVID. But

15:03

a bit of a surprise because that's quite a big

15:06

drop, and it's similar in Canada. They

15:08

draw among the young is so

15:11

substantial. So if you actually

15:13

look at the changes between

15:15

twenty six to twenty ten, first

15:18

years of the poll and the most recent

15:20

three years, Canada and the United

15:23

States have been among the biggest drops

15:25

over that whole period. It's not just one year,

15:27

it's over accumulating over that period,

15:29

because Canada was fourth and

15:32

is fifteenth now and the

15:34

US was eleven and it's now twenty

15:36

third. So you can see those are quite

15:38

big drops.

15:40

So what's behind the rise and fall of these nations

15:43

and the happiness rankings? What are some countries

15:45

getting right and others getting wrong? The

15:48

Happiness Lab will be right back. One

15:58

thing that makes the World Happiness Reports so important

16:00

is that it doesn't just measure the differences in happiness

16:03

of people around the world. It also

16:05

tries to determine the factors that lead to

16:07

those differences in well being, and John

16:09

says that this year six factors have emerged

16:11

as being important for the differences he and his

16:14

team have observed. Those predictive

16:16

factors are country GDP, life

16:18

expectancy, freedom of choice, freedom

16:21

from corruption, social connection, and

16:23

how generous people are. I wanted

16:25

John to help us better understand these factors,

16:27

starting with country wealth. There's

16:30

an old saying that money can't buy you happiness.

16:32

But if that's true, why does GDP matter

16:35

so much for a country's happiness ranking.

16:37

Aristotle was quite explicit about

16:39

it. You have to have the basic stuff

16:42

to live on, or it's hard

16:44

to actually get a chance to enjoy

16:46

and spread out. If you add on to

16:49

that list of questions, not just the average

16:51

level of income, but did you have enough

16:54

to eat or not have enough to eat at

16:56

some time in the last two weeks, the basic

16:58

survival part of GDP is

17:01

very important. So to move people

17:03

out of a situation where they can

17:05

only think about the ways to get

17:07

their next meal is extraordinarily

17:10

important. There's been a lot of discussion

17:12

about whether at some stage the

17:15

income effect starts to peter out.

17:17

You get less bang for the buck as

17:20

you get richer. Same with education.

17:22

Education matters for well being, but

17:24

if you put in the other things that support

17:27

well being, education itself drops

17:29

out. In other words, it's a way of

17:32

allowing people to provide

17:34

a good life, and so education without

17:37

good purpose doesn't do any good for

17:39

people. Same with income, But income,

17:41

like good health, is kind of fundamental

17:44

as a building block for good lives,

17:47

and everybody knew that before

17:49

there was a World Happiness Report, So

17:51

that if you ask the development agencies,

17:53

there anybody else say what are you after or

17:55

after GDP per capita healthy

17:57

life expectancy. But when we get

18:00

these data from people, we find out, well, that's

18:02

maybe half the story. But the

18:04

other half of the story is what is

18:06

the social context in which people are living?

18:09

Is there a high enough level of trust

18:11

around them? We use a measure of corruption.

18:14

There's a sense of personal freedom.

18:16

How free are you to make your key life

18:18

decisions? Do you have someone to

18:20

count on in times of trouble. That's a very

18:22

limited measure of the warmth

18:25

of your social connections, but it turns

18:27

out to be very important.

18:29

And finally, and less emphasized

18:32

by Aristotle is a benevolence

18:34

to what extent and we use donations

18:37

net of the effective income, but

18:40

it's very apparent that doing

18:43

things ideally with others

18:45

for others is very important.

18:48

One measure that we have

18:50

only one year of so it hasn't got

18:52

into the basic modeling,

18:55

but we find out to be very important

18:57

is whether people think their wallet would be

18:59

returned if they lost. An actual

19:02

experiment show that people answer that

19:04

question. They understand the relative

19:07

likelihood of a wallet return looking

19:09

across countries and a wallet return

19:11

is nice because it's not just honesty, it's also

19:13

benevolence, because you could be perfectly

19:16

trustworthy but still not take the time

19:18

out of your life to pick up a wallet and

19:20

make sure it got back to the owner. But

19:22

that's what people do in these high trust

19:25

countries and the high ranking countries. The

19:27

wallet return is very high

19:29

in the Nordic countries, and

19:31

it's very important. There was a survey we

19:34

had that measured what people's

19:36

risk was of mental health

19:38

problems, being a victim

19:41

of violent crime, or being unemployed,

19:43

and the positive effect

19:45

coming from thinking your wallet would be

19:48

returned if found by either

19:50

a stranger or police, or especially

19:52

both was way more important than the

19:54

negative on people's life evaluations

19:57

from those other factors, which are very

19:59

important.

