Talk:Satisfaction with Life Index

References are invalidated
This article should be deleted because references 2,5 and 6 are invalidated and are not documental anymore. 5.75.24.98 (talk) 11:30, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Deletion
I've flagged this article for deletion. It doesn't take a genius to look at that list and see many things wrong with it. First of all, the mere suggestion of ranking a subjective concept like satisfaction on a scale is laughable (Who's more satisfied, the billionaire who lost half his fortune in the stock market, or the poor kid in Africa who got to eat dinner for the first time in 4 days? Or is it the serial killer in Columbia who beat the national record for most murders in a week and gets bragging rights to all his junky pals??)

Second, the list itself completely and utterly contradicts real world statistics. It doesn't correlate at all with homicide/crime rates, poverty rates, income equality, civil rights, suicide rates etc.. in short, I could make up a list based on my current knowledge of the world that would be more credible than this one. This is just one big work of fiction.

Sbw01f (talk) 01:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

According to their website:

''This data on SWB was compared with data on access to education (UNESCO, 2005), health (United Nations, 2005), and poverty (CIA, 2006). It was found that SWB correlated most strongly with health (.7) closely followed by wealth (.6) and access to basic education (.6). This adds to the evidence that from a global perspective the biggest causes of SWB are poverty and associated variables. ''

So health, wealth, basic education, poverty.

Now, based on this, let's make a comparison using CIA and HDR data. I'll use an extreme example: Russia (ranked 167th, on par with the likes of Niger, Pakistan, Sudan)) vs. Columbia (ranked 34th, on par with the likes of Germany, UK, Australia).

Wealth - GDP PPP (per capita):


 * Russia - 14,600
 * Colombia - 7,200

Health - life expectancy:


 * Colombia - 72.27
 * Russia - 65.87

Education - Adult literacy rate & Human Development Report education index rating:


 * Russia - 99.4% (0.956, on par with Germany, Japan, Switzerland)
 * Colombia - 92.6% (0.869, on par with Malaysia, Mexico, Jordan)

Poverty - Population living below $1 a day, and population below national poverty line:


 * Russia - <2% and 17.8%
 * Colombia - 7% and 49.2%

Percent of population suffering from malnutrition:


 * Russia - 3%
 * Colombia - 14%

And lets not forget that Colombia has the highest homicide and kidnap rates in the entire world. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1410316.stm)

In conclusion, Russia beats Colombia hands down in every single category, except one. It's not even a matter of debate as to which country should be ranked higher than which based on "subjective well-being" as they put it. But somehow, based on these criteria that I just presented, using the same sources, they've ranked Colombia as one of the happiest or "most subjectively well-off" places in the world, on par and even ahead of many first world countries. Further, they ranked Russia as one of the worst or "least subjectively well-off" countries, on par with some of the worst, most miserable places to live on Earth. Make sense to you? Me either.


 * Who cares? I mean, who cares one bit what you think? Despite the general level of the commentary, this is Wikipedia and not Youtube, and here the comments you leave won't really change one bit the numbers that come from real sources. If you personally feel those numbers are wrong, why not go and change them in the source? Give a call to the UN, perhaps? Whatever you do, don't finger the values in the table. --Sigmundur (talk) 21:04, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Such a low Russia's positions have a more complicated psychological explanation than only wealth, health etc. It could sound absurd for western people, but the last decades of USSR its people's subjective quality of life was very high. Collapse of the USSR caused dramatic system changes, that was a kind of psychological trauma for almost every person. Some of former USSR members have successfully been thrown into european wealth, others remained in it's asian traditions without any weath ambitions, but many russians are still drowning in feeling abandoned and betrayed. --213.208.170.194 (talk) 09:45, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

5.75.24.98 (talk) 11:22, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Delete this article because:
references are invalidated and are not documental anymore. 5.75.24.98 (talk) 11:22, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

This article should be deleted
but not for the reason suggested here. I don't think you can just 'know' how happy a place is just by thinking about it or citing data about how rich, healthy, crime free it is. Going out and asking people how happy they are is, I suggest, a useful way of finding out, and I see know reasons why the data should not be presented in an encyclopedia.

