"DESPITE global economic gloom, the world is a happier place than it was before the financial crisis began. That is the counterintuitive conclusion of a poll of 19,000 adults in 24 countries by Ipsos, a research company. Some 77% of respondents now describe themselves as happy, up three points on 2007, the last year before the crisis. Fully 22% (up from 20%) describe themselves as very happy—a more important measure, says Ipsos’s John Wright, since whenever three-quarters of people agree on anything, 'you need to pay attention to intensity in the results.'”
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I am not sure of the validity of the methods used, but I can think of a couple of possible reasons. Orhan Pamuk suggests that Istanbul's people have a special melancholy, and it might be that some combination of genetics, climate and development result in an identifiable level of happiness for a specific place. It may be too that people who are seeing their economic condition improve relatively rapidly feel that they are happier than the rest of us perceive our own happiness.
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