20:00

One of the things that really seems to matter is having

20:02

somebody to count on that particular metric.

20:05

And interestingly, if I understand the report right,

20:07

that seems to be more important than reporting

20:09

that you're not lonely. It seems to be the positive

20:12

effect of social connection rather than the negative.

20:14

One walk through why that's so important

20:16

for me.

20:17

That's a good point. And there's

20:19

a new survey that was done in twenty twenty

20:21

two the Meta Gallop World

20:24

Connection Survey, where they measured

20:27

on the same scale to what extent

20:29

are you connected with other people? To

20:31

what extent are you supported by

20:34

others you're socially supported? And

20:36

then to what extent do you feel lonely? On

20:38

that same scale, right across

20:41

the world, feelings of positive

20:43

social support were twice as frequent

20:46

as loneliness. Despite the

20:48

fact loneliness and the Surgeon General's

20:50

report and you name it is being treated as

20:53

a major crisis. At least I

20:55

personally, and I think most

20:57

of our analysts would agree, it's much

20:59

more important to emphasize the positives

21:01

than the negatives, because, in a sense,

21:04

a supportive social environment

21:07

not only is twice as important is

21:09

the absence of loneliness, it cuts

21:11

loneliness because of course, the best

21:14

cure for loneliness is a vaccine,

21:16

and the best vaccine is a friend.

21:19

And so it's these positive things

21:21

that should get the emphasis. And that's the

21:23

way to, as it were, cure loneliness

21:26

is not to wait till it happens, but to

21:28

have a social environment that is

21:31

supportive.

21:31

And this seems to mirror something else that you've seen

21:33

time again in the report as I understand it, which

21:36

is that sometimes these positive behaviors

21:38

or even the positive emotions seem to be winning

21:40

out in terms of these life evaluation measures

21:43

over the negative behaviors and the

21:45

negative emotions. What are some other examples

21:47

of this, Well.

21:48

It turns up in lots of different

21:50

domains that people

21:53

do value the chance to

21:55

do things for other people and with

21:57

other people. There were surveys

21:59

in one report about how people were

22:01

happier in green environments

22:04

and in less noisy environments

22:06

than elsewhere, and we

22:09

had the authors go back to show

22:11

who people were with and who

22:13

you were with at the time you were

22:15

doing something was much more important than what

22:17

you were doing. So people were happier

22:20

commuting with a friend than they were walking

22:23

alone in a beautiful environment.

22:25

Of course, the best was to be in the green

22:28

environment with a friend, but that shows

22:30

you the dominance of the social

22:33

context over other aspects.

22:35

One issue that came up

22:38

in Issuear's report is that the

22:40

gallop world pole has now been going

22:42

on long enough that we have the potential

22:45

for splitting out generational effects

22:47

from age effects. You know, there is a sort

22:49

of midlife low that

22:52

appears in a lot of the data on

22:54

an age basis, and so we have

22:56

dug into that, but also trying

22:59

to separate it from when people were

23:01

born, and so we split the population

23:04

into those born before

23:06

nineteen sixty five boomers

23:08

and their predecessors, those born

23:10

after nineteen eighty, who were

23:13

then the Millennials and Gen

23:15

Z, and then the intervening group

23:17

of Gen X. And then what

23:20

we did this is continuing

23:22

with the benevolence theme. There

23:25

was a huge increase in benevolence

23:27

during the pandemic years compared

23:30

to twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen.

23:33

That boost is still going on now,

23:35

right through twenty twenty three. And

23:38

we asked ourselves, because this is

23:40

a big item of discussion, especially

23:42

in the United States, whether the Millennials

23:45

and their successors are the ME generation,

23:47

the Wei generation, or just like other generations.

23:51

So we were able to look at this boost

23:53

in benevolent behavior and then

23:55

has this boost been the same for

23:58

the millennials as it has

24:00

for the earlier generations. And

24:03

first of all, we found that that boost

24:05

is everywhere across all generations.

