Have you looked at the international rankings of the world's happiest countries?
Measuring a country's subjective levels of happiness has become something of an international sport. People look with interest at nations such asDenmark, which consistently tops the world's happiness rankings.
The hygge lifestyle has gained popularity elsewhere. Maybe we would be as happy as the Danes if we could add more comfort to our lives.
Is living in one of the world's happiest nations all it's cracked up to be? What happens if you can't find happiness in a sea of happy people?
In our new research, we found that people are more likely to experience poor wellbeing in countries with the highest national happiness levels.
It may be good for many to live in happier countries. It can feel like too much to live up to for some people.
For several years, my colleagues and I have been researching the social pressure people may feel to experience positive emotions and avoid negative ones.
Social media, self-help books and advertising are some of the ways in which pressure is communicated to us. People begin to understand what kind of emotion is valued by those around them.
Our research has shown that people who experience pressure to feel happy and not sad are more likely to experience depression.
We were curious about how these effects might be seen in other countries, since this previous research focused on people living in Australia or the United States.
7,443 people from 40 countries were surveyed on their emotional wellbeing, satisfaction with life and mood complaints. They thought of social pressure to feel positive.
We found what we had been looking for. People who feel pressure to experience happiness and avoid sadness tend to experience deficits in mental health.
They experience lower satisfaction with their lives, more negative emotion, less positive emotion and higher levels of depression.
Our global sample allowed us to look at whether there were differences in the relationship between countries. Is the relationship strong in some countries? Why might that be?
We obtained data for each of the 40 counties from the World Happiness Index. The happiness ratings of large-scale nationally representative samples are used to create this index.
We were able to determine how the happiness of a nation might be affected by the social pressure on individuals to be happy.
The relationship was stronger in countries that were more happy. The social pressure some people felt to be happy was related to poor mental health.
It is not true that average people are not happier in those countries, but that for those who already feel a great deal of pressure to keep their chin up, living in happier nations can lead to poorer wellbeing.
Why would this be the case? Being surrounded by a sea of happy faces may make people feel pressured to be happy.
There are other signs of happiness that are not limited to the expression of happiness, such as having more social contact or engaging in pleasurable activities. The signals tend to be stronger in happier countries.
Feelings of happiness can be seen as the norm in these countries. The social pressure people feel to adhere to this norm is increased by this.
What can we do? It's a good thing to feel and express happiness. It is good to be sensitive about how our expression of positive emotion affects others.
It is good to bring happiness and positive vibes to our interactions, but it is also important to know when to tone it down and avoid alienating those who may not share our joy in the moment.
Maybe it is time to rethink how we measure national wellbeing. We already know that flourishing in life is more than just about positive emotion, but also about responding well to negative emotion, finding value in discomfort, and focusing on other factors.
It is time to rank countries based on how safe and open they are to the rest of the world.
The University of Melbourne has a professor named Brock Bastian.
This article is free to use under a Creative Commons license. The original article is worth a read.
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