I know it says "subjective happiness" in the report, but I still suspect it might be an influence.
2) Having lived abroad extensively and traveled around many places keenly trying to observe these things I'd say Norwegian happiness is real. But we have a tendency in Norway to take every good thing for granted and complain a lot. E.g. I noticed when in North American, despite equal wealth, there is a lot more hardship and stress. You can even tell just by looking at people. People are stressed out about over demanding jobs, risk of losing health care, crime, dysfunctional politics etc.
We Norwegians have among the best work-life balances of anywhere. Works doesn't stress people out as much as many other places. And the government provided welfare services means we worry a lot less about stuff than people in the rest of the world.
3) Another thing I notice is that people trust each other to a high level in Norway. In many other parts of the world suspicion and trust grinds on people. It can imagine it is exaushting dealing with a constant paranoia where other people, the government, the police etc can never be trusted.
This just means that how happy a person feels correlates well with how happy others perceive them to be. This says nothing about whether their subjective feelings reflect objective reality.
Research actually seems to suggest that happiness is very subjective, and may in fact have a strong genetic component[0]. I.e. whether a particular person is happy is dictated less by their circumstances and more by their outlook/personality/genetics. Of course, one's circumstances also play a role (e.g. a person will be less happy immediately after the death of a loved one), but subjective factors seem to win out overall.
[0] e.g. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/media-spotlight/201302/...
I agree that happiness is subjective and personality trait expression may very well have a genetic component, but I wouldn't dismiss societal and environmental factors entirely.
For example, inequality and air pollution are also associated with unhappiness.
https://news.virginia.edu/content/income-inequality-increase... https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130118125955.h...
When you have an "us" and "them" society, people are a lot more concerned that "they" are getting over and not working as hard.
But I guess one could argue such an attitude might actually make you happier, in addition to merely appearing happier on reports? Who knows...
Fantastic events are wonderful to see in small doses, but when it's a constant stream of oneupsmanship of who is doing better than others, it's easy to get caught up and think, "Gee, everyone is leading such incredible lives, why aren't I doing the same?" And to temporarily fill that need by posting something yourself, which only perpetuates the cycle.
I found QoL improvements when I chose to abstain from Facebook in December, specifically an increase in mindfulness and satisfaction with my daily life. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't encourage self-improvement, but I think the stress/angst that can arise from social networks can be counterproductive to ones own journey.
It's reasons like these, and the complete waste of time and escapism that has become Facebook in my life that I made a resolution to unfollow everyone except the closest family and friends and delete the mobile app. So far I don't feel like I'm missing anything, and ultimately I think my life has become richer/better for it. If you aren't being paid for it, or finding great joy from it there are much more fulfilling things to kill your time with... reading, the outdoors, time with friends (unglued from the digital world).
In many other cultures, success is celebrated. Janteloven is the opposite of that, ensuring that success is criticized an seen as undeserved or lucky.
I find it to be one of the worst aspects of Scandinavian culture, which is full of other good things, that I love.
http://denstoredanske.dk/Kunst_og_kultur/Litteratur/Nyere_mo...
Also, the Law of Jante made him kill a sailor at a deserted bay in Newfoundland. So we should be careful when understanding the book as some universal sociological study.
In the book he states the law is a way for the lower classes to keep each other down, and he explicit states the law of Jante exists among the proletariat everywhere and is stronger in Brooklyn than in Jante (the fictional Scandinavian town in the book). He was a socialist, of course.
I do think a "soft form" of the law can be used to understand Scandinavian culture to some extent.
A colleague of mine has a childhood friend who owns a grocery store. Sensing that business was good, he opened a second grocery store in a neighboring town. It went great until the rest of the town knew he owned two stores -- then they started boycotting the second store, which was quickly forced to close its doors.
Janteloven, the climate and the institutionalized introversion are the worst aspects of Scandinavian life. Other than that, things are all in all very good.
I suspect something else was going on with your friends second store, since successful stores growing into chains is a pretty common. Did people officially boycott the store or is it just his interpretation of events?
Obviously there is some geographic and socio-cultural variation; you wouldn't see the same degree of skepticism among most people in the biggest cities, but I am pretty confident I haven't misunderstood what Janteloven says. It's not a positive thing, and not conductive to an environment of high performance.
Granted, things might be better now than when I went to public school 15 years ago, but back then this attitude was practically institutionalized. I eventually went to private school after 3 years of being forced to sit through science classes of stuff I already knew, that were regardless torpedoed by uncontrollable classroom clowns. In private school, we had "choose your level" classes, and things improved. Many friends in university had similar experiences.
It was quite a surprise to hear of high schools in the US that actually cultivated students who wanted to learn more than the minimum.