Poll: Are Singaporeans least happy?
December 21, 2012 -- Updated 1608 GMT (0008 HKT)
Singapore is 'least emotional' country
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- A Gallup survey shows that Singaporeans are least likely to report positive emotions
- Singapore has one of the highest per capita GDPs globally
- U.S. economists have found that income only affects happiness up to a certain amount
- Panama is the world's happiest place
Singaporeans were least
likely to report having positive emotions-- despite the fact that they
enjoy one of the highest per capita GDP values in the world.
The international
pollster measured "positive emotions." Carried out last year in 148
countries, the survey asked around 1,000 persons in each country five
questions about what positive experiences people had had the day before:
if they had been well-rested, treated with respect, if they smiled or
laughed a lot, and whether they'd done or learnt something interesting.
In Singapore, only 46% of
the interviewed answered "yes" to these questions, compared with 55%
reported from people in Haiti and Afghanistan. Even in Syria, where the
uprisings that later developed into a civil war took place in 2011, 60%
of the people asked answered yes to the survey's questions.
Economists in the United
States have found that domestically, income only affects daily happiness
when earning up to $75,000 annually. A higher income than that doesn't
make much of a difference for American citizens' well-being, Gallup
wrote.
The population that
reported the most positive emotions was Panama, a country with a per
capita GDP ranking 90th in the world. In fact, eight out of the 10
happiest countries in the survey are located in Latin America.
As for Singapore, this is not the first time it has come in last in a Gallup poll.
Last month, Singapore ranked as the least emotional country, which measured the daily emotions of people in 150 countries during a three-year period.
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