SL at No. 77 on ‘World’s Most Emotional Societies’
Tuesday, 22 October 2013 00:43
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By Cheranka Mendis
Sri Lanka has been placed in the 77th position in the ‘World’s Most Emotional Societies’ ranking compiled by Gallup World polling firm in a survey that takes into account 151 countries from around the world.
While the Philippines takes the cake as the most emotional, with six in 10 saying they experience a lot of the feelings that were questioned in the survey, Singaporeans were noted as the least likely in the world to report experiencing emotions of any kind on a daily basis. The former, ranking at the top, had 60% responding with a yes, while the latter had only 36% responding positively to the questions asked.
Sri Lanka records 47% positivity along with Congo, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Cameroon, Kenya, Iran, Senegal, Uganda, Togo, Austria, Sudan, Mali and Laos.
The polling firm Gallup has measured daily emotions in the countries by asking residents “whether they experienced five positive and five negative emotions a lot the previous day,” Gallup World website said.
The questions asked include: did you feel well-rested yesterday? Were you treated with respect all day yesterday? Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday? Did you learn to do something interesting yesterday? Did you experience the following feelings during a lot of the day yesterday and how about enjoyment, physical pain, worry, sadness, stress and anger? The more times people answered with a ‘yes’ to the questions (except for the last), the more emotional they were deemed to be.
Results are based on telephone and face-to-face interviews with approximately 1,000 adults, aged 15 years and older in each country between 2009 and 2011 each year. The website noted that to measure the presence or absence of emotions, Gallup averaged together the percentage of residents in each country who said they experienced each of the 10 positive and negative emotions.
The report also notes: “Negative emotions are highest in the Middle East and North Africa, with Iraq, Bahrain and the Palestine territories leading the world in negative daily experience. Latin America leads the world when it comes to positive emotions with Panama, Paraguay and Venezuela at the top of the list.”
The top 15 most emotional countries include Philippines (60% responding ‘yes’), El Salvador (57%), Bahrain (56%), Oman (55%), Columbia (55%) and Chile, Costa Rica, Canada, Guatemala, Bolivia, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Peru, Nicaragua and the United States with 54%.
Starting with Singapore, the least emotional includes Georgia (37%), Lithuania (37%), Russia, Madagascar, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Nepal and Kyrgyzstan (38%).
“Behavioural indicators such as positive and negative emotions are a vital measure of a society’s wellbeing. Leaders worldwide are starting to incorporate such behavioural-based indicators into the metrics they use to evaluate their countries because they realise that traditional economic indicators such as GDP and 40-hour workweeks alone do not, and cannot, quantify the human condition,” the website said.
“This research shows that it will take more than higher incomes to increase positive emotions or decrease negative emotions. Singapore leadership needs to consider strategies that lie outside of the traditional confines of classic economics and would be well-advised to include wellbeing in its overall strategies if it is going to further improve the lives of its citizenry.”
