Assessing happiness

What do we assess?

Happiness is assessed by asking people about their own experience. Research commonly distinguishes three perspectives: satisfaction with life, experienced emotions, and meaning and purpose. They describe different aspects of wellbeing.

Satisfaction with life

How does your life feel as a whole? An assessment can concern your overall life or areas such as work, relationships and free time.

In the World Happiness Report, people rate their lives from 0, the worst possible life, to 10, the best possible life. Country rankings are based on average responses.

Everyday emotions

What emotions did you experience yesterday: enjoyment, calm, interest, worry or sadness? A particular day can feel different from your overall satisfaction with life.

Meaning and purpose

Does what you do feel worthwhile to you? Meaningful activities can involve effort and difficult feelings. This is why meaning is considered separately from pleasure.

What influences happiness?

Happiness involves both personal experience and the circumstances of life. Relationships, health, income, safety and freedom to make choices all matter. Current mood and recent events can also colour an evaluation.

It helps to read a score alongside your own observations: what has changed, what is difficult and what feels meaningful? Population-level associations cannot fully explain one person’s happiness.

How can I notice change?

Record your assessment and an everyday example that helps explain it. Return to the same question, scale and time period. Compare your own entries: are you doing more of what you enjoy, has something become easier, does life feel more meaningful?

One better day or a different number does not establish what caused the change. Several observations over time provide a clearer picture.