What is the definition of happiness index?

Happiness is the subjective feeling of people's satisfaction with life. Happiness index is the number of subjective indicators to measure the concrete degree of people's feelings. The concept of "happiness index" originated more than 30 years ago and was first put forward and put into practice by the King of Bhutan. For more than 20 years, in Bhutan, a small South Asian country with a per capita GDP of just over 700 dollars, people's lives are generally happier. The "Bhutan model" has attracted the attention of the world. In recent years, the United States, Britain, the Netherlands, Japan and other developed countries began to study the happiness index and created different happiness index models. People's happiness index is as important as GDP. On the one hand, it can monitor the economic and social operation; On the other hand, we can understand people's life satisfaction. It can be said that as the most important non-economic factor, it is a "barometer" of social operation and people's living conditions, and also a "weather vane" of social development and people's hearts. A-class indicators of happiness index: life satisfaction related to cognitive categories, including satisfaction with living conditions (such as employment, income, social security, etc. ) and satisfaction with the quality of life (such as living conditions, medical conditions, educational conditions, etc. ). Class B indicators: the mental state and the degree of emotional pleasure involved in the emotional category, including the degree of mental tension and mental state. Class C indicators: refers to the degree of harmony between individuals and society, including satisfaction with interpersonal communication, sense of identity, and the relationship between personal happiness and social and urban development. American economist P Samuelson put forward a happiness equation: utility/desire = happiness index. Desire is a lack of feeling and a desire for satisfaction, which is divided into five levels, from bottom to top: the first level is people's basic physiological needs, the second level is security needs, the third level is the needs of belonging and love, the fourth level is the needs of respect, and the fifth level is the needs of self-realization. Utility is the degree of satisfaction obtained from consumer goods, and it is the satisfaction of desire. Judging whether a person is happy or not can be concluded from the answer that the dividing line is 1. Less than 1 proves unhappiness, equal to 1 or greater than 1 proves happiness. If our desire index is high, but the utility we get in our current lifestyle is very low, we get a happiness index of 0.0, which means that our living condition is not good, which makes us feel unhappy. The severity of unhappiness is measured by numbers. The smaller the number, the less happy we are. If utility is higher than desire, the number we get is greater than 1, which proves that we are a happy person. Similarly, the index of happiness is also judged according to the number of scores. The bigger the number, the happier it proves. Utility is also a kind of feeling, and its size and existence are completely subjective feelings. It varies from person to person, from time to time and from place to place. Desire is the desire to be satisfied, which is determined by one's concept. Everyone's desires have different levels because of different ideas, so happiness and misfortune vary from person to person in the same environment. So the result of this equation varies from person to person, that is to say, happiness is a subjective feeling, not an objective analysis. If you want to judge whether you are happy or not, you can also use the above five levels of desire to divide. How many of these five levels do you want to reach? How many have you reached so far? If you want to reach several levels, you are an unhappy person. If you have achieved more than or equal to what you have achieved so far, then you will be a happy person. Happiness guide: 1. Don't judge your own value by comparing with others. It is precisely because we are different from each other that everyone looks special. 2. Don't set your goals by the standards that others value. Only you know what suits you best. 3. Don't take the closest people and things for granted, just like your life; 4. Don't dwell on the past or look forward to the future, and let life slip through your fingers; Live today, seize this moment, and you will live every day of your life; Don't be afraid of all kinds of dangers. Only by accepting the test of wind and rain can we learn to go forward bravely. 6. Don't shut love out on the pretext that true love is hard to find. The fastest way to get love is to give it, the fastest way to lose love is to hold it, and the best way to keep love is to give it wings. 7. Don't give up your dream. Without dreams, there is no hope. Without hope, there is no goal. 8. Don't rush through the journey of life, otherwise you will forget not only where you have been, but also where you are going; 9. Life is not a race, but a journey. You should savor everything along the way.

Reasons that affect happiness: The measurement of people's subjective well-being became a hot research field in psychology from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s. Psychologists' discussion on subjective well-being comes from three disciplines: quality of life, mental health and social gerontology. With sociologists and economists joining the ranks of happiness research, the rich connotation and manifestations of happiness are more revealed.

It should be said that happiness, as a part of social psychological system, is influenced by many complicated factors, including economic factors such as employment status and income level; Social factors such as education level and marital quality; Demographic factors such as gender and age; Cultural factors such as values and traditional habits; National character, self-esteem, attitude towards life, personality characteristics, achievement motivation and other psychological factors. Political factors such as democratic rights and participation opportunities.

