The World Database of Happiness is a collection of research findings on happiness.
We call it a ‘findings archive’. This technique is new.
Findings on what ‘happiness’?
Life-satisfaction; that is: how much one likes the life one lives
What kinds of ‘findings’
– Findings on how happy people are, e.g., how happy are the English these days?
– Findings on things that make us more or less happiness, e.g. do raises in income raise happiness?
– Findings on effects of happiness, e.g. does happiness boost productivity?
How do such ‘findings’ look like?
Research findings are described using a standard format and terminology on e-pages which contain information about:
– the people investigated
– measurement of happiness
– observed degree(s) of happiness
– observed association of happiness with other variables, such as income
See this example of a finding on happiness and lottery winning, which reveals an initial negative effect of big wins followed by a positive effect three years years after the win
How many of such findings are there in the database?
– 40.000 by June 2021
– about 20.000 research findings waiting to be entered