24:09

In terms of the ME versus

24:11

WE generation. We find out that the millennials

24:14

jumped up even more than their

24:16

predecessors to help others

24:19

when help was required during those

24:21

COVID years. So that's a very encouraging

24:24

piece of evidence to offset some

24:26

of the pessimism that people seem

24:28

to have about the world falling apart

24:31

behind them.

24:31

Oh I love that. I love that statistic. One

24:33

of the other things I was so interested in in this report

24:36

is that you're actually looking at these differences

24:38

across age and whether the rankings hold

24:40

not just for everyone, but whether

24:43

they hold as well for young individuals

24:45

versus older individuals and so on. And

24:47

so, you know what, did you see the

24:49

rankings pretty consistent across Asia? Do we

24:51

see some big differences.

24:53

Huge differences. Canada and the United

24:55

States, the rankings for the old

24:57

are fifty or more ranks higher

25:00

than for the young. There are many other countries

25:02

where the rankings for the old

25:05

are forty or more lower

25:08

than for the young. So they're huge

25:10

differences in these rankings across

25:12

countries, and in some cases

25:15

where the young are doing very well and the old

25:17

not so well. It's because every

25:19

country is different in generational

25:21

effects and so on. You look at the older

25:24

people in countries that are

25:26

part of the former Yugoslavia, where

25:29

they were at each other's throats

25:31

literally in the nineteen nineties.

25:33

The people who were alive and seeing

25:36

that as at Ultserce or older

25:38

children at that time, are now

25:40

very unhappy. Still they're bearing

25:43

the scars of that. So trauma

25:45

leaves its scars, and so

25:47

that's one of the reasons why the old

25:50

have not so quickly followed the young in

25:52

some of those countries in their higher

25:54

well being. However, the young

25:57

can rise relative to the old

25:59

in a newer refashioned

26:02

world. Is grounds for some

26:04

optimism. Although it may not be

26:07

completely easy to pull people

26:09

out and to expunge those

26:11

awful memories of the past, it's

26:14

possible to create new generations

26:16

who are less burdened by that and help

26:18

them to form their positive

26:20

connections with their neighbors and with the world.

26:23

So as we walk through these six factors, you

26:25

know, again being from the US, my kind of US

26:27

centric version of this report, I'm

26:29

curious which of those you think were really going

26:31

down in the case of the US, Like over the last

26:33

few years, what of those six factors have changed

26:36

in the US to kind of make us drop so significantly

26:39

in the rankings.

26:40

Well, my guess is that the

26:42

social environment within which people

26:45

operate. I mean there have been drops

26:47

in trust. That's evident.

26:50

It's not clear whether there have been drops

26:52

in social connections or not. There

26:54

have probably been drops in the

26:57

warmth and trustworthiness of those

26:59

social connections. We have had chapters

27:01

on the corrosive effects

27:04

of the social media use of certain

27:06

types on young people. We

27:09

have a special chapter in this year's report

27:12

on young people per se finding

27:14

that they're getting less happy

27:17

once they get into middle school

27:19

and carry on right through into their working

27:22

careers. And some

27:24

of that may be just learning

27:26

about life, and some of it

27:28

may be that the

27:30

social media on average have

27:33

not been so productive of good

27:35

relations that we know from

27:38

other research lower happiness

27:40

levels. And there's an underlying

27:43

negativity bias that humans have.

27:45

They react more sharply and quickly to

27:47

negative news. If you then combine

27:50

that negativity bias with a

27:53

huge increase in the range

27:55

of information sources that people have,

27:58

then they may well be deluged

28:00

in negative information that

28:03

drives them a long way from reality.

28:06

And we know that from the wallet data

28:08

exacs, because we know that

28:11

it's expected wallet return that makes

28:13

you happy. But we also know that

28:15

people underestimate the likelihood

28:18

of their wallet being returned, which means that

28:20

negative bias is very costly.

28:23

So we're needlessly unhappy

28:25

because we don't understand that

28:27

the people around us are kinder and better

28:30

than we think they are. Because to

28:32

walk down a street, as they do in Helsinki

28:35

and see someone on the street not as

28:37

a danger, not as a

28:39

stranger, but a friend they haven't met yet,

28:42

and that's very important for your

28:44

happiness to think you're in that kind of environment.

