Finland becomes the world’s happiest country for the seventh consecutive time – Dainik Savera Times

Sweden: Finland consistently ranks as the happiest country in the world. In March 2024, the country was awarded the Happiness Champion status for the seventh consecutive year. Ranking is based on a simple question, using the ladder metaphor this question is asked to people in almost every country in the world. But a new experimental study from my team shows that the ladder metaphor makes people think about power and money. Since 2005, the Gallup analytics organization has been working to measure happiness across the planet. This mission is especially important as more and more governments say they are prioritizing the well-being of their people.

For example, all OECD countries, including the UK, now measure the happiness of their people. More than a decade ago, Bhutan declared that the primary goal of their government was “gross national happiness”, not gross domestic product. The World Ranking is based on a simple but powerful question, called the Cantril Ladder: As the name suggests, please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to ten at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life you can have and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life you can have.

Standing on which rung of the ladder would you say you personally feel you are standing here at this moment? As you read the question, what does the metaphor of the top of the ladder make you think of and what does it represent? Is it love, money, your family – or something else? I recently led a group of researchers from Sweden, the US and the UK. We examined these questions in a study of 1,600 UK adults, and published our results in Nature Scientific Reports. We conducted an experiment with five independent groups.

One group was asked what the top of the ladder represented to them. Another group was asked exactly the same question, but this time the ladder metaphor, including the picture of a ladder, was removed and the word ”ladder” was replaced with ”scale”. Our study found that the ladder metaphor made people think more about power and money and less about family, friends, and mental health. When the ladder metaphor was removed, people still thought about money, but in terms of “financial security” rather than in terms like “wealth”, “rich” or “upper class”. .

People in the third group interpreted a question where the ladder metaphor as well as the details of top versus bottom in the question were removed. In the fourth and fifth independent groups, in addition to the above changes, the phrase “best possible life” was changed to? Was replaced by ”happiest possible life” and ”most harmonious life”. People in the happiness and harmony groups thought less about power and money and more about broader aspects like relationships, work-life balance and mental health than the other groups.

Recent research from the University of Oxford shows that happiness actually makes people more productive and that the most important factor for happiness at work is belonging. On the other hand, salary is considered to be the most important driver for happiness at work, but it turns out to be a much weaker driver than belongingness for happiness at work. This is consistent with the general message of happiness science that relationships are the most important factor for happiness.