If all 16,551 people who have taken myPersonality’s Satisfaction With Life Scale were lined up from those most satisfied with their lives to those least satisfied, then the average person from the US’s most satisfied State, Vermont, would be in the 36th percentile, but the average person from the least satisfied State, Rhode Island, would be down in the 68th percentile. That’s a big difference considering that they are only about 80 miles apart.
Our data are shown in the graph below, displaying the aggregate Satisfaction With Life scores for all of the 50 US States and the District of Columbia. Also shown are error bars. Broadly, large error bars mean that we can be less certain of where the true score lies. For example, Wyoming has a large error bar because since it is the least populated state it is the one that we have the least amount of data for.
We compared the myPersonality rankings to those from the recent Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which also ranks US States, and found a favourable correlation between the two sets of rankings, suggesting that myPersonality’s analyses have validity when compared to this much more comprehensive poll.
Method & Results
Read more…
February 11th, 2009
David
With Valentines Day coming up, perhaps you’re wondering whether couples really are happier than single people. myPersonality had a look at the relationship between Facebook Relationship Status and Life Satisfaction. Unfortunately for the single people out there, those smug couples you see really are smug for a good reason – they do tend to be happier than single people.
As can be seen in the below graph, the happiest people are those that are married, followed by those that are engaged. Surprisingly, people who say that their relationship is “complicated” are just as satisfied as single people. That suggests that even if a relationship goes wrong, it won’t be any worse than not having one at all. So our advice is that if you’re interested in someone, tell them! What’s to lose? However, there’s no point just ringing up that person you spent a drunken night with last week, as being in an open relationship also won’t improve your life satisfaction.
Method & Results
Read more…
myPersonality added the Satisfaction with Life Scale earlier this summer in collaboration with a project that Dr Richard Tunney was running for the UK National Lottery examining the connection between the number and quality of friendships that people have and their satisfaction with life. In myPersonality, the Scale allows you to quantify how happy they are with your life, to compare this to other people including your friends and the general population, and then suggests areas that research has suggested to concentrate on in order to improve your score.
The results of the research project (from other sources as well as myPersonality) have been released today, which show that having 10 or more old friends is more likely to give you a higher satisfaction with life score, but that increasing this number is not so likely to help. This suggests that people should spend time cultivating their oldest and closest friendships.
There is coverage of this in various news outlets including: The Daily Mail, The Sun, PhysOrg.com
