Researchers Reveal The World's Most and Least Emotional Countries

Researchers say that when it comes to being least emotional, Singapore is the coolest while the Philippines is red hot.

The survey, by polling firm Gallup that conducted a three-year survey of every country in the world, asked respondents ten separate questions, five related to whether they had recently had positive emotional experiences like laughing or learning something new and five negative emotional experiences like feeling pain or stress.

Negative Emotions Affect Old and Young Differently
Negative emotions such as the fear of losing money affects young and old people differently, suggests a new study based on brain scans

Many of the countries with residents responding "yes" to both the positive and negative emotions are in Latin America. Many of the countries that generally exhibited little emotional response are located in the former Soviet bloc.

Based on Gallup's survey, the most and least emotional countries in the world were reviewed, 24/7 Wall St reported.

A study conducted by Nobel laureate economist Daniel Kahneman determined that while having some income was important to happiness, income above a certain point - the equivalent of roughly 75,000 U.S. dollars - made no difference in improving a person's emotional state.

Americans Show Mixed Emotions for Their Mobile Phones
Americans say they can't imagine living without their mobile phones. And many love them and hate them.

Gallup partner Jon Clifton explained that income is not the determining factor for whether people have healthy emotional lives.

"If you're talking about how someone evaluates their lives, then "yes," the more income they have, the better. But on the emotional side, after 75,000 dollars per year, income makes less of an impact on how people experience their lives," Clifton said.

Positive Emotions Hold Key to Rise Up to Challenges
People who seed their life with frequent moments of positive emotions increase their resilience against challenges, according to a new study

While Gallup has not published findings on the extent to which the most emotional countries experienced primarily positive emotions, that is clearly the case.

The most emotional countries, located primarily in Latin America the Arabian Gulf, are not the most prosperous countries. GDP per capita in the Philippines, the most emotional country in the world, was 99th worldwide. In El Salvador, GDP grew just 1.4 percent between 2010 and 2011 - among the smallest economic growth in the world - yet an average of 83 percent of residents answered yes to all questions related to positive emotions.

In Other's Emotions, We See Only What We Believe
Seeing is believing goes the old adage, but scientists have now said that believing is seeing also holds true when it comes to perceiving other people's emotions.

Meanwhile, many of the world's wealthiest countries reported experiencing very little emotion of any kind - positive or negative.

The countries that experienced the most emotions overall were not necessarily all positive. For example, Bahrain was the third most emotional country. During the three-year period of the study, the average rate of "yes" responses to all five negative emotion questions was 45 percent, one of the highest rates in the world.

In order to identify the most and least emotional countries Gallup's study on the emotional state of the world was reviewed.

The study surveyed thousands of residents in 151 countries, asking them ten questions, five meant to reflect positive emotions, and five meant to reflect negative emotions.

The percent of citizens responding "yes" to each of these ten questions were averaged together, determining a country's level of emotion. In addition data from the IMF and World Bank for the most recent available year were also considered.

Constant prices are used when change in GDP is calculated, but current prices are used for expressing GDP per capita. While the main study covers three years, we also reviewed Gallup data on the average response rate for the five negative questions from just 2011.

For the five most emotional countries, Gallup provided the rate of response for both the positive and negative emotions for all three years.

Source-ANI