I believe that these self-reported surveys are partly testing the cultural acceptability of complaining—that is, the more unacceptable it is to complain, the happier one comes out in the scoring. How well that corresponds to 'actual' happiness is, of course, a different question.
I base this on experience with some of the 'happy' cultures on the list. However, I would be interested in knowing whether HN members from Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, and the Netherlands (to name the top 5) agree with this concept or not.
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