In addition, the understanding of subjective well-being involves many analytical levels, including cognition and emotion, individuals and groups, horizontal and vertical, time and time, and so on. In the close relationship between subjective well-being and many factors and levels of social psychological system, the following points are very unique and important:

First, the psychological frame of reference. On the social level, the happiness of its members will be greatly influenced by its psychological frame of reference. For example, in a closed society, due to the lack of comparison with other societies, although the material development level of this society is not high, due to psychological conservatism and habitual stereotypes, its members may be satisfied and show high happiness; And a society at the beginning of opening up, in the face of various shocks from developed foreign societies, began to refer to the outside world. Therefore, the happiness of its members may show a downward trend, because at this time their original self-esteem has been traumatized.

Second, the degree of achievement motivation. People's achievement needs determine the achievement motivation, which in turn determines the expected ambition. Among them, people's cognition of their achievements is an important part, because if people realize that their achievements are higher than their expected ambitions, then they will have a strong sense of happiness; On the other hand, if people realize that their level of achievement is lower than their expected ambition, then there will be no happiness.

Third, the sense of ontological security. It refers to the individual's confidence in the continuity of self-identity and its social environment. This sense of reliability from people and things is extremely important for the formation of individual trust, and trust in the outside world is not only the basis of individual security, but also the basis for individuals to resist anxiety and produce subjective happiness. Therefore, there is no simple positive correlation between people's happiness and their own economic situation or income level. In real life, some people with poor economic conditions are very happy, while some millionaires are worried all day.

Therefore, we can understand why in the past 10 years, China people's happiness first rose and then fell, showing a lack of synchronization with the economic development track. The main reason is that in the early stage of reform, opening up and modernization, the effect of material development is obvious. At that time, the degree of social differentiation was not great, and social members were more likely to make psychological longitudinal comparisons, which made them more likely to feel satisfied than their living standards in the past. In recent 10 years, the transformation of social structure has accelerated, the system reform in various fields has increasingly touched on deep interests, and the degree of social differentiation has increased, especially the gap between the rich and the poor has become prominent; In terms of social psychology, with the gradual improvement of living conditions, people's demand level is increasing day by day, and it shows a diversified trend. Therefore, the standard that can meet the demand is relatively improved; However, due to the relative shortage of resources, the intensification of competition and the acceleration of the pace of modern life, people's sense of pressure has greatly increased, which has strongly affected people's happiness.

It is particularly noteworthy that some survey results show that in recent years, people's attention to social issues tends to be related to people's livelihood, and people's livelihood issues have become the most concerned social issues for most members of society. This shift of focus reflects people's judgment on the social development trend. The increasing concern for people's livelihood especially reflects that the system reform and social development have the strongest impact on people's living conditions and quality of life. All these have had a profound impact on people's sense of security, that is, the demand for social life security has increased, thus affecting people's happiness. Global happiness index ranking: The British "New Economic Fund" recently released the 2009 "Happy Planet Report", and Costa Rica was rated as the happiest and most environmentally friendly country in the world. Mainland China ranks 20th, Hongkong, China ranks 84th and the United States ranks 1 14. The happiness index is lower than Iraq and Iran. Nine of the top 10 countries are from Latin America. Among them, Costa Rica ranks first, with people's satisfaction with life of 8.5 points (the highest point is 10, that is, 85% of residents are satisfied), and the happiness index is 76. 1 minute, which is far behind the second Dominica. Vietnam ranks fifth and is the only non-Latin American country in the top 10.

The situation in OECD countries is worse than that in the 1960s, because although life expectancy and happiness have improved, this improvement is far less than the over-exploitation of natural resources. Among them, the overall scores of the United States, Chinese mainland and India are worse than 20 years ago. While the United States, with a relative pollution score of 9.4, ranks 1 14, and China, with a pollution level of only 2. 1 minute, ranks among the top 20. The life expectancy of Hong Kong residents is 8 1.9 years, with a satisfaction score of 7.2 and a pollution score of 5.7, so it only ranks 84th. Zimbabwe ranks at the bottom because its life expectancy and satisfaction are lower than those of other developing or developed countries.

What is happiness?

Max, a member of the "New Economic Fund", said that the "Happy Planet Index" will help promote the change of the concept of a big country. Governments in developed countries should abandon the practice of linking happiness with macroeconomic figures that do not consider environmental costs, and should focus on "long-term, happy and meaningful" life and welfare.

Happiness standard

The report ranks 143 countries and regions in the "Happy Planet Index". The measurement standard is based on the life expectancy and life satisfaction of citizens in various places, but it also considers the per capita resource consumption in various places. The higher the pollution caused to the environment, the lower the ranking, so the top ranking is almost all small and medium-sized countries.