However this data is bad data. Firstly it was not produced by the person the article seams to suggest it was produced by, it was put togetehr by the New Economics Foundation for their Happy Planet Index. Adrian White simply pulled all their figures together, made a map of it and did some crude correlation coeficient work. I think anybody could do that in their sleep and I don't see why he deserves any of the credit. One aproach then would be to merge this into the Happy Planet Index page as a list of the rankings for one of the three indicators used in putting that measure together.

Secondly they put it together by merging different survys that asked different questions in different countries at different times, which is hardly conducive to producing a robust data set for use in making international comparisons.

If Wikipedia is to have a list of happy countries, and I think it should, then it should link directly to the surveys that investigate this thing, namely the World Values Survey, Gallup World Pole and Eurobarometer. It should present the three lsits side by side, as happens for GDP, and let the reader make up their minds regarding interpretation. ¬¬¬¬

Mate I think you've completely missed the point.
It sounds like you're expecting this list to be more of a 'richest countries in the world' analysis, or 'safest countries in the world' or 'greatest life expectancies in the world'. Haven't you heard about the 'money can't buy happiness' realisation? It's creeping up on us in this modern world, at an individual, national and indeed global level!

I think you'll agree that an individual's happiness depends on a great deal of things; their upbringing, personal experiences, ambient culture, instilled values and morals, and of course the extent to which their primary needs are satisfied. Satisfaction is not just an assessment of the extent to which you're able to survive, it's about whether or not you're happy and grateful for what it is you're surviving! (and yes, that's very subjective).

It's quite easy to rate yourself out of ten as to how happy you are with your life at any one time. You're trying to argue that this sort of ratings system is 'laughable', because there is no control - no base rating as symptoms of satisfaction are too diverse. As you said, what one billionaire in the US views as satisfying or unsatisfying will differ to that 'poor kid in Africa who got to eat dinner for the first time in 4 days'.

Now I agree that it will differ - but don't you see that this difference between nations is the mechanism for this research in the first place? What you are arguing against in this article is the very basis of why this list has the potential to be viable (and indeed if further studies are performed, valuble!)

Imagine you have lived your life with an understanding of a particular cultural norm, say, very few children in your village have access to education, or you have to walk 5 miles a day to get clean water. If suddenly things begin to change in your generation (as they are in many developing countries due to humanitarian aid), and someone builds a bore and community resource centre, your gratitude would be immense and your satisfaction with your life would increase. Knowing how your life IS compared to how it WAS, and having no education or knowledge of the petty materialism the Western world is drowning in, you'd probably rate your satisfaction with life at least an 8 out of 10.

Conversely, if you imagine that you live in the US, you might be middle aged, have your own home, a job, a family and accessible medical care. Your biggest worry might be that you've gained 10 pounds since Summer and you want to quit your job cause you can't stand your boss. I guarantee that if you were asked to rate your satisfaction with life, you'd give it no more than a nice fat 5 out of 10 or so.

Many countries in the Nordic region for example are very satisfied because their national economy continues to improve and the quality of life of all individuals is continuing to increase. The US, further down the list, is a powerful nation but it has a great distribution of 'haves and have nots', and because the 'have nots' can clearly see the 'haves', they will be less satisfied with their own lives as they want more from it. Russia, even further down the list, hasn't been happy for decades as it's lost most of its previous economic and political power, and is still recovering from a post-soviet cultural and financial slump.

My point is, each individual grows to have expectations of what makes them happy and what makes them unhappy, what makes them feel fulfilled and what makes them feel unfulfilled. Essentially it's about cultural awareness, the level of distribution of quality of life within a nation, and improvement of that quality of life over time that will have the greatest effect on satifaction with life.

So I only need to say one thing to counter your Russia Vs. Columbia argument - and that's that Russia may appear better in the stats, but the quality of life in Columbia has improved the most over time, and THAT'S what this study ends up highlighting in the end. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.166.68.65 (talk) 08:09, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

KC, 27/08/2008

sophisticated non sense.
So according to these experts, I (a Chinese) am supposed to be happier then most Japanese? so do those beggars wandering on local street? And we have better health (.7), wealth (.6), and education than many advanced economy? Do these experts have idea of how to live under 1 dollar per day (as tens of millions of hard working farmers)? Do these experts have to eat dog food, working 14+ hours per day( as tens of millions of workers in factories who produce clothes, shoes YOU are wearing right now)? Do these expert have to pay three generations of saving just to buy a 80 square meters apartment( as tens of millions of "elite" employees)? Do they know how high is China's Gini index? And you call it happiness?

