Summary: The subjective well-being appears incredibly resilient to positive and negative events decreases as a result of wars and recessions, increases in the most fortunate period, but they are temporary fluctuations: they tend to quickly return to the level of perceived happiness before these events. This effect also works on the individual, for example when you lose a partner or the use of your legs after a few years you will return to the levels of happiness before.

The subjective well-being, that is, the degree of satisfaction expressed by each for their own existence and future prospects, is linked to a better quality of life, to minor health problems, higher productivity: for these reasons studies on the "happiness national "are enjoying a great reputation with governments around the world.

However, this is a recent credit if the GDP already exist nineteenth time series, the first evaluations of subjective well date back to the 70s of the twentieth century, and the first Global Report on Happiness (World Happiness Report) prepared by the United Nations and the Organization for economic cooperation and development (OECD) is the 2011.

What was the percent perceived subjective well-being, two hundred years ago? We are moving in a political direction that will accentuate or diminish the overall happiness of nations? A study just published in Nature Human Behavior try to reconstruct the perceived levels of domestic happiness in four countries (USA, UK, Germany and Italy) in the last two centuries, from the analysis of the words used in the texts of the time: digitized books and newspapers collected in Google Books, a database that allows you to examine the frequency of any word in a collection of 8 million books of the past, more than 6% of all published books.

Linguistic thermometer. Thomas Hills (University of Warwick / The Alan Turing Institute), Eugenio Proto (University of Glasgow), Daniel Sgroi (University of Warwick) and Chanuki Seresinhe (The Alan Turing Institute) departed from the idea that books and newspapers often reflect the mood of an age, a bit 'as now they also tweet and post on Facebook. The team has well analyzed the positive words of thousands of optimistic and pessimistic terms used in the texts written from 1820 to 2009, taking into account the evolution of language and the meaning of many terms change over time.

the increase in the income of a nation exerts a positive effect on perceived happiness in that country, but we need a considerable increase so that this effect is really visible;
an increase of one year in the national average longevity has the same positive effect of an increase of 4.3 percentage points of GDP; a year less of war has the same effect on the national happiness, an increase of 30 points of GDP;
in the UK after the war, the worst period for national happiness occurred in Winter of Discontent (intense season of union strikes and protests that between 1978 and 1979 put in crisis the Labor government of James Callaghan, thereby removing some primary services and paving the way conservative era of Margaret Thatcher);
US after the war, the lowest point coincides with the evacuation of Saigon during the final stages of the Vietnam War.

The mood of a nation indices derived from the terms used in the books correspond to those emerging from newspaper articles.

Time Square in New York during the celebrations on the day of the end of World War II. See also: 40 and more rare and important historical photos |
When we are happy and when you least

The story of happiness in Italy. Explain to Focus.it Eugenio Proto, a professor of Applied Economics and Econometrics at the University of Warwick, among the authors of the study: "Watching Italian historical series we see a first peak of unhappiness in 1848, then an increase until the unification d 'Italy, followed by a further decline, perhaps due to the political turmoil of those years.

A new rise until 1875 is followed by a new descent, perhaps linked to unmet expectations. The beginning of the '900, with the Belle Epoque era, positivism, and the first important scientific results seen a new increase in the perceived well-being, followed by a sharp decline during the First World War.

A slow but steady decline can be seen in the years of Fascism, a fact of which you can give a political reading. With the Second World War the perceived happiness seems to go down less in Italy and Germany than in other countries - probably due to the censorship that prevents too sad to convey concepts in the texts. Finally we see a rebound after the war, with the economic boom, a new shot in the 80s and a fast crash, more serious than elsewhere, with the recent economic crisis. "

Resilience. The subjective well-being appears incredibly resilient to positive and negative events decreases as a result of wars and recessions, increases in the most fortunate period, but they are temporary fluctuations: they tend to quickly return to the level of perceived happiness before these events.

"This effect said habituation is known in the literature," explains Proto "at the individual level it is known that even after the loss of a partner are facing a very negative period, but after two or three years it returns to the original level. The effect is also noticeable in people who lose the use of his legs and is probably a skill necessary for our survival. As significant, it is not observed in the unemployed. In that case, until it reaches a new job the subject will continue to declare lower satisfaction levels. It is also rather positive: a net salary increase positively alters the mood for a couple of years, then you get used to. Evidently it was the same in the past, even if no one is here to tell us about it. "

From Focus