28:47

It's possible that what's going

28:49

on in the United States,

28:51

and this is true in Canadas too,

28:53

and also it's got its echoes in Australia

28:56

and New Zealand, is that not

28:58

only are more negative news there,

29:01

but the young people are in

29:03

some sense feeling guilty about it, whether it's

29:05

the past treatments of minorities,

29:08

of pre colonial populations,

29:11

treatment of the environment, any

29:13

range of issues. They're

29:16

feeling that they're either the victims

29:18

of what others have done before them, or

29:21

are carrying collectively as a

29:23

group, the guilt for producing these things.

29:25

And I suspect that's because those

29:27

drops in the young people's happiness

29:30

are not global. They're fixed

29:32

to the societies in which the

29:35

social media have been more dominant,

29:37

which the distribution of negative

29:39

stories about the past and

29:42

lack of positive stories about

29:45

the potential future have been more

29:47

prevalent. But my instinct is

29:49

that those two things belong in the same

29:51

bag that in fact, it is

29:53

this confluence of based

29:56

negative reporting and biased in the sense

29:58

of not reflecting the reality in which people

30:00

are living, coupled with people

30:03

feeling that things are going badly

30:06

in ways that they don't see any

30:09

easy way of fixing. We know that

30:11

natural disasters, although

30:13

they're terrible, they offer

30:16

immediately for most people the chance

30:18

to do something to help. They rush in

30:20

and help. People do want to

30:22

help others, But for some of these things

30:24

that people are worrying about now, they

30:26

don't see any easy way of jumping

30:29

in and making a difference. And

30:32

it's part of the research that we report

30:35

on in the world. Happiness support is

30:37

to help expose to people that

30:39

the quality of their own local

30:41

social environment, which is so important,

30:44

is affected by their own behavior.

30:47

So they should be going out with a smile

30:49

and a greeting and to help other people and

30:52

not presume the worst about them,

30:54

but in fact connect with them. For mutual

30:56

advantage. Sometimes it takes a little

30:58

bit of a push to get people to think in those

31:01

positive terms, but there's a big payoff.

31:03

And so as I think about kind of some of these factors

31:05

kind of playing in together, if you were going

31:07

to create the sort of ideal country,

31:09

right, you know, kind of cherry picking bits that one

31:11

country is doing and kind of adding it to another country,

31:14

what would that kind of like ideal country

31:16

look like like? What would it really build into boost

31:19

happiness as highly as possible.

31:21

That's a good one. One of the things we found

31:24

is that of those six factors we do measure,

31:27

the top countries all do well

31:29

in all of them. You can't do it on

31:31

one thing. You can only do it by having

31:33

a full tapestry. I think

31:36

the way it could play out, you see, you don't want

31:38

to have an idea that there's a recipe

31:40

for being a really happy country.

31:42

There are many recipes, but what has

31:45

to be true about a

31:47

really happy country is that people

31:49

really do care about each other. They're

31:51

characterized by equality, and

31:54

the equality that's really important is

31:56

the equality of opportunity, the

31:58

equality of regard, the

32:00

equality of acceptance, the

32:03

equality of access to basic

32:05

services, We talked earlier about the

32:07

importance of income, but as important

32:10

as the kind of things you can buy

32:12

with your own income, it's the kind

32:14

of things we provide for each other

32:17

by way of education, access,

32:19

education, quality, healthcare,

32:22

access, peace and freedom,

32:24

and a trustworthy local social

32:27

environment. And some of that can be fixed

32:29

up by the neighbors and improved by the neighbors.