OK I know some would argue that "money is not everything", "life is about happy". That sounds convictive, but WHAT is happy? They claimed that they "survey" normal Chinese. That is nonsense. By claiming this, the maker of this nonsense said "I am lying": They have no idea of public control in China,I am sure they didn't do the survey they claimed, because by asking this question (anything about life standard etc) to average people instead of officials, they would be throw into jail, and got no chance to make this ridiculous index.

Basically it comes down to some guy saying "Hey, I think I'll colour this country red because I don't like it, and this country blue because I had a great vacation there one time". This is a joke and has no place on wikipedia. And by the way, living in Canada myself, I can tell you right now that we ain't so happy.

Sbw01f (talk) 05:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The data is based on surveys of life-satisfaction in different nations. It is not based on those criteria you cite above, that is correlations done later. The results have been published. A discussion of only two countries, or your own experience, is not a statistical trend. Regarding Russia, the very high prevalence of alcoholism and suicide certainly speaks against a happy nation.Ultramarine (talk) 09:30, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Surveys are largely subjective and very open to manipulation. In this case, because you make the argument that statistics don't matter one iota in the end, you support my point that this is nothing but blatant pseudoscience where one can control the list completely based on opinion while making it appear to be legit and scientific. I only used Russia and Colombia as examples. Japan, Hungary, and various other countries have equally high suicide rates, so that argument doesn't hold up. And it still doesn't explain how the worlds "kidnap capital" where one is risking his life by simply going for a walk around the block is ranked better than the UK and Germany.

Now in terms of this being suitable for wikipedia, I'll direct you here: Verifiability


 * Exceptional claims in Wikipedia require high-quality reliable sources; if such sources are not available, the material should not be included.


 * Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable.


 * Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.

All it takes is a few quick searches to find out that this "Adrian G. White" is not a credible source, nor is he an established expert. His website is indeed a personal website. In fact, if you look at the bottom of his website, you'll see a nice little disclaimer which states: "The views expressed in this document are those of the document owner."

This article is not suitable for an encyclopedia and I'm re-flagging it. Now it's quite clear that you're not going to take "no" for an answer regardless of all the evidence in the world since people who support this sort of pseudoscience are more often than not pushing an agenda, so I'm going to ask that you do not remove the deletion tag, and simply wait for either someone else to make an argument, or for the article to be reviewed.
 * Scholarly, published material is a verifiable and reliable source. The online article is just a copy of the published material. Many scholars have such copies on their homepages. It has been cited by for example the BBC (and many others): . Also, since the deletion is contested, do not put back the speedy deletion template, if you want to continue this, do an ordinary deletion request.Ultramarine (talk) 09:28, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

That wasn't a speedy delete, it was a regular delete. Speedy delete actually says "speedy delete" in the tag! See: Proposed deletion

Until we distinguish Adrian G. White as an expert in the field, and until we find out the methodology of the surveys involved and can verify the claims so to be sure it's honest, this is still not up to standards for wikipedia.

Sbw01f (talk) 20:24, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Read your own link: "*Contested deletions: If anyone, including the article's creator, removes Template:Prod from an article for any reason, do not put it back, except if the removal was clearly not an objection to deletion (such as blanking the entire article, or removing the tag along with inserting blatant nonsense). If the edit is not obviously vandalism, do not restore tag, even if the tag was apparently removed in bad faith. If you still believe the article needs to be deleted, list it on Articles for deletion."
 * If you put the deletion tag back again I will report you. Do an ordinary deletion request.Ultramarine (talk) 21:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps instead of falsely accusing me of using "speedy delete", you should have verified exactly what you meant in the first place. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbw01f (talk • contribs) 21:58, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. When Philippines is number 78, and the United States is 23? there is definately something wrong here. Punkymonkey987 (talk) 17:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC) Actually, I would just like to change that if possible. lol!

