Follow along with the transcript below for episode: The Power of Social Connections With Dr. Felix Cheung
[INTRODUCTION]
[00:00:01] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 512 of Live Happy Now. Every year on March 20th, we look forward to the release of The World Happiness Report, and this year was no exception. I’m your host, Paula Felps, and today, I’m joined by Dr. Felix Cheung, a system professor in the Department of Psychology, and a faculty fellow at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society.
He’s also the Canada research chair and population wellbeing at the University of Toronto, and Felix is one of the coauthors of this year’s report. He’s here to talk about what the report tells us about social connections and where the US stands on this year’s list of happiest countries. Let’s have a listen.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:43.7] PF: Felix, welcome to Live Happy Now.
[0:00:45.9] FC: Thank you so much for having me.
[0:00:47.4] PF: This is a big moment because you’ve been working on The World Happiness Report since last summer you said, and so to finally see it coming to fruition, seeing it out, this has to be a great week for you.
[0:01:00.1] FC: Absolutely, and sometimes I feel like the International Day of Happiness is the one day where we celebrate our discipline with the rest of the world. So, I really look forward to it.
[0:01:09.1] PF: Yes, absolutely. So, this year, as always, the report has some interesting takeaways and it really gives us an important window into the state of our world. As you were working on it, what is the most significant thing that you personally took away from the findings?
[0:01:24.1] FC: So, the theme of the 2025 World Happiness Report is on sharing and caring. So, on top of releasing our national happiness ranking, we also reported on global trends and disparities and how helpful people are. So, I think one major takeaway from this year’s World Happiness Report is first, people are generally very helpful. We just saw it across the globe, 70% of people reported that they helped someone in the past month.
So, that’s a really high number, people generally are very helpful. Another thing that we noticed is that people generally expect lower helpfulness from others than we give them credit for. So, to put it differently, again, people are actually a lot kinder than we give them credit for.
[0:02:06.3] PF: And so, overall, people are kinder than we think and if that’s true, then, why do we think they aren’t going to be kind?
[0:02:13.9] FC: Yeah, maybe I’ll just do a little bit deep dive into a section of the World Happiness Report, where we try to look at whether or not people expect their wallets to be returned by a stranger, by a neighbor, or by police, and comparing this to some behavioral studies, where researchers actually drop wallets and see whether or not they will be returned. So, by looking at those, we can see, you know, whether or not people are more helpful than we give them credit for.
[0:02:38.6] PF: Oh, interesting. Yeah, that was an interesting part of the report. I was reading that and it’s like, that’s a great way to do it because you find a wallet, you go through that little process of like, “Well, I should do this, am I going to? Is it?” Yeah, so.
[0:02:51.3] FC: Yeah, I can hear, there may be some initial structure but I think, most people would do the right thing.
[0:02:56.9] PF: Right.
[0:02:57.5] FC: So, if we go into the data a little bit, just to give one example about where I’m currently basing in Toronto, one of the earliest studies about this type of – well, that recurring studies is done in Toronto, and when they ask the average Torontonians whether or not they expect their wallet to be returned if they lost one, about 23% of people say that, “Yes, I think my wallet would be returned.”
And when people actually dropped wallets, like, when researchers actually tried to drop a wallet in different parts of Toronto and see whether or not the wallets would be returned, they found 80% of the wallets would be returned, so that’s remarkably higher than what expect. There are similar result in the States where it was found that about only a third of people think that their wallets would return, but the actual return rate is closer two-thirds, almost double what people expected.
[0:03:46.5] PF: Yeah, that’s great because I was going to ask you as you were saying that, it’s like, “Well, is that just is Canada nicer than the US?” So, it looks like you are a little bit but it’s good to know that we still got a pretty good response on that, and just for our listeners, what time period is this research drawn from? Because it’s not like it was just focused on 2023. It’s taken over a period of time, is that correct?
[0:04:08.6] FC: Yeah. So, overall, in the data, the wallet return comes from 2019, so immediately before COVID, but then we have broader measures of how helpful people are that goes from around 2006, all the way up to 2024. So, in the report, we reported data from different time periods. So, maybe, that’s something that is on our mind as well, like, given all these, you know, major changes, the COVID hits.
You know, there’s so many things, like, life is so different now, whether or not are people becoming more helpful, or people becoming less helpful. So, that’s also like a question that we tried to tackle in this year’s report.
