Nor, when asserting that a life satisfaction study shows Utahans to be happier than New Yorkers, are they committing themselves to the tendentious claim that Utahans are better off.
But most are based on scientific studies, like a famous 2013 life satisfaction study from the London School of Economics.
Michiko Kumano, a professor at Osaka Ohtani University, studied Japanese happiness in 2011, comparing the results with a U.S. life satisfaction study.
This qualitative study focused on the statements made by the participants of the prospective Swiss physicians' career-development and life-satisfaction study, in favour of or against a career in medicine.
As part of quantitatively assessed data of a prospective Swiss residents' career- development and life-satisfaction study [ 19, 20] participants were asked (1) what arguments there still were in favour of or against a career in medicine, and (2) whether or not they would again choose to become doctors.
Although these aforementioned studies suggest potential connections between achievement goals and life satisfaction, few studies have directly tested this relationship.
Taking into account both the questionnaire constraints and the research focus on studying the role of friends in life satisfaction, this study focused on adulthood and measured the quantitative dimension of friendship through the intensity of interaction ("frequency of meeting friends") and the qualitative dimension through the satisfaction with friendship relationships.
Another study by Tsang and colleagues took a closer look at the negative relationship between materialism and life satisfaction; this study found that lower life satisfaction among materialistic people could be explained by the fact that they reported lower levels of gratitude.
To measure individual life satisfaction, this study employed the life satisfaction questions proposed by World Values Survey (WVS) (Inglehart et al. 2004).
Although religious self-perception appears to have no significant influence on life satisfaction, a study among healthy individuals showed that higher levels of trait gratitude are associated with "more positive beneficial appraisals" [ 38].
