Overturning a generation of satisfaction research
The World Happiness Report is currently the best known and most widely accepted source of information on global life satisfaction. Its six-variable model of satisfaction is taught in university classes, reproduced in textbooks, and has been published in the same form by the United Nations since 2012 — despite almost no justification for its choice of variables.
However, after searching more than 5,000 possible candidates, the Dovecote Institute finds more accurate, more rigorous, and dramatically different results.
Alarmingly, we find the WHR is missing significant variables in areas as fundamental as water, shelter, discrimination, education, political power, and more.
But perhaps most strikingly, we also find that while the reported model suggests GDP explains roughly 40% of model variation, we estimate the true direct contribution of economic indicators to be 2.3%.
With this new model, which we believe to be the most accurate in the world, we hope to meaningfully redefine the ways in which the world understands a good life, and the path to achieving it.
Read the research here:
