In a recent study, researchers discovered that there is a huge difference between how respondents rate their own life satisfaction and how others rate it based on an interview. During the study, which included 500 participants in various parts of Austria, participants were first asked to rate their overall satisfaction with life on a scale of 1 to 10. Participants were then interviewed and given more open-ended questions about good and bad experiences, health, and other aspects of life. Each interview was analyzed by 12 different raters and participants were placed on a new scale from 1 to 11 intended to add more depth to the distinct categories. http://www.psypost.org/2016/01/self...esnt-match-up-with-external-observation-40289 Study: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-015-9710-0
The problem here is, that different people have different scales for their happiness. Imagine a poor monk. Outsiders might rate his happiness level badly - he has no house, no car, no money. Often no wife, no family (or has left them). But he might rate his happiness level very good. He follows his goals, to get deeper into his believ, be closer to his god(s), and or, get closer to a modest and humble style of living. He might be ver happy actually. It's an extreme example, but I want to show why the "inside rating" and the "outside rating" can differ so much - outsiders measuer against the society average, or common society standards. The person itself has "non-standard" goals, and is happy if they can get close to their own goals, even if by comparison to the other standards, their life is not so good. Over here we say, you cannot compare pears to apples. Both are fruit, both are delicious to some, still, they are different. A pear lover is happy with pears, an apple lover is happy with apples. If the meet, the one likely will say "But you have no apples, how can you be happy?" and the other will reply "You've got no pears at all, how can you live that way?" Both give each other bad ratings - but for themselves, they are happy because they have just what they like best. Even if that's not the thing that the other rates highly.
I'm happy in comparison to what? Maybe I'd be truly happy if... I were a dog that would start barking at the sight of one snow flake.
It's also a question of how happy people expect to be. Austrians are probably more realistic than to imagine living in a perpetual beer commercial, but also more self-respecting than to accept much of the abuse working-class Americans routinely endure. Young people and old people have different criteria and scales for happiness; so do men and women. That being off my chest, I'll go and read the article now. .... or maybe not. Can't quite seem to get a handle on it. We usually consider negative experiences as temporary, something to be overcome, not the determining theme of our inner narrative. The subject-narrator has his or her eye on a prize that's always almost within reach. The objective viewer can't see this - because, maybe, he's forgotten Pandora's gift.
