Happiness is overrated, says Competitive Enterprise Institute
Using happiness surveys for political purposes is flawed, according to a study from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a libertarian thinktank CEI accuses happiness indices of using vague and unscientific questions, such as ‘Taken altogether, how would you say that things are these days?’, to produce their findings. In addition, happiness surveys use ceilings which make it “methodologically impossible” for respondents to increase their score. The CEI said: “Even if happiness increases after someone reports being ‘very happy,’ there’s no way for the survey to reflect that increase. But, clearly, a person can go from being ‘very happy’ to ‘even happier than before’.”