Thank you for that! The results make so much more sense to me now. I've lived in Canada, the US, the UK and Japan. One of the reasons I choose to remain in Japan is that people seem a lot happier here. This is in complete contrast with the results (which ranks Canada up near the top).

I'm Canadian and while this is a completely subjective point of view, one of the things I don't like about living there is that people seem perpetually pissed off about one thing or another. The world is just wrong. It's all going to hell in a hand basket. It shouldn't be like this. You can't have a conversation on any topic without people complaining about one thing or another (perhaps it's just the people I hung out with :-) ).

In Japan, people seem happy with their lot. However, it would be completely ingenuous to say that they think they have life easy. They've got stupid bosses and long hours and really low pay and nothing they can do about it other than to go to the enkai, drink a lot and hope that their stupid boss remembers the drunken rant that will save the company. Women and children barely see the father in the family except on public holidays. If women work, they have to put in stupid hours and also do all the house work. Children have lots of stress because your entire career is practically mapped out when you take your entrance exam for high school. If you goofed off when you were 14 or 15, then cut your salary in half for the rest of your life.

But the big difference is that they don't complain about it. It's all "Yeah, it's difficult, but what are you going to do? You can only do your best" and soldier on. And I think that's a common theme in Asia. In the west people seem to act like spoiled brats in comparison -- always in a funk about something, even though by comparison they have it dramatically better than anybody else in the world.

But the key thing is that people in the west do actually realise that they have it pretty good and are very proud of it. While in Asia people are embarrassed about their situation even though they have accepted it.

Anyway, the above contained a lot of very general (and basically outrageous) statements. It was not meant to constrain anyone based on where they are from or what culture they enjoy. I was simply trying to communicate my prejudices and why I was left scratching my head at this report.

Based on your paragraph on children never seeing their fathers etc. Japan does seem terrible - perhaps Canadians, underneath all that complaining, are in fact happier; whereas Japanese don't complain but suffer silently? The scores may in fact be accurate..

I think you are right, but these studies are still generally interesting I think the dynamics between GDP per capita, GINI and happiness/satisfaction are pretty interesting

If the “happiness/satisfaction” metric is rubbish though, then all the correlations are fairly meaningless, and are of interest only to the extent that they do or do not back up one’s own political opinions.

Applying this scale cross-culturally, you just wind up measuring some weird convolution between actual subjective well-being and some kind of “what range of values is it culturally acceptable to answer this personal question about my wellbeing from a stranger with?” effect.

My question is: how temporary is happiness? Is it an emotion or a personality trait or a mixture of the two?

Considering some hypotheticals: Is it possible to both be living your best 10/10 life and be unhappy at times? Is it possible to be living your worst 0/10 life and be happy at times?

If happiness is an emotion, then it is by its nature fleeting and you couldn't maintain a 10/10 or 0/10 happiness as your biochemistry/environment changes constantly, indeed much faster than you'd change the ladder-steps of Cantril. If happiness is more of a personality trait, a semi-permanent descriptor, then it seems more closely associated with the Cantril ladder and life satisfaction.

Personally, I believe happiness results from genetic, short, and long term causes. Every person has a genetic baseline happiness proclivity, then a medium-term multiplier based on their life circumstances (job, relationships, meaning, etc), then a short-term mood-multiplier (I'm happier exercising, playing music, etc. than sitting in traffic or filing paperwork).

Perhaps they used this question in previous surveys, and they can't change the question because it would complicate the interpretation of time-series data (?)

I worry about the phrase "possible" in there. If you're in a place with no opportunity, you may genuinely believe that the best possible life for you isn't a very good one, and thus rate yourself near the top even though you're unhappy.

These are just timepass surveys. Also it depends on who they ask the question to.