The secret to unlocking happiness

What has Finland got that the United States doesn’t?

A lot more happy people, for one thing.

For the eighth straight year, the little Nordic nation sits atop the rankings in the 2025 World Happiness Report. Meanwhile, the United States dropped to 24th, its lowest-ever spot in the 13-year-old survey, which was released March 20.

Of course, it could be witnessing the spectacle of the Northern Lights regularly that’s filling Finns with glee. But Mary Ann Watson, Ph.D., who has studied what makes humans across the globe happy, thinks there’s more to it.

The Metropolitan State University of Denver professor emeritus in the Department of Psychological Sciences said if Americans want to climb back up the happiness scale, we could start by getting together in person.

“People feel happiest when they have some connection,” Watson said.

She’s not talking about the kind of connections you get on social media. Even when social media isn’t toxic, it’s no substitute for human interaction, she said. “People are much better off getting out and meeting people,” Watson said. “That’s extremely important.”

Many of Finland’s northern neighbors, including Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Norway, are right on Finland’s happiness heels, according to the survey of 147 countries. Israel, Luxembourg and newcomers Mexico and Costa Rica round out this year’s top 10.

Data from the Gallup World Poll, which asked people to rate their quality of life, served as a source for the rankings. In addition, the survey measured trust in strangers by deliberately losing wallets, seeing how many were returned and comparing that with how many wallets people thought would be handed in. The result: The happiest people live in countries where belief that the wallets would be returned was high.

John F. Helliwell, an economist at the University of British Columbia and a founding editor of the report, said the wallet experiment showed “people are much happier living where they think people care about each other.”

They’re living in a community full of what Watson and other researchers describe as the third level of happiness. The first level is brief pleasures; the second is what psychologists call the “engaged life.” The third level they call “the meaningful life” — using your strengths and connecting with others for a higher purpose.

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Watson has studied happiness around the world, including among people in South Africa and Ethiopia. She said the Nordic countries are on to something important. “Finland and other countries in that area have a sense of community, a real closeness,” she said.

One example: “They have programs where an elementary school is located next to a home for seniors and they establish connections between the seniors and the children. The kids will go in and visit or have lunch with them.”

The benefits of relationships like that go both ways, Watson said. Because, perhaps counterintuitively, one of the surest routes to happiness is to care about others, she said. “We need to educate people to see the downside of completely individualistic thinking,” she said.

The good news for anyone struggling with unhappiness is that we all have a great deal of say in how content we are, or not. “Studies have found that when it comes to happiness, 40% is genetic, 10% is your actual circumstances,” she said. “A whole 40% is volition — how you respond to what’s happening, the things you tell yourself.”

And, she said, the acts of gratitude you practice.

She acknowledged that our country’s raging political divide, especially coming so soon after the isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic, can make initiating and maintaining personal contact and connection trickier than ever.

That’s not to say it’s impossible. Watson suggests finding a community, a group you feel comfortable with and share common interests with: a book club, a faith community, a neighborhood committee. That’s one thing the internet can help with: finding a way to connect offline.

Learn more about Psychological Sciences at MSU Denver.