Here’s Some Evidence That The World Might Not Be As Gloomy As You Thought

The news from around the world seems to be almost entirely negative these days, with reports of civil unrest, climate change, economic calamities, and high-tech threats dominating the media landscape. But that doesn’t necessarily translate to widespread feelings of despair on an individual level, as one new study reveals.

A different type of research

Many attempts to figure out how people are doing around the world focus on facts and statistics, which are important ways to gauge certain topics. When it comes to how people feel on a global scale, however, researchers need a different approach.

And that’s where the Gallup Global Emotions Report comes in. It seeks to paint a picture of the emotions people are experiencing while determining where individuals seem to be the happiest.

The latest report was published recently and, while it certainly reflected a sense of dread and uncertainty, the overall tone of its findings represented a global population that is doing OK emotionally.

Here’s how some of the highlights break down:

• Positive emotions registered at 71 out of 100, the highest since the start of COVID
• The negative emotion score dropped for the first time in a decade
• Younger people had higher positives and lower negatives than other age groups

But happiness is a tough emotion to define, so the results are open to interpretation.

Figuring out the score

This annual survey focuses on positive and negative experiences and how they correlate with the feelings individuals have on a regular basis. For that reason, there’s often a disconnect between its results and those of, say, the World Happiness Report, which considers overall life satisfaction.

While the latter consistently finds that Finland (and other Scandinavian countries) are near the top, the Gallup Global Emotions Report’s top three countries are Paraguay, Panama, and Guatemala.

Chris Agee July 4th, 2024

Share this story: