MOST PEOPLE ARE HAPPY

Myers and Diener (1995) asked ''Who is happy?'' but examined the quest ion of who is more and who is less happy. In fact, most people report a positive level of subjective well-being (SWB), and say that they are satisfied with domains such as marriage, work, and leisure. People in disadvantaged groups on average report positive well-being, and measu rement methods in addition to self-report indicate that most people's affect is primarily pleasant. Cross-national data suggest that there i s a positive level of SWB throughout the world, with the possible exce ption of very poor societies. In 86% of the 43 nations for which natio nally representative samples are available, the mean SWB response was above neutral. Several hypotheses to explain the positive levels of SW B are discussed.