[0:04:47.1] PF: Right, and things are pretty tumultuous right now. Do you think next year’s report will show significant differences because of that or I know you don’t have a crystal ball, but is there any indication of how that might affect us?
[0:05:00.9] FC: Yeah, I think that’s a really good question. In previous versions of the World Happiness Report, it has been documented that people became more helpful after COVID, perhaps because we see more people in need, perhaps it’s because, you know, we are facing a shared challenges and that bought in people together. In this year’s report, we noticed there has been a decline in helpfulness across the world.
So, compare it to 2023, people are becoming less helpful, but you know, we’re comparing to pre-COVID time, we’re still a solid 10% above pre-COVID time. So, it seems like people are still more helpful than before COVID happens, even though we’re seeing a little bit of a downward trend now, but I think, you know, we should understand of the fact that as a whole, 70% of people around the world say that they have helped someone in the past month. So, that’s a very high number.
[0:05:53.5] PF: That’s great, that is great, and there is a theme of connectedness that runs through the entire report. You have several different chapters in it, it touches on it in different ways, and I wanted to ask you how important a factor, overall, is connectedness. Like, how essential is it for our wellbeing?
[0:06:11.4] FC: So, I think connectedness, you know, our human relationship is one of the most important factors that is shaping our happiness. So, in this year’s report, we also talk about how when you help others, does that link to your greater happiness, and then when you are trusting others, for example, as measured by that bullet question, do you also feel happier? So, the answer to both of those question is yes.
So, when you help others, when you help with strangers, when you volunteer, and when you donate money, you tend to be happier, and then having the trust in your neighbor, in a stranger, in the police in returning a lost wallet, that turned out to also is linked to greater happiness. So, the reason why, like especially the last findings is important is that we know that people tend to underestimate how likely people are returning their wallet.
We just get them closer to the reality that people are actually really helpful, maybe we have a lot of potential to make people happier.
[0:07:07.0] PF: That’s great. So, I know that last year, one of the big things everybody was talking about, ourselves included, was about how Gen Z was suffering from so much loneliness, and this year’s report talks about how social connections improve happiness among young people. Can you touch on that at all? Like, are things getting better or worse for Gen Z when it comes to social connections?
[0:07:28.1] FC: Of course. So, I think this got last year’s report, which really focus on age, and there has been you know, a decline in happiness in English-speaking devout countries, including the US as well as Canada, and when you mentioned the connection piece, it reminds me of some other chapters in this year’s World Happiness Report. So, for example, there’s a chapter on sharing meals, where they found that you know, sharing meals is actually really beneficial to your well-being.
Like, how you imagine, just think about sharing meals with your family and friends, you know, at a nice restaurant, that just brings us so much joy. Unfortunately, there has also been a decline in people having meals together. I think, like with the latest data, about one in four Americans dine alone, and that is a worsening trend over time. So, you know, maybe that is one way that we can express our connection with each other, by sharing meals.
Also, remember there is different chapter where they’re looking at whether or not people have someone to count on, and young people have also been reporting lower and lower numbers in terms of having someone to count on. So, you know, those pieces of data from this year’s report also speak to last year’s finding.
[0:08:43.2] PF: And why sharing meals in particular? Why does that have an effect?
[0:08:48.3] FC: I think, they’re all like multiple elements. I think it is a very common way for us to spend time together. I think, you know, during meals, a lot of times, we would have conversations. In fact, when I was talking to another offer, Mariano Roxas, you know, an expert in Latin American happiness, when I asked him the same question, Paula, he told me about how you know, in his community, they would have two-hour breakfast.
Where you know, they just catch up with their friends, you know, see how their families are doing, how you know, their pets are doing, how their kids are doing. Maybe they spend a little bit of time talking about work, but they really just try to get a sense of how everyone is doing to build that sense of connections. So, I think there’s a lot that we can learn from that particular story, but also from different cultures that you spend, you know, substantial time of sharing meals together.
[0:09:38.0] PF: Yeah, and it was also interesting because even though that’s so important, I think it was in Europe, there was a pretty high percentage of people who live alone. I wish I had the report in front of me because I could say what that number was, but – so, there’s that dichotomy, it’s like, we need that, and this is a pretty simple way to find connection. But yeah, you’ve got this huge dichotomy because all these people live alone. So, how do you kind of bridge that gap?
