You already expressed skepticism on the survey of Hadza happiness, but Kat Woods offers more on why such a survey might give inaccurate results. From the intro:
I think the biggest takeaway I had from my experience is that I am even more skeptical of survey methodologies than I was before, and I started off pretty intensely skeptical. The reasons for this is that I think that misunderstandings caused by translation, education levels, and just normal human-to-human communication errors are not only common, but the rule.
The four major issues she notes are:
Not understanding hypotheticals.
Not understanding in general.
People giving inconsistent answers.
Refusing to rate happiness.
This is from surveying in Rwanda and Uganda, which will certainly have many of the same difficulties as surveying Hadza. (It also surprised me article that the US and Mexico would have much higher self-reported happiness than, for example, Italy. I wonder if this is a real effect or if happiness surveying is fraught with cultural issues in general.)
You already expressed skepticism on the survey of Hadza happiness, but Kat Woods offers more on why such a survey might give inaccurate results. From the intro:
The four major issues she notes are:
Not understanding hypotheticals.
Not understanding in general.
People giving inconsistent answers.
Refusing to rate happiness.
This is from surveying in Rwanda and Uganda, which will certainly have many of the same difficulties as surveying Hadza. (It also surprised me article that the US and Mexico would have much higher self-reported happiness than, for example, Italy. I wonder if this is a real effect or if happiness surveying is fraught with cultural issues in general.)