It is important to compare different strands of happiness research to figure out if they are measuring the same thing. Kahneman’s talk was about how two fairly similar measures—both self-report—yield wildly different answers. Incapacitating depression and especially suicide are another rather different happiness measure. They are very coarse measures, but suicide is fairly objective and thus easy to compare across cultures. It has a clear polar trend, though not within the US. (finer world maps requested! also, cartograms—on the last map is SF deadly?)
We should compare different measures. This failure to match is a big red flag. Kahneman only mentioned weather data incidentally, but it’s important. Of course, there are many possibilities, such as SAD being a threshold effect—such a small part of the population should not affect polling. Cross-culturally, what are the self-reports of people with incapacitating depression or suicidal ideation?
It is important to compare different strands of happiness research to figure out if they are measuring the same thing. Kahneman’s talk was about how two fairly similar measures—both self-report—yield wildly different answers. Incapacitating depression and especially suicide are another rather different happiness measure. They are very coarse measures, but suicide is fairly objective and thus easy to compare across cultures. It has a clear polar trend, though not within the US. (finer world maps requested! also, cartograms—on the last map is SF deadly?)
We should compare different measures. This failure to match is a big red flag. Kahneman only mentioned weather data incidentally, but it’s important. Of course, there are many possibilities, such as SAD being a threshold effect—such a small part of the population should not affect polling. Cross-culturally, what are the self-reports of people with incapacitating depression or suicidal ideation?