The Recent Dangers for European Happiness: Is Homeostatic Resilience Sufficient?

AbstractIn the literature on life satisfaction the author came across the hypothesis that happiness oscillates around a set point given by nurture and nature. This assumption implicitly supposes a homeostatic mechanism, which implies resilience against unhappiness. The present paper aims at the exploration and quantitative description of this resilience at the national level, which may be challenged by military conflicts, pandemics, energy crises, etc. In particular, the researcher would like to know, for which European countries the postulated resilience really exists, where the related national set points are, and whether there are limits of unhappiness below which the homeostatic set points cannot be reached anymore. In order to tackle these research questions, country-specific time series of annual happiness between 2007 and 2019 are analyzed by linear and quadratic regressions, where the current national happiness is the independent and the related following level of happiness the dependent variable. By analyzing the resulting regression equations, it is possible to identify and analyze its mathematical fixed points. Depending on whether they are stable or not, they are either homeostatic set points (equilibria) or critical limits, where homeostasis is destroyed. The present empirical analysis reveals that more than 50% of the analyzed European countries have no homeostasis of happiness. Consequently, these countries are psychologically vulnerable with regard to depressi...
Source: Applied Research in Quality of Life - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research