[0:10:02.4] FC: Yeah, so I think you’ll also write that, yeah, another chapter from this year’s World Happiness Report, talks about living arrangement, and they found that around living with four people tends to be linked to greater happiness, and you are also right that people living by themselves, you know, due to lack of connection, not having someone to count on, greater loneliness, they tend to report lower happiness.
[BREAK]
[0:10:27.5] PF: We’ll be right back with more of Live Happy Now. And now, let’s hear more from Dr. Felix Cheung.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:10:41.1] PF: You worked on a chapter about sharing and caring, and so one of the things that you looked at is how acts of benevolence relate to well-being. So, can you talk about the findings and what kind of your method was for going about exploring that topic?
[0:10:54.7] FC: Yeah, of course. So, the World Happiness Report, you know, a chapter draws on a huge effort, something called the Gallup World Poll. You collect the representative samples of over two million participants from over 150 countries across the world. Sometimes I feel like I have the luckiest job in the world. I’m just, you know, can dig through some of these data to figure out what makes people happy.
So, that’s what we did, like by drawing data from these two million people, right? You know, we can crunch some numbers and see, you know, whether or not people who have been helping others are happier and we found two findings. One is, again, in fact, that helping people, people who reported helping someone in the past month report greater happiness, and second, we also found that they can help us buffer against negative events.
So, for people who report poorer health, or maybe they don’t feel as safe, you know, if they have that social connection, you can help reduce or mitigate some of that negative effects. So, you know, you improve your wellbeing in general but it can also help buffer some of those negative stuff in life.
[0:12:03.0] PF: How do you measure benevolence? How did you go about – first of all, let’s really categorize, so we know that we’re all using the same term here. When you talk about benevolence, what are we actually talking about?
[0:12:14.2] FC: Yeah, that’s a good question. So, in this year’s reports, we have two groups of questions. One is asking whether or not you have helped people. So, the questions goes something like, “In the past month, have you helped a stranger?” You can answer “Yes,” or “No.” Another question asking you, “Have you volunteered in the past month?” And, “Have you donated money in the past month?”
And then we have another three questions that get a sense of trust, a sense of whether or not people around you are kind and trustworthy, and again, those goes back to those wallet questions. “You know, if you lost your wallet, do you think your neighbor will return it? Do you think a stranger return it to you, or whether or not the police will return it to you?” So, that is the first year that we reported on you know, country-level rankings based on the six different measures of benevolence.
[0:13:00.8] PF: Are we doing pretty well with benevolence overall and where do we need improvement? We’re not naming countries but we can if we want.
[0:13:10.5] FC: Yeah, so I think we try to look at this around the globe but I think, you know, to pick a picture idea that I don’t want us to lose sight on your stat, you know 70% of people around the world have helped someone in the past month. So, again, that’s a really high number. We can also look at the numbers within the US, and then remember you asked like you’re doing pretty well.
Like in terms of helping strangers, wants sharing, and donating money, I think they rank top 15 in the world. So, you know there are obviously, there are times that we have these conversations around how there may be a coincidence of loneliness, maybe growing a sense of division. Having said that, like maybe again, people are actually kinder and more trustworthy than we give them credit for. I think that’s one main takeaway from this year’s World Happiness Report.
[0:13:54.4] PF: Absolutely, and so what role does social connectedness play in the overall happiness of a community? Like we can talk about it individually, but then when you extrapolate that out, how does it affect a community?
[0:14:06.6] FC: Yeah, that’s a great question. So, in this year’s report, we also looked at happiness in equality. So, that means within a country, are there people who are really, really worse off, and people were like really better off, or are people like similarly happy, so that’s what we mean by happiness in equality, and you know obviously like we think that just like better outcome, you know, we can cultivate a country so that everyone is similarly happy.
And we also found that you know, countries that have greater prevalence of benevolence, like people are generally more helpful, they also tend to have lower happiness in equality. I think that makes a ton of sense, right? You know, we see people who are worst off, who are in needs, and that you know, we’re able to cultivate that sense of benevolence or help them, you know, it makes sense, and people who help others are also happier. That would slowly build a country where people can become similarly happy.
[0:15:00.3] PF: And I think that sometimes something that gets overlooked at helping others does make us happy. Why is that a message that gets lost in the mix way too often?
[0:15:11.9] FC: Yeah, I think that’s a good question. So, this year’s report, we are also looking to the science of helping, and see you know, what are some of the best ways to help people so that you know, we can also become happier on top of you know, for those who are receiving help. So, we call this the 3Cs, like helping is generally linked to greater happiness, when you’re helping someone where you have a connection with.
