Each year, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network publishes The World Happiness Report, which rates the happiness of individuals in about 150 countries. The survey asks respondents for their subjective life evaluation ranking, then correlates the results with various life measures.
Rankings are interesting. Perhaps even more interesting is to understand the factors that contribute to high happiness rankings. Wealth? Love? Safety? What makes us happy?
Jeffrey Sachs, the president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a founder of the World Happiness Report suggests, “ If we want to build back happier, we’ll have to know where to look for happiness.” 1
Laura Castro-Schilo, JMP Senior Research Statistician responsible for guiding the development of Structural Equation Modeling in JMP Pro, described how SEM models certainly could be deployed to identify and quantify the measures that contribute most to happiness. “SEM is a tool to measure intangible constructs, or latent variables, like intelligence, personality and attitudes. These things are not seen directly but, rather, through their effect on observed variables. SEM models can help identify the important predictors of latent variables, as well as their outcomes,” explained Laura.
The happiness survey results are put through sophisticated statistical analysis to explain why people feel happy or unhappy about their lives. As it turns out, that sentiment can be explained according to some combination of social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, freedom from corruption, and wealth. “SEM models can help identify the important predictors of latent variables, as well as their outcomes,” explained Laura.
Join Laura Nov. 3, 11 am - 12:30 pm US Eastern Time, for her Developer Tutorial: Building Structural Equation Models in JMP Pro. Register and learn about using SEM.
And learn a bit about SEM and Laura before you arrive.
