Singaporeans
are the least likely worldwide to report feeling positive emotions, reports a
Gallup poll.
Singaporeans are the least likely
worldwide to report feeling positive emotions, reports a new Gallup poll.
Results were based on telephone
and face-to-face interviews with 1,000 adults, aged 15 and older, conducted in
2011 in 148 countries and areas.
On average, 85 percent of
respondents worldwide felt treated with respect all day, 72 percent said they
smiled and laughed a lot, 73 percent felt enjoyment a lot of the day, 72
percent felt well-rested, and 43 percent reported getting to learn or do something
interesting the previous day.
But residents of Singapore, which
ranks fifth in the world in terms of GDP per capita, are the least likely to
report positive emotions, according to the Gallup findings. Conversely,
residents of Panama, which ranks 90th in the world with respect to GDP per
capita, are among the most likely to report positive emotions.
Only 46 percent of Singapore
residents are likely to report positive emotions (Source: Gallup).
The poll results were released
just a month after Singapore was ranked by Gallup as the least emotional
country in the world.
Gallup asked residents whether
they experienced five positive and five negative emotions a lot the previous
day. Negative experiences include anger, stress, sadness, physical pain, and worry.
Positive emotions include feeling well-rested, being treated with respect,
enjoyment, smiling and laughing a lot, and learning or doing something
interesting.
In the November results, only 36
percent of Singaporean respondents reported feeling either positive or negative
emotions daily; Filipinos, on the other hand, are the most emotional, with six
in 10 saying they experience a lot of these feelings daily.
Singaporeans are also the most
emotionless (Source: Gallup).
Higher income does not necessarily
mean higher well-being, say Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman and
Princeton economist Angus Deaton. The pair found that in the United States
income only makes a significant impact on daily positive emotions when earning
up to US$75,000 annually – after that, additional income does not make as much
of a difference.
And these findings may also be
true for Singapore, a country with one of the lowest unemployment rates and
highest GDP per capita rates in the world, but a place where residents barely
experience any positive emotions and also are the least likely to report
feeling positive emotions.
This research shows that it will
take more than higher incomes to increase positive emotions or decrease
negative emotions, says Gallup. Countries may need to take a holistic approach
to progress and give equal importance to non-economic aspects of wellbeing, it
says.
Singapore’s leadership may also
like to take a leaf out of Bhutan’s book; the remote Himalayan kingdom has made
the attainment of Gross National Happiness and its four pillars – good
governance, sustainable socio-economic development, cultural preservation, and
environmental conservation – a national goal since the 1970s.
Source: Gallup
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