Helping tends to bring us more happiness when we’re helping someone that’s close to us compared to helping someone who is a stranger, for example. Another C is choice, we feel better about helping when we felt like, you know, we choose to do this, like we actually want to do this. We don’t feel obligated, it is something that we want to do, and the third C is clear impact.
When we help someone when we’re interacting with them, and we can see that you know, what we do made the impact in a different person’s life. We also get more from those helping behaviors. So, one way to think about how helping can bring us happiness is thinking about the three Cs, connections, choice, and clear impact.
[0:16:15.7] PF: And then how do we, as individuals, let that ripple out into our community? Because it seems really challenging sometimes if you’re trying to make a difference, if you’re trying to build connection in a community, and you feel like you’re only one person. How do we go forward and create this movement of connection really?
[0:16:35.6] FC: Yeah, so I think that’s a question that’s all in our minds. You know, we see that people are capable, could become more helpful after COVID happens, even though we’re seeing a downward trend in the most recent years. So, I think that is a global challenge that we have to think about. Again, we know that we have the capacity to do so. So, I think one way that we can think about this given our result is that you know, if you are doing well, you know, helping others with –
Like helping people who are connected to you when you choose to do so and when there is a clear impact, you can get more from it. I think on the other hand, you know I think another major finding from the report is again, you know, if you are not doing so well definitely ask help. Again, people around us actually more helpful than we give them credit for. So, all in all, by, you know, asking help and giving help, hopefully, we can reverse some of this downward trend, and we will see where people are generally happier.
We’re reducing in equality, so on, and so forth, and when you ask me like, “What can we, as individuals, do?” Sometimes, when I work on this report, you know, yes, I have expertise when it comes to global happiness but I want to remind you, Paula, as well as people who are listening to this podcast that you are the happiness expert for people that you love. So, maybe a start there, you know, ask them how they’re doing.
Help them over small things, get them groceries, I don’t know, just start small instead with people around you. You know more about, you know, your loved ones’ happiness than I do, so you know that’s a great place to start.
[0:18:09.1] PF: I love that because we do tend to seek out a big experience. We think like, “Gosh, how can I change the world?” And really do that by starting, like you said, with somebody, one of your loved ones, somebody that you know.
[0:18:22.3] FC: Exactly.
[0:18:23.0] PF: I think people always want to know about with the report is the world’s happiest countries, and that also is what you worked. You worked on that chapter and we know Finland is number one again for the eighth straight year. So, let’s talk about why Finland continues to be so happy, and it was interesting, there was a bigger gap between Finland at number one and Denmark at number two.
So, I want to talk about why Finland is happy, and what caused that gap between the first and second place this year.
[0:18:50.8] FC: I think that’s a great question. I think, you know, Finland has been ranked first for the eighth consecutive year like you said. I think we have to think about it as both from the individual perspective, but also from a structure perspective. So, you know, when we tie this to the theme of caring and sharing, we see that Finland people are very trusting. They feel like, you know, when they lost a wallet, they will almost always be returned.
And this is actually confirmed by again, like out of behavioral studies where they actually dropped wallets, and you know, in fact, the return rate is very high. So, I think that sends off trust, connection is incredibly helpful. At the same time, you know, I think national happiness cannot be cultivated simply through, like individuals. We have to think about you know, political institutions, also social structure is one and so forth.
And Finland is well known for having like a really strong welfare system, really strong education system, you know, very low corruption, strong healthcare. So, all of this is necessary to produce national happiness. Sometimes when I think about this, I think it is a useful reflection for you know, the rest of the world. You know, maybe happiness shouldn’t be an afterthought after we talk about economics, other indicators.
Perhaps we should place happiness as the forefront. There is a quote that I really like, it goes, “The success of a nation should not be judged by people’s possessions, but by people’s happiness.” How I think is through both individual and societal ethics that we can collectively get there.
[0:20:24.0] PF: And so why did Denmark not follow that closely? Why is there a gap this year? That’s the first time we’ve seen that, isn’t it?
[0:20:32.0] FC: Yeah, sometimes I think, you know, this is not something that I can say definitely, but I think the much more interesting – I think you’re right. You know, there is a gap, but it is also important to note that all in all the countries are really high, and there are multiple other countries that are in the top 10, and I think you know, for other countries in the world there is a lot that we can learn from this social system and there is a lot of countries.