???
Do we need the huge table? Can't we just list the top ten or so? Whispering(talk/c) 20:58, 4 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Is that a little better? --chris 16:56, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I think that
This page is absolutely ridiculous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.240.27.210 (talk) 00:02, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

SWB?
Sorry, just want to ask what is SWB that is mentioned on the page? Perhaps a further elaboration on this will be good for those readers who found this article by chance or from search engine. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 133.91.136.203 (talk) 11:35, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, googled it out already. subjective well-being (SWB). Added it in a minute ago. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 133.91.136.203 (talk) 11:39, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Resolution of conflict
Neutral POV: Although I have a certain sympathy with the user requesting deletion, in that I feel this study is floored, wikipedia DOES LIST disputed and even discredited theories and studies, if they are notable. This study is clearly notable, having been reported by main stream news sources.

When dealing with a controversial article, the advice is at Controversial_articles. tl;dr, we are to present both points of view, and present references for both. Any study as clearly controversial as this will have replies in the accademic press. I sugest someone who wants to show it is suspect present these, and we can make it clear that it is disputed in the introduction. Certainly it substancially disagrees with other studies such as this one from the reputable Economist Buisness Inteligence Unit.

Conversly, I am sure reports, papers, and news articles exist asserting its validity, and these MUST BE GIVEN EQUAL PLACE.

I personaly feel is not appropriate to delete mention of such a notable study, however, such controversy as exists should be clearly noted in the article.

Is this compromize acceptable, or are there further disputes? 86.9.57.55 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


 * the economist article actually says this about subjective life satisfaction surveys:
 * "The results of the surveys have been attracting growing interest in recent years. Despite a range of early criticisms (cultural non-comparability and the effect of language differences across countries; psychological factors distorting responses), tests have disproved or mitigated most concerns. One objection is that responses to surveys do not adequately reflect how people really feel about their life; they allegedly report how satisfied they are expected to be. But people know very well how satisfied they are. Responses to questions about life satisfaction tend to be prompt; non-response rates are very low. This simple measure of life satisfaction has been found to correlate highly with more sophisticated tests, ratings by others who know the individual, and behavioural measures. The survey results have on the whole proved far more reliable and informative than might be expected."
 * so basically the economist article is not saying that subjective life satisfaction surveys are inaccurate, instead they are seeking to try to make a better index by factoring in a number of other additional factors, such as gender equality, health, divorce rate, unemployment, political freedoms. i would be one to agree that gender equality, political freedom, and full employment is important but disagree that the divorce rate is important, so their measure is not free from controversy either. at any rate, if you look at these two ranking lists side by side, they look about the same, with some notable shifts. for example, both of them have the group of welfare states at the top, and both of them have the former soviet republics in the bottom half. the main countries that i notice losing relative ranking between the first and the second are various muslim countries, probably because they have pretty poor gender equality and political freedoms.

-(71.202.181.87 (talk) 17:41, 25 August 2008 (UTC))

Colombıa Poor But Happy!!!!!
http://poorbuthappy.com/colombia/ Bye! —Preceding unsigned--Rubashkyn (talk) 17:13, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Chill friends
I don't see what some Colombia enthusiasts have a problem with in this. It shows columbia as being ranked right up there with the United States, and higher than russia, effectively proving that it already takes into account exactly what you are complaining about. -(71.202.181.87 (talk) 20:40, 24 August 2008 (UTC))

grossly inaccurate labeling
someone had this thing labeled as if it was a happy planet index map. it is nothing of the sort, that is a completely different measure that takes into account environmental impact, and has different numbers than in the table. i replaced that with the correct citation to where the information comes from.-(71.202.181.87 (talk) 20:40, 24 August 2008 (UTC))

dont delete, just add contrary citations or make a new article about other published measures
also, dont delete this, there is high interest in it and it is based on studies. wikipedia policy says that any significant academic views should be covered. if you disagree, find some studies that dispute its import and provide citations so that people who read the articles can have access to those views also. there certainly are other studies compiled with their own rankings and methodologies. consider making an article and free map for those studies which will have different labels for their measures. for example, the economist article pointed to earlier is "quality of life index", not "subjective well being" or "satisfaction with life scale". the economist article says that its quality of life index "links the results of subjective life-satisfaction surveys to the objective determinants of quality of life across countries." so that means it is involving additional measures into its index other than sastisfaction with life surveys. there will be a different methodology behind it which is important to the results. for example, the White 2006 paper uses information from a metastudy. there are issues with metastudies because they try to collect results from other studies which are not all done in the same way, yet metastudies have to be done. White's paper then compares the results of subjective well being with other measures to find some correlations. the economist paper by contrast is not finding correlations to other factors, but trying to include those factors into a new scale.

