The Gallup Global Emotions 2024 report offers a snapshot of Gallup’s latest measurements of people’s positive and negative daily experiences. This is a global measurement of life’s intangibles like feelings and emotions.
The findings are based on nearly 146,000 interviews with adults in 142 countries and areas in 2023.
Gallup identifies that things are looking up for many post-Covid
Gallup’s Positive and Negative Experience Indexes measure life’s intangibles — feelings and emotions — which traditional economic indicators such as GDP were never intended to capture. Each index provides a real-time snapshot of people’s daily experiences, offering leaders insights into the health of their societies that they cannot gather from economic measures alone.
How do the countries rank?
On a global level, Gallup’s Negative Experience Index declined for the first time since 2014. Interestingly, people living in Paraguay experienced the most positive emotions, followed by Panama.
They reported that “Afghanistan scores lowest in the world, again.” The Gallup Report showed, too, that all five negative emotions that make up the index fell between 2022 and 2023, and they reported stress levels dropped the most of all.
Young people more positive and bounced back more quickly
The world was beset by conflict in 2023 — as the war between Ukraine and Russia dragged on, and a new one broke out between Israel and Hamas — but it was in a better place emotionally than it was at the height of the pandemic. Globally, positive emotions returned to their pre-pandemic levels in 2023.
“As it has every year for the past 18 years, Gallup in 2023 asked adults around the world if they had five positive experiences on the day before the survey.”
Positive experiences
“Last year, three of the five emotions were stable compared with the previous year. Over seven in 10 people worldwide said they felt well-rested (71%), experienced a lot of enjoyment (73%), or smiled or laughed a lot (73%).
Two emotions changed direction. Just shy of nine in 10 felt treated with respect (85%), down two percentage points from the previous year. The percentage of those who learned or did something interesting the previous day reached a record-high 54%, up four points from the year before.
Gallup compiles the “yes” responses from these five questions into a Positive Experience Index score.”
Over the pandemic
The researchers explained, “with a sizable increase on one item that makes up the index and a decline on just one other, the global index score in 2023 — 71 — edged up one point from 2022.
The latest figure completes the world’s rebound to scores in the years leading up to the pandemic and matches the previous high
Thirty-seven percent of the world felt stressed in 2023, down three percentage points from the previous year, but notably remaining well above where it was a decade ago (33%) and the years before that.”
There is a difference in emotional experiences across regions
Emotional experiences varied greatly across regions. In some countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Gambia (down 15 points) and Eswatini (11 points), there were double-digit declines. This is healthy and promising.
However, a country like Guinea, for example, which ranks at the top of the negativity list, continues to grapple with uncertainty after a military coup in 2021, and scored the highest in the world on the index in 2023, with a 53.
People living in some countries in Africa tend to experience more negative emotions than many others
“Among the top 10 countries with the highest negative experiences worldwide, more than half were from sub-Saharan Africa. The research demonstrates clearly the impact of political turmoil, unrest, and violence on people.
Guinea is the African country that led the world in terms of its people feeling negative emotions. Guinea, continues to grapple with uncertainty after a military coup in 2021 — including deadly protests last year.”
Israel also made the list of countries with the highest negative scores for the first time.
Stress skyrockets in some countries
“Stress skyrocketed to record levels in Guinea, rising 10 points between 2022 and 2023. A slim majority of Guineans (52%) said they experienced stress a lot of the previous day. They also continued to experience some of the highest rates worldwide for worry (65%), physical pain (59%) and sadness (52%). Their experiences of anger (36%) were also higher than the global average (22%).
Also on the negative list were African countries Chad, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia.
This is not surprising considering that most of these countries have been struggling for years with political conflict, war, unrest, and violence. It is logical that living in a state of constant uncertainty is unhealthy and impacts one’s emotional stability.”
Stress levels are present, but in many cases are fell
The report noted that “Azerbaijan led declines; Israel led increases. Stress declined the most among the five negative emotions, falling three points in 2023 to 37%. Stress was down from levels seen during the pandemic but well above where it was a decade ago b(33%) and the years before that.
Worldwide, stress was still present everywhere, although to varying degrees. Reported stress was above 60% in Northern Cyprus
(65%) and Israel (62%) and lower than 10% in Kyrgyzstan (8%).
Following the signing of the Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement, Azerbaijan led the world in declining stress levels — dropping from
40% to 14% in the span of a year. Other countries saw double-digit declines, including Afghanistan and Gambia (each down 15 points),
China (12 points and accounting for much of the global decline) and Eswatini (11 points).”
Conflict zones are more stressed than others
The Gallup report shows that Israel led the world in increased stress, with levels soaring 38 points to a new record high. Other countries also saw double-digit increases, including Latvia (17 points), Kuwait (14 points) and Egypt (13 points)
As in past years, people in many of the countries and areas with the highest negative scores in 2023 were contending with economic and political turmoil or military conflict, the researchers stated.
“For example, in Sierra Leone, which scored 50, people witnessed failed alleged coup attempts after their election earlier in the year. Senegal was the sole African country with the highest positive emotions.”
Globally, however, 2023 was still a better year for the world’s emotional health
On the up side, positive experiences rebounded to their pre-pandemic levels, completing the recovery that started in 2022.
“Most of the improvement on the index in 2023 took place among those aged 30 and older. The Positive Experience Index is a measure of experienced well-being on the day before the survey.
Questions provide a real-time measure of respondents` positive experiences. It is based on people’s responses to five questions about positive experiences they had the day before the survey. Higher scores indicate that more of the population reported experiencing these emotions, and lower scores indicate the opposite.”
Over One in Five Adults Worldwide Felt Lonely
Given the substantial threat that loneliness and isolation pose to people’s health and wellbeing, Gallup recently added loneliness to the list of negative emotions.
The research’s initial measure in 2023 showed that over one in five adults worldwide (23%) reported feeling loneliness during a lot of the previous day. However, experiences of loneliness ranged widely around the world, from a high of 45% on the island nation of the Comoros to a low of 6% in Vietnam.
An analysis of the relationships between loneliness and other emotions reveals that people who said they felt lonely were substantially more likely than those who did not to experience the five other negative emotions.”
“For example, 54% of those who felt lonely said they experienced sadness, which is three times higher than the 18% who did not feel lonely but did experience sadness.”
Continued learning
For almost two decades, the percentage of people worldwide who said they learned or did something interesting the previous day has seldom topped 50%. The 54% who did so in 2023 represents a new record high.
Senegalese ranked No. 1 on this measure, with 79% in 2023 saying they learned or did something interesting, like the 77% who said so in 2022.
Gallup reported, “In the region, half of the people said the same in Sierra Leone and the Republic of the Congo, close to reported rates in Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (49%). But far fewer had the same opportunity in Ethiopia (33%).”
About Gallup
Gallup delivers analytics and advice to help leaders and organizations solve their most pressing problems. Combining more than 80 years of experience with its global reach, Gallup knows more about the attitudes and behaviors of employees, customers, students, and citizens than any other organization in the world.
About the Gallup World Poll
The Gallup World Poll is the most comprehensive and farthest-reaching survey in the world. The survey connects more than 98% of the world’s adult population through annual, nationally representative surveys with comparable metrics across countries. The Gallup World Poll is used
to measure and track progress in several U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and is the official statistic for work and life for 55+ indexes and metrics associated with the most important aspects of individuals’ lives, their communities, and their countries.
