Would you use Germans in a survey on happiness?

BBC News: Happiness 'immune to life events'


If I were conducting a study on happiness, I doubt I would use Germans as an example.

This article is more accurate in my opinion: Record numbers of Germans are suffering depression

Yea I've heard Germans are a pretty sad, pessimistic lot and not having read the BBC report (I'm too lazy for that) I can only guess that their findings are relative. Meaning, that the happiness of a person may increase from whatever point it was at for a period of time, but overall it doesn't change. So even if all your participants were suicidal, you would still find results (as long as they didn't all die) because you would just compare their results against themselves. Sorry...I'm a psychology person.

I'd think they'd be much more dependable and stable than boozy brits or Americans all loved on xanax, zoloft and whatever else the doctor is prescribing this week.

Germans are some of the most insecure, neurotic, paranoid, hostile, hyper-sensitive people Ive ever come across. In the rest of the world, we call that acute psychotic, in Germany they call it "normal".