幸福感是什麼意思

本文來自於微信公眾號：每日雙語經濟學人（mrsyjjxr）

背景介紹：

國民幸福感是一個國家的人民對於生活是否幸福的評價。幸福感本身就非常有爭議，因為它是一種非常帶有主觀性的感覺，那麼，我們的幸福感究竟是從何而來的？

How to reveal a country’s sense, over the years, of its own well-being

如何揭開一個國家多年來的主觀幸福感

Read its books. By computer

利用計算機掃描其書刊

Do a country’s inhabitants get happier as it gets richer？ Most governments seem to believe so， given their relentless focus on increasing GDP year by year。 Reliable， long-term evidence linking wealth and happiness is， however， lacking。 And measuring well-being is itself fraught with problems， since it often relies on surveys that ask participants to assess their own levels of happiness subjectively。

一個國家越富有，其人民就越幸福嗎？鑑於大多數政府都堅持不懈地致力於逐年提高GDP，它們似乎是認同這一點的。然而，我們尚缺乏能夠證明財富與幸福相關聯的可靠而長期的證據。衡量幸福感本身就存在很多問題，因為它往往依賴於要求參與者主觀評估自己幸福水平的調查。

Daniel Sgroi of the University of Warwick and Eugenio Proto of the University of Glasgow， both in Britain， think， nevertheless， that they have an answer。

儘管如此，英國華威大學的丹尼爾·斯格里和格拉斯哥大學的尤金尼奧·普羅託認為他們找到了答案。

By examining millions of books and newspaper articles published since 1820 in four countries （America， Britain， Germany and Italy）， they have developed what they hope is an objective measure of each place’s historical happiness。 And their answer is that wealth does bring happiness， but some other things bring more of it。

透過對自1820年以來的四個國家（美國、英國、德國和義大利）出版的數百萬書籍和報刊文章的研究，他們開發出了一套能夠客觀衡量各地歷史幸福感程度的方法。他們的答案是，財富確實能帶來幸福感，但其他一些東西能夠帶來更大的幸福感。

Previous research has shown that people’s underlying levels of happiness are reflected in what they say or write。 Dr Sgroi and Dr Proto therefore consulted newspaper archives and Google Books， a collection of more than 8m titles that constitute around 6% of all books physically published。

早先的研究表明，人們內在的幸福水平反映在他們所說或所寫的內容中。因此，斯格里博士和普羅託博士查閱了報刊檔案和谷歌圖書（含有超過800萬種圖書，約佔所有出版圖書的6％）。

They searched these texts for words that had been assigned a psychological “valence”—a value representing how emotionally positive or negative a word is—while controlling for the changing meanings of words such as “gay” and “awful” （which once most commonly meant “to inspire awe”）。 The result is the National Valence Index， published this week in Nature Human Behaviour。

他們在這些文字中搜索了那些被賦予了心理“價”（這個值表示一個詞在情感是積極的還是消極的）的詞，同時排除了諸如“gay”和“awful”（awful 過去最為常用的含義是“讓人敬畏”）等詞意會發生變化的詞。最終得出的結果就是於本週發表在《自然·人類行為》雜誌上的國家價指數。

Placed alongside the timeline of history （see chart）， the valence indices for the places under study show how changes in national happiness reflect important events。 In Britain， for example， happiness fell sharply during the two world wars。 It began to rise again after 1945， peaked in 1950， and then fell gradually， including through the so-called Swinging Sixties， until it reached a nadir around 1980。

將國家價指數放在歷史時間線上，我們就能看到歷史重大事件是如何對國民幸福感產生影響的。例如，英國的國民幸福感在兩次世界大戰期間急劇下降。1945年之後又開始回升，到1950年達到了頂峰，隨後又逐漸下降（包括在所謂的搖擺的六十年代），直到1980年左右達到了最低點。

America’s national happiness， too， fell during the world wars。 It also fell in the 1860s， during and after the country’s civil war。 The lowest point of all came in 1975， at the end of a long decline during the Vietnam war， with the fall of Saigon and America’s humiliating defeat。

在世界大戰期間，美國的國民幸福感也在下降。19世紀60年代（即美國內戰時期及內戰之後），美國的國民幸福感也有所下降。1975年，隨著西貢的淪陷和美國的慘敗，美國國民幸福感在越南戰爭期間長期下降的趨勢得以終結並達到了最低值。

Overall， then， Dr Sgroi and Dr Proto found that happiness does vary with GDP。 But the effect of health and life expectancy， which does not have the episodic quality of booms， busts and armed conflict， is larger， even when the tendency of wealth to improve health is taken into account。

總而言之，斯格里博士和普羅託博士發現幸福感確實會隨GDP的變化而變化。但是，健康和預期壽命的影響更大（即使把財富改善健康的趨勢考慮在內），它們不像繁榮、蕭條和武裝衝突那樣具有偶然性。

A one-year increase in longevity， for example， has the same effect on national happiness as a 4。3% increase in GDP。 And， as the grand historical sweep suggests， it is warfare that causes the biggest drops in happiness。

例如，壽命延長一年對國民幸福感的影響等同於GDP增長4。3％。而且，正如對歷史幸福感研究所顯示的那樣，正是戰爭導致了幸福感最大幅度的下降。

On average it takes a 30% increase in GDP to raise happiness by the amount that a year of war causes it to fall。 The upshot appears to be that， while increasing national income is important to happiness， it is not as important as ensuring the population is healthy and avoiding conflict。

平均而言，想要將一年戰爭所導致的幸福感的下降提升回來，需要GDP增長30％。總結來說，雖然增加國民收入對於提升幸福感很重要，但它不如確保人民健康和避免武裝衝突來得重要。