We Kiwis, the research regularly suggests, are a happy bunch.
In the last World Happiness Report, which is compiled by researchers for the United Nations each year and based on a global series of annual surveys, we ranked ninth out of 149 countries, coming in behind the Scandinavian and progressive European countries that regularly top the happiness index.
It’s only natural to take pride in our happiness, the same way many get a kick out of our cities being regularly included in lists of the best places in the world to live. Having what scientists call “high subjective well-being” implies that we are thriving, emotionally, physically and socially. We are relatively satisfied with life and our place in the world.
With our top 10 happiness ranking in 2021, it appears that despite the tumult and stresses of the pandemic, we’ve stayed positive and flourished. But, you just have to take a walk past the protesters’ village outside our Parliament buildings to see the cracks in that argument. A significant number of us are clearly anxious, stressed out and currently very unhappy with the state of affairs in this country.
A team of researchers now suggests our self-reported high levels of happiness may not be helping their mood. In fact, surveying of 7443 individuals from 40 countries including New Zealand, found that in just about every country, there’s societal pressure to be happy and not sad, which ironically, leads to more citizens reporting poor wellbeing.
The happier a country is overall, the stronger this link tends to be between people reporting reduced life satisfaction and symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress. Our national happiness is actually a bit of a downer for some.
“This discrepancy between an individual and society may create a perceived failure that can trigger negative emotions,” said lead author Egon Dejonckheere, from Tilburg University in the Netherlands.
“In countries where all citizens appear to be happy, deviations from the expected norm are likely more apparent, which makes it more distressing.”
There are parallels with the world of social media. The more we compare ourselves with the seemingly perfect lives of friends and celebrities posting selfies on Instagram, the greater likelihood we are to tie ourselves up in knots of anxiety about our own less than perfect lives.
Could it also be that the more we are nudged towards the positive narrative that we’ve come through Covid-19 relatively well, that some among us are more inclined to think the opposite?
Either way, critics of happiness indexes suggest they are a flawed measure of wellbeing. They grew out of a movement to look beyond gross domestic product (GDP) as a measure of societal progress.
Our own Government won global acclaim for its Wellbeing Budget in 2019. Our official measures of wellbeing include surveys on “general life satisfaction” and “sense of purpose in one’s life”. But objective measures such as our air quality, voter turnout and suicide rate flesh out the picture.
Live your own life, don’t get hung up on comparing yourself to others, and take the happiness index with a pinch of salt.
Originally published on Stuff.co.nz
PETER GRIFFIN 