This collection contains observed responses to questions about happiness in various populations. Depending on availability, the pattern of responses is characterized by 1) the frequency distribution and 2) measures of central tendency such as the mean and the standard deviation. Since there is considerable variation in the rating scales used, most of the means and standard deviations cannot be compared. For this reason, transformed values on a common 0-10 numerical scale are computed where possible. These ‘transformed’ means and standard deviations are reported next to the original values.
Search options
On the search screen you can select distributional findings in the following ways
- Findings by people studied
You can select populations by public, place and time; e.g. how happy people were in the general population of the UK in 1998. You can also select special publics, such as how happy pensioners have been all over the world since the 1980s - Findings by measure of happiness used
You can select the observed distributions of a particular kind of happiness, e.g. the affective component of happiness. In that case select ‘Hedonic level of Affect’ in the field ‘Focus’. You can also select a particular measure of that kind of happiness, such as the Bradburn Affect Balance Scale (measure code A-BB-cm-mq-v.2-a). - Findings by study characteristics
You can further select distributional findings by methodological features of the studies in which they were observed, for instance to assess whether average happiness tend to be higher in studies that used face-to-face interview compared to assessment on the internet.
The above selections yield lists of finding pages. In the finding reports on this site you find structured presentations of selected distributional findings, such as on happiness in nations
Save selection
You can save a selection you made using the save-icon at the bottom-right of the search screen, as you can see here.
Rank reports on level of happiness in nations
Trend reports on change of happiness in nations