-(71.202.181.87 (talk) 20:40, 24 August 2008 (UTC))

If I laugh because of this article, am I happier then? :)
I won't talk about the methodology, which is not arguable, just wrong.

But Italy only 50th.. Ah ah.. Don't talk about comparisons with other countries because of the respect I have for any of them.. But please: isn't it in one of the many wikipedia guidelines the pre-requisite of having some intellect before writing..? :D

For the dumbest ones I'll say just one thing: if I buy anything or get the salary, if I get a diploma or stay alive 95 years in my country it goes to the (reliable and encyclopedic in fact) statistics as National GDP and HDI. No one asked me if I am happy :P

P.S.

Sorry for mispellings or wrong methods, I'm not a native speaker naither a wikipedia commenter.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.205.23.75 (talk) 12:22, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

The article states that this is subjective!
The fact that they state this is good enough for me. It's "subjective" and not "objective", so take if for what you will.

Now, if Wikipedia guidelines states that only objective articles are allowed and they want to be strict on that, then this article should be removed.

Vl wiki (talk) 17:54, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

People know if they're happy or not.
I take offense with the view of some members here that some countries are happier than they "should be." To be honest, I see nothing wrong with a study that asks people whether they're happy or not, then compiles the results. If people in Colombia consider themselves happier than people in Russia, that's their decision. This index is not a matter of researchers deciding which countries are the happiest, then listing their opinions. It's the product of surveys of the citizens within those countries, if I read the page right. Sure, you might wonder why the endangered, malnourished citizens of Colombia are happier than the well-educated, protected citizens of Russia. Nevertheless, it does little good to go up to a Colombian and say, "you shouldn't be happy! Look at all these statistics on your country!" or approach a Russian and say, "Well, based on your literacy and your income, shouldn't you be happier?" People might not know much, but they do know whether or not they're happy. With that in mind, I don't see any problems with a study that asks citizens if they're satisfied with life, then compares the responses across countries. KBurchfiel (talk) 20:34, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

No References support the list nor the map
I saw the list and noticed that different countries were given different rankings EVEN THOUGH THEIR SCORES WERE IDENTICAL. So I decided to see if this was due to some ranking in the source documents.

None... not ONE of the source documents gives this table in this manner. For example, this table gives scores with decimals. NONE of the sources gives scores with decimals.

Multiple sources do give Maps, but THE MAPS IN THE SOURCES DO NOT MATCH THE MAP IN WIKIPEDIA. The map in wikipedia is OR.

This article needs completely reworked. --Blue Tie (talk) 21:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Templates for deletion nomination of Template:Lists of countries
Template:Lists of countries has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Cybercobra (talk) 06:55, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

This is not the place nor the channel for discussion on the happiness index itself
This is an encyclopedia entry on a happiness index. This is not the place or the forum where it should be debated, whether this index is ok or not, whether it's meaningfully defined, or whether it suits each visitor's particular personal appetite. For that discussion, go study social science in a university, meet researchers on the area and publish your opinions in peer-reviewed journals. That's how you'll change this gaping unjustice. Almost added ", dumbasses" to the caption line, but that would just overly underline the point.

What is relevant for this page, for example, is: who the bloody hell has made the gddmn table and put rank no 1 and rank no 90 in the same fkn row? I mean, honestly, how is anyone supposed to edit that mess? Volunteers for wikifying it, or do I have to work my /sed/ magic again myself? --Sigmundur (talk) 20:59, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Ranking?
The ranking doesn't seem to come from the source. archive.org isn't working for http://www.le.ac.uk/users/aw57/world/sample.html but  seem to be the same thing. And I see no ranks there. Yet we assign 16-25 for countries which seem to have the same SWL and are sorted solely by alphabetical order. Nil Einne (talk) 08:19, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Delete this article because references are invalidated and are not documental anymore. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.75.24.98 (talk) 11:19, 26 March 2020 (UTC)