Please don't laugh at me. In early August I wrote a blog suggesting that measures of happiness were irrelevant.
Now I have a slightly different perspective.
In May 2008, the Gallup Organization reported asking 1,200 American adults how many days in the past week they had felt "outraged." The average number of angry days was 1.17, and 54% of those surveyed said none. ...
"Indeed, we are less angry today than a decade ago. Let's look back to the glory days of the 1990s, ... In 1996, the General Social Survey (done by the Federal government) asked exactly the same "outrage" question of 1,500 adults. In 1996, only 38% had not been outraged at all in the past week. The average number of angry days was 1.5 per week, 29% higher than at present.
"Virtually every group in the population is less angry in 2008 than in 1996...."
Only one major group in the population has gotten angrier: people who call themselves "very liberal." While conservatives, moderates and non-extreme liberals all have seen their average levels of outrage fall over the past 12 years, the number of angry days among our leftist neighbors has risen 56% (to 2.28 from 1.46), and the percentage with no angry days in the past week has fallen to 31% from 37%. Today, very liberal people spend more than twice as much time feeling angry as do political moderates. One in seven is outraged seven days a week.
I have have one clear and obvious explanation for the very liberal increase in anger over twelve years: for the first time in their lives, and mine, there is an alternative opinion being expressed to and heard by Americans (not to Europeans of course). Americans now can hear Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and Shawn Hannity every day nearly everywhere in America. Very liberal people actually don't believe there is another view than the ones they hold, all other views are "just bigotry and hatred".
I believe Americans are much less angry today than they were in the early 1990s. My proof is that Ross Perot created a dissident national political movement in 1992 that lasted several years. No such group is on the horizon today. One reason I believe we were angry is that we had just lost a war in Iraq...by letting Saddam Hussein remain in power. Today we have been victorious in Iraq and we are proud of that. That is also a reason the very liberal's are angrier today.
Back to the first sentence. Happiness, as a general feeling is not measurable in a general population but something as specific as number of outrage days in the past week is very measureable. Such measures are an excellent proxy for anger.