Utah, Happiness, and Mormons

Posted on March 12, 2009
Filed Under Religion | 2 Comments

Lots of stuff about that Gallup “Well-Being Index” which puts Utah at the top of states reporting a general sense of happiness. The NYT had a post on it. Then Will Wilkinson wrote a post suggesting Utahns (especially women) just overreport how happy they are. This unfortunately was based upon his experience as a tour guide at some historic sites popular with Mormons and from a misreading of the information making up the index. (It wasn’t self-reported happiness) Justin Talbot noted in a post that Utah was only above average in work quality. BCC noted happiness in inherent in Mormon ideology but suggested the happiness is real. NCT expressed lots of skepticism of the study (although interestingly one person thought folks were saying the opposite). Razib compared it to female life expectancy.

My own view is that the “calculations” of such things end up being fairly arbitrary. Every year or so a new study of this sort appears with a whole new criteria to determine top and bottom. The skeptic in me thinks it’s done primarily to drum up interest in the pollster and to sell magazines. The same thing happens with healthiness indexes and so forth. One year Utah is #1 and the next the criteria is different and we drop 15 places.

Plus, I can’t for the life of me figure out what on earth these tell us. I’d also note that the difference between the top and bottom is only 8 points. So there really isn’t a lot of variation.

I will note that when these things get discussed all sorts of silly stereotypes pop up – some of which with a kernel of truth; many however which are fairly offensive.

Comments

2 Responses to “Utah, Happiness, and Mormons”

1 Mark D. on March 12th, 2009 1:55 pm

The scale is somewhat arbitrary without an investigation of what the definition of “zero” happiness is. The ten point range here is about a 15% relative increase. If the metrics they picked are reliable that ought to be more significant a difference than a 15% increase in material income. The biggest reason why Utah scores high in this study is probably better health, plus perhaps a better than average (and much more stable) economy.

2 Clark on March 12th, 2009 2:25 pm

Some have suggested the age demographic (lots of young people) has a lot to do with it as well. Further, as you mentioned, the economy here is pretty strong despite a lot of uninsured people. (And the people uninsured tend to be young and healthy so it doesn’t have quite the negative effect it does elsewhere)

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