South Africans are a really happy bunch of people

The latest data from Gallup’s Global Emotions report shows that the majority of South Africans are experiencing more positive than negative emotions in their lives in the country.

Overall, the world is quite a happy place, the study found, with more than 70% of people worldwide saying they experienced a lot of enjoyment, smiled or laughed a lot, felt well-rested and felt treated with respect.

Compiling all scores into a Positive Experience Index, the world had a total score of 71, which is remarkably high, and consistent over the years, Gallup said. The score remained the same as 2014’s survey.

To determine the score, Gallup took survey responses from more than 1,000 people in each of the 143 countries covered in the study (over 143,000 people), across two indices – a positive emotion and negative emotion index.

The questions asked by Gallup to gauge the positive emotions include:

• Did you feel well-rested yesterday?
• Were you treated with respect all day yesterday?
• Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?
• Did you learn or do something interesting yesterday?
• Did you experience the following feelings during a lot of the day yesterday? How about enjoyment?

According to Gallup, the Positive Experience Index is designed to quantifying things such as respect, laughing and smiling a lot, and learning or doing something interesting –  all things that “make a life worth living”.

Overall, around 75% of South Africans responded positively to all the questions above, tying with countries like the UK, Thailand, China and Australia. This places the country 47th in the world, as listed – or tied for 10th, by score.

The data from South Africa was collected via face-to-face interviews with 1,000 statistically representative people between 1 and 15 May 2015.

The top 10 countries for overall happiness were all found in Latin America, with Paraguay (89%), Colombia (84%) and Ecuador (84%) leading the way.

Countries that were least happy were Sudan (47%), Tunisia (52%) and Turkey, Servia and Bangladesh (54%).

The region of the world that reports the lowest positive emotions is the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, Gallup said, with a score of 59.

“All countries in the region, with the exception of Saudi Arabia, have scores lower than the global mean.”

Countries experiencing the most and least positive emotions

Unhappiness is still there

The second index compiled by Gallup tracks negative emotions.

The questions asked by Gallup to gauge negative emotions include:

• Did you experience physical pain a lot of the day yesterday?
• Did you experience worry a lot of the day yesterday?
• Did you experience sadness a lot of the day yesterday?
• Did you experience stress a lot of the day yesterday?
• Did you experience anger a lot of the day yesterday?

Once again, South Africans showed a resistance to negativity, with only 18% of respondents affirming a negative experience – though the country has dropped out of the bottom ten of the index, where it placed 9th in 2014.

The overall global positioning on the index is at 25, slightly down (meaning the world is slightly less negative) from 2013’s score of 27.

According to Gallup, while things such as poverty, corruption, crime and a lack of freedom have a big impact on negative states in people, the countries with the most negative emotional responses often have more straight-forward influences: such as war, or economic crises.

Countries experiencing the most and least negative emotions

 Loading ...

More on South Africa

Communications minister blows R600,000 on 9 day trip to US luxury goods show

If you have a job, be grateful – things are about to get really tough

Big drop in SA petrol price next week – but brace for tough times