PSYT: Trump Election Causing Misery Across the World
New data from UK pinpoints day of Donald Trump's election win as their most miserable in over 6 years
LONDON, January 19, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
On the eve of the US presidential inauguration, new analysis from London School of Economics launched research, pinpoints the day of Donald Trump's election win as the most miserable in over 6 years.
(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/459287/UK_Daily_Happiness_Infographic.jpg )
Economist Dr George Mackerron, now at University of Sussex, conducted the largest study of momentary happiness to date. He says "we used the Mappiness database - 3.5 million responses contributed by 65,000 users - to calculate mean happiness levels amongst our users every day since August 2010. In almost six and a half years, there has been no day more miserable than Wednesday 9 November, the day the US election was called for Donald Trump."
Now, rather than solely measuring happiness, Dr MacKerron has teamed up with Nick Begley, to co-found Psychological Technologies (PSYT Ltd.) with the aim of also helping to improve people's wellbeing. To contribute to their research on global happiness and access free mindfulness tools to manage your inauguration blues visit http://www.psyt.co.uk .
They will shortly be releasing a successor app to Mappiness, called me@life. Nick says, "We're launching the app to help individuals gain insights into the factors that most impact their own wellbeing. At the same time, users will also be contributing invaluable data to help us understand how we can create better workplaces more conducive to our collective wellbeing."
Previous academic research published from the study has shown that people are happier in natural environments than urban environments [1] and that our most miserable activity, second only to being ill in bed, is work [2]. Conversely, our happiest day each year is consistently Christmas Day, where we are nearly 10% happier. This, however, is the first time the data set has been used to assess the impact of political events.
Trump's election victory wiped almost 10% off users' happiness. According to Dr MacKerron, "in quantitative terms, we could see this event as a kind of anti-Christmas." Trump's election victory was more thoroughly depressing than the gales, floods and power cuts of Storm Imogen (Monday 8 February 2016, rank #2). It was also worse than news of the UK's decision to leave the EU (Friday 24 June 2016, rank #4).
http://www.psyt.co.uk / http://www.getrebalanced.com
NOTES FOR EDITORS
- 'Happiness is Greater in Natural Environments', paper in Global Environmental Change: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378013000575
- 'Are you Happy While You Work?', paper in the Economic Journal: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecoj.12269/abstract
The happiest day over the full period of the Mappiness study to date was Christmas Day 2010 (75.7% happy), followed by Christmas Day 2011 (74.2% happy). Trump's election victory was the lowest in 6 years at only 57.7% happy. Academic research using the Mappiness data is ongoing.
Psychological Technologies (PSYT Ltd) was co-founded by George MacKerron, creator of Mappiness, and Nick Begley, formerly Head of Research for mindfulness app Headspace. PSYT's mission is to develop technology that helps people live good lives by enabling them to better understand and take care of themselves and others.
George is CTO and co-founder of PSYT. He created and directs Mappiness research - the largest experience sampling study ever conducted - and is an expert in behavioural economics and subjective wellbeing. George studied at King's College, Cambridge and Imperial College London. He completed his doctorate at LSE, and he lectures at the University of Sussex and UCL. George is a world leader in experience sampling using mobile technology. His research has been published in top journals and featured on TV and radio across the globe.
Nick Begley is CEO and co-founder of PSYT. Nick read physics at University College London, then qualified as an actuary and worked in the City of London for 9 years before taking part in the world's largest research study into mindfulness, the Shamatha project. He meditated 8 hours a day for 3 months in silence, while researchers from the University of California Davis examined the impact. He found the experience so beneficial he left his career in finance and retrained in psychology, researching the neuroscience of mindfulness at UCL and the Institute of Psychiatry, and helped start up mindfulness company Headspace as Head of Research before founding PSYT.
SOURCE Psychological Technologies (PSYT Ltd)
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