[0:20:59.1] PF: Well, we have a couple of surprise entries into the top 10, in Costa Rica and Mexico.
[0:21:03.5] FC: I think that really reminds me of the story I just told you about, you know, how I was talking to one of my coauthor on The World Happiness Report, and Mariano share about how, you know, the two-hour breakfast tradition. So, we can see how like, I think Mexico enters top 10 for the first time. I think the high ranking from Costa Rica and Mexico are really interesting, and maybe echo what I was sharing earlier.
I think traditionally, when they focus on GDP, maybe we’re missing something. There are countries, so like, in fact, be able to achieve high level of national happiness but unnecessarily meaning economic powerhouse. So, some of these countries, like great example, where perhaps their well-being are precisely driven by caring and sharing and human connections, and that’s why they are able to get to top 10.
[0:21:52.2] PF: That makes sense. So, we can’t wrap this up without talking about the US, and whomp-whomp, it continues to slide. It is no longer in the top 20, we’re at number 24 this year, and can you talk about what’s driving that downturn?
[0:22:13.8] FC: Right. If you compare this year’s report with last year’s report, you’re right that US ranking dropped, but if you look at their national level happiness, it actually remained pretty stable. So, they drop because other country goes up. So, I don’t want this to be overly alarming, obviously, a dropping in ranking is not great. I think it goes back to some of the conversations around how you know, you know, there’s a lot of conversations around political division that may drive people away from each other, you know, reducing some of these connections.
So, based on this year’s report, maybe perhaps how can we think about this and how can we reverse some of these? Like again, like despite of all these political division, it is important to remember that people in the States are actually incredibly helpful. I’ve shared with you earlier how you know when a group of researcher dropped wallet, 200 wallets across North America, they found that two-thirds of the wallets are returned.
Like, you know, again, it’s easy that under this type of environment, it’s easy to maybe feel like a sense of distrust, but you’ve – the data that we reported are trustworthy and all relevant to this topic. You would suggest that again, people are more helpful than we give them credit for. This is not related to the World Happiness Report per se, but another offer on the World Happiness Report, Lara Aknin, a professor at Simon Fraser University.
Her work is about how sometimes feel like talking to strangers or we connected with old friends are things that we don’t feel like we want to do because we’re worried that those interactions would go wrong. But when people actually do it, people actually become a lot happier. So, again, there are a lot of times when there’s this type of gap, like, we think people are less helpful, we think people may not remember us.
We think people may not – we don’t know whether or not those interactions will go well, but when we put people to test in a sense, people actually usually pass with flying colors, like people are actually are willing to return your wallets. You know, interacting with strangers in fact, are you surely pleasant. You know, reconnecting with old friends usually bring you a great sense of nostalgia, you know, connections that you may have missed.
So, I think, if there’s anything that we can learn from this year’s World Happiness Report is again, we should be able to give more credit to other people. They’re actually really kind and helpful, and by closing this gap about how we think people are to the reality that people are actually really helpful, maybe that’s one way to get us closer to a happier society.
[0:24:41.9] PF: I can’t think of a better way to wrap this up. This report is a fascinating conversation, you’re very insightful in this, and I really look forward to sharing the report with our listeners. We’re going to give them a link so they can download and visit the entire report, there is so much to dig into, and I appreciate you sitting down with me and sharing your insights.
[0:25:00.9] FC: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Paula, again, for having me. I just wanted to share a quick trivia. My name, Felix is Latin for happiness and I also happen to do happiness research.
[0:25:10.0] PF: That is amazing. So, you were destined to become a happiness researcher.
[0:25:15.2] FC: Thank you again for having me.
[0:25:17.3] PF: All righxt, thank you.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:25:21.9] PF: That was Dr. Felix Cheung, talking about some of the findings from this year’s World Happiness Report, and explaining the importance of social connections. If you’d like to learn more about Felix or download your own copy of the World Happiness Report, just visit us at LiveHappy.com and click on this podcast episode. That is all we have time for today, we’ll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode, and until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one.
[END]
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- What a wallet taught researchers about well-being.
- The role that sharing meals with others plays in our happiness.
- Where the U.S. stands on this year’s list of happiest countries.
Download the World Happiness Report.
Visit Felix’s website.
Follow Felix on Social Media:
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