Bangladesh among countries with lowest positive emotions

Bangladesh ranked fifth in a list of countries with lowest positive emotions, according to Gallup’s 2017 Global Emotions Report published last week. Gallup is a data-driven news service provider based in US that publishes world polls, daily tracking and public opinion research. The surveyor interviewed 149,000 residents in 142 countries with questions to identify positive and negative emotions among people. Questions for positive emotions included: feeling well-rested, being treated with respect, enjoyment, learning or doing something interesting, and smiling and laughing a lot. Bangladesh scored the lowest in a question of whether the respondents learnt or did something interest the previous day. Only 18% of the responded answered positively to the question. However, Bangladesh made some improvement from its 54 points on Positive Experience Index in 2014 to 55 points in 2016. The country was ranked third in the list of lowest positive emotions in 2014, as compared to fifth in 2016. [YUMPU epaper_id="349" width="512" height="384"] The report highlighted that personal freedom and presence of social networks are highly related to scores on the Positive Experience Index. Yemen was the country with lowest positive emotions while Paraguay termed as the country with highest positive emotions. The overall survey showed that more than 70% of people worldwide smiled, experienced a lot of enjoyment or laughed a lot the previous day. “What we discovered was that people who have an emotional response to issues, either positive or negative, have the best outlook on life,” Gallup managing partner Jon Clifton said. “Our survey results, however, serve as a caution against this thinking because of two words — behavioural economics. According to this field of study, only 30% of individual behaviour is rational — the other 70% is emotional. “And while organisations are starting to apply this concept at a micro level, governments have been slow to do it at a macro level,” added Clifton. The results are based on telephonic and face-to-face interviews with approximately 1,000 adults, aged 15 and older. In these interviews, Gallup asked people whether they experienced five positive and negative emotions a lot the previous day.