32:32

Some of it requires an add on of

32:35

national level institutions that

32:38

permit people to connect rather than

32:40

be unconnected. If you wanted

32:42

me to focus on something

32:45

that could be fixed in almost

32:47

every country to make it a

32:50

better country is that over

32:52

the last twenty years, there's

32:54

been a move driven

32:56

by complaints of something going

32:58

wrong, somebody being molested,

33:01

somebody being shot, and those

33:03

things that go wrong are what are reported

33:06

in the news. So then almost

33:08

every organization now has a risk committee,

33:11

and the risk committee is designed to

33:13

stop things going wrong. And

33:15

so they shut the kids off in schools

33:18

with locked doors, they shut people

33:20

in elder care facilities behind locked

33:22

doors, and in the process,

33:25

and this is true of almost all experiments

33:28

that are trying to make lives better,

33:30

that it's increasingly hard even to do the

33:32

experiments we've been running experiments

33:35

mixing young children running a

33:37

year of their grade six education

33:40

in the middle of a care facility

33:42

in Saskatoon, which breaks all

33:44

the rules. You see, the modern

33:46

risk aversion culture doesn't

33:48

make that possible. So it takes a great deal

33:51

of innovation and work even

33:53

to start an experiment like

33:55

that. Well, once you see those experiments

33:57

in action, as we've done, even through COVID,

34:00

they've enriched the lives of the children,

34:02

and clearly for the elders who have a

34:05

chance to pass on their wisdom as

34:07

well as echo the laughs of

34:09

the children. It gives them a reason for living,

34:11

not what otherwise might be on

34:13

what they would see on their screens, reasons

34:16

for dying. So to open

34:18

doors for connection rather than

34:21

closed doors for presumed safety

34:24

is absolutely fundamental, and I'm

34:26

afraid in most institutions,

34:29

in most countries, even the

34:31

top countries, it's going in the

34:33

wrong direction. So the

34:36

risk prevention culture has to be entirely

34:39

rethought because what the world needs

34:41

is more open doors, not more closed

34:43

doors. And so we have to permit

34:46

people to meet un till they meet and till

34:48

they greet, until they learn to trust.

34:50

They won't learn common cause they won't

34:53

turn the me versus

34:55

you into the bigger we and

34:57

the US, and that's what's critical

35:00

in any successful society. So

35:02

that's something I think that is an agenda

35:05

item for countries, even if they're

35:08

pretty well now in the rankings,

35:10

that they could be doing a better job at

35:12

making sure these connection doors

35:15

are open and cherished.

35:16

I love this. It fits so much with some of the work that

35:18

we've talked about on the show with Robert Putnam

35:21

and others about the kind of importance of building

35:23

these opportunities for building more of the social

35:25

capital too. So I think sometimes when people

35:27

see these rankings, especially if you're from a country

35:30

that's pretty low on the list, it can feel, you know,

35:32

kind of like a hit. You know, it can feel a little depressing.

35:35

Are there things that countries that are lower on the

35:37

list can do to maybe boost their rankings?

35:39

You know? Should you feel so pessimistic?

35:41

Absolutely, some people say because

35:43

they immigrants in Finland are the

35:45

happiest immigrants in the world, then

35:48

everybody should move to Helsinki. That's absolutely

35:50

what it's not about in a way, and sort

35:52

of forget your ranking, but learn

35:55

from the report what makes for a good

35:57

life, and so much of it is so local,

36:00

starting with your family, your friends,

36:02

your colleagues at work and school. You

36:04

can change your life in important

36:06

ways, but the really important

36:08

thing is to change other people's lives.

36:10

So if you reach out to help others, that'll

36:13

help you as well. But the ripples

36:15

of that, this spillover

36:17

effects of positive actions,

36:19

of positive connections are very

36:21

strong. If anything, they're

36:24

stronger than the negative ones. That's

36:26

to be cherished. What that means is everybody's

36:28

got the option, both collectively as

36:31

a country and a government, but also

36:33

individually, and so for

36:35

people who are pessimistic, they can't

36:37

immediately turn around their main

36:40

government policies, but they

36:42

can turn around their neighborhoods. They

36:44

can turn around what's going on in

36:46

their workplace. They can turn

36:49

around what's going on in their school by

36:51

thinking, not complaining, not by

36:53

making making angry demonstrations

36:55

about something, but by building

36:57

common costs to find better ways

37:00

of doing things. So it's not about fighting,

37:02

it's not about demanding your rights. It's

37:04

about working together with the others

37:06

you're living with in order to ver

37:09

something better. And that's always an

37:11

option. We see it after natural disasters.

37:14

Why can't we see it after other

37:16

less damaging but perhaps more corrosive

37:18

things.

37:20

What a great message of hope to end on. No

37:22

matter where your country is on the World Happiness

37:24

Report rankings, you can still do something

37:26

in your home, or on your street, or

37:28

in your workplace to help move your fellow

37:30

citizens up the happiness chart. John

37:33

and I have already talked about the generational splits

37:35

his team has observed in country level rankings,

37:38

but this year's report devotes a lot of time

37:40

to age differences in happiness. In

37:43

fact, there are whole chapters on well being

37:45

trends in the young and the old this year,

37:47

and so those are the two challenges we'll

37:49

be tackling next in this special season

37:52

about the World Happiness Report on

37:54

the Happiness Lab with me Doctor Lauriy

37:56

Santos