World Happiness Report 2023 32 Measuring and Explaining National Differences in Life Evaluations Country rankings this year are based on life evaluations in 2020, 2021, and 2022, so all of the observations are drawn from years of high infection and deaths from COVID-19. Ranking of Happiness 2020-2022 The country rankings in Figure 2.1 show life evaluations (answers to the Cantril ladder question) for each country, averaged over the years 2020-2022.1 The overall length of each country bar represents the average response to the ladder question, which is also shown in numerals. The confidence intervals for each country’s average life evaluation are shown by horizontal whiskers at the righthand end of each country bar. Confidence Box 2.1: Measuring Subjective Well-Being Our measurement of subjective well-being continues to rely on three main well-being indicators: life evaluations, positive emotions, and negative emotions (described in the report as positive and negative affect). Our happiness rankings are based on life evaluations, as the more stable measure of the quality of people’s lives. In World Happiness Report 2023, we continue to pay special attention to specific daily emotions (the components of positive and negative affect) to better track how COVID-19 has altered different aspects of life. Life evaluations. The Gallup World Poll, which remains the principal source of data in this report, asks respondents to evaluate their current life as a whole using the image of a ladder, with the best possible life for them as a 10 and worst possible as a 0. Each respondent provides a numerical response on this scale, referred to as the Cantril ladder. Typically, around 1,000 responses are gathered annually for each country. Weights are used to construct population-representative national averages for each year in each country. We base our usual happiness rankings on a three-year average of these life evaluations, since the larger sample size enables more precise estimates. Positive emotions. Positive affect is given by the average of individual yes or no answers about three emotions: laughter, enjoyment, and interest (for details see Technical Box 2). Negative emotions. Negative affect is given by the average of individual yes or no answers about three emotions: worry, sadness, and anger. Comparing life evaluations and emotions: • L ife evaluations provide the most informative measure for international comparisons because they capture quality of life in a more complete and stable way than do emotional reports based on daily experiences. • Life evaluations differ more between countries than do emotions and are better explained by the widely differing life experiences in different countries. Emotions yesterday are well explained by events of the day being asked about, while life evaluations more closely reflect the circumstances of life as a whole. We show later in the chapter that emotions are significant supports for life evaluations. • P ositive emotions are more than twice as frequent (global average of 0.66) as negative emotions (global average of 0.29), even during the three COVID years 2020-2022.
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