Week 8 Flashcards
What is the main focus of psychological interest in happiness and life satisfaction?
Differences between individual people and how people can make themselves happier or more satisfied with their lives.
What are the two main sources that show differing results on whether personal or societal factors affect happiness more?
The World Happiness Report (WHR) and the World Values Survey (WVS).
What did the World Happiness Report (WHR) and the World Values Survey (WVS) indicate about factors affecting happiness?
WHR indicates society is more important; WVS indicates personal factors are more important.
What was the average importance rating given to personal and societal factors by Psyc students in 2024?
Personal factors: 7.5, Societal factors: 7.8.
What is the Cantril Ladder used for in the World Happiness Report?
It asks respondents to rate their current lives on a scale from 0 (worst possible life) to 10 (best possible life).
What were the happiest and most miserable countries according to the 2024 World Happiness Report?
Happiest: Finland (average 7.7), Most miserable: Afghanistan (average 1.7).
What pattern is observed in the World Happiness Report regarding the happiness of countries?
Richer, peaceful democracies in the developed world do better in happiness rankings.
What is the Easterlin Paradox?
As countries get richer, they don’t seem to get much happier.
What does the Easterlin Paradox suggest about within-country income differences?
Within countries, income does make a difference in happiness but not as much as the differences between countries.
What is the Latin American Paradox in terms of happiness?
Despite high crime rates and income inequality, Latin American countries tend to have high happiness levels.
What did the latest World Happiness Report find about the happiness of younger people in many countries, including NZ?
The happiness of younger people is going down.
What did Minkov (2009) find to be the best single predictor of happiness?
Personal freedom.
What are some reasons why happiness survey results might not be accurate?
Translation issues, cultural differences in expressing happiness, different cultural understandings of happiness, and sampling differences.
What study compared the happiness of Polish and German students, Asian and other students at UC, and Hungarian and Danish students?
The study by Bolle & Kemp (2009).
What did Bolle & Kemp (2009) find about cultural bias in happiness responses?
They found that culture may not have biased personal responses much, as the value of the “shopping list” of life satisfaction was rated the same by different groups.
