hap·pi·ness \ˈha-pē-nəs\ noun 1a : a state of well-being and contentment : joy b : a pleasurable or satisfying experience 2 : felicity, aptness 3 : good fortune, prosperity
Alas, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 12th edition, provides a formal definition of happiness, as though people didn’t feel it in their hearts.
Presuming a mere definition were not enough, the Gallup World Poll earlier this year issued its 2025 World Happiness Report — all 260 indigestible pages of it — ranking 147 countries on self-reported satisfaction with life.
An aside to readers: Where would mankind be without a bunch of boffins and eggheads defining and measuring our emotional states?
Whatever. . . , the bottom line for the Philippines this year was a score of — presented to three decimal places as if to emphasize the rigor of the research — 6.107 out of 10, placing it at 57th out of all 147 nations. This represents a slight slip in its standing of 53rd last year, but it is still above the global average of 5.6.
Top scorers this year — no big surprises here — were Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and the Netherlands. They always score high.
At the bottom of the barrel were the usual suspects — Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, Lesotho, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, all known for high poverty, political unrest, health crises, and short lifespans.
At first glance, Filipinos might find it odd that the top scorers have no bright, sunny beaches fringed with coconut palms and wild banana trees, and the top scorers have feeble or no sunlight for a big chunk of the year. Not to mention that they are cryogenically cold in winter, and they are famous for their high rates of “alcohol use disorders” — which is just a polite way of saying drunkenness.
This apparent detachment from reality may be due to measurement error, a perennial problem in social science research.
To measure happiness, the Gallup Organization uses a question colloquially called the Cantril Ladder. The full proper name is Self-Anchoring Striving Scale, developed by Princeton University psychologist Hadley Cantril in 1965. The Cantril Ladder is an 11-point scale that asks respondents to rate the quality of their lives.
More specifically, the Cantril Ladder is a single question asking people to imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 to 10, where 0 represents the worst possible life one can imagine and 10 represents the best possible life one could imagine.
The actual question reads like this: “Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to ten at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you, and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”
The question is translated into Tagalog for Filipinos.
In the Philippines, Gallup reportedly asks this question in face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of approximately1,000 adults.
The same question is asked in 160 countries, resulting in a sample size of 140,000 respondents worldwide supposedly representing 99 percent of the world’s adult population. The Gallup Organization has administered this poll every year since 2005 and, as a result, has amassed a huge database based on 2.7 million respondents.
It must take some temerity to issue a worldwide report based on the survey results of 140,000 people based on a single question. In fact, in administering the survey, Gallup measures 100 variables, and Filipinos score better on many of these.
For example, when asked if they have a friend or relative they can count on in times of trouble, 95 percent of Filipinos answer in the affirmative, a very high score worldwide, says Gallup.
Also, when asked if they have freedom to choose what they want to do with their lives, 86 percent reply in the affirmative, also a high score.
And asked if they smiled, laughed or felt enjoyment “a lot” the previous day, 82 percent said yes, another high score..
In summarizing the Philippines’ scores on these and other questions, Gallup put the nation in the top 20 worldwide, much higher than its score of 57th on the Cantril Ladder.
Happiness may be difficult to measure, but it’s not hard to understand. Happiness is the feeling you get when you hear the sounds of children laughing and playing in the street outside your window, or the voices of two housewives gossiping about a stray landrace dog that barked all night in the barangay.
In other words, happiness is the feeling you get when you know all is right with the world.
A final aside to readers: The purpose here is not to pooh-pooh the Gallup Organization, but to point out that these kinds of reports, although entertaining, should not be taken too seriously. In fact, the Gallup Organization, founded in 1935, is one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious polling firms in the world and has few peers.
The complete World Happiness Report is available online.
Bryce McIntyre, PhD, resides San Andres. He holds a doctoral degree from Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, USA.