People around the world are becoming angrier and more stressed – especially in Armenia and Greece, the annual Gallup Global Emotions Report has found.

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A total of 150,000 people in more than 140 countries were polled in the 10-question survey, in which participants were asked about the positive and negative emotions they had experienced the day before. Questions ranged from “Did you smile or laugh yesterday?” to “Did you learn or do something interesting yesterday?” to “Did you experience physical pain?”

On a global average, 71 percent of respondents said they had experienced a lot of enjoyment the previous day, 72 percent said they had felt well rested, 74 percent reported having smiled or laughed, and 87 percent said they had been treated with respect.

Gallup

Still, the high levels of negative emotions also reported left Gallup’s Negative Experience Index at a record 30 points – a score that was first registered in 2017 and has climbed by a total of six points since the survey started in 2006.

Countries on the African continent scored the highest on the negative emotions tally, with Chad topping the list with an overall score of 54 points followed by Niger and Sierra Leone, which shared second place at 50 points each. Gallup noted that although Chad is “the most negative country in the world”, with Chadians being labelled also as the saddest and most painstricken among the world’s people, the pollster said it could be attributed to “the violence, displacement and the collapse of basic services in parts of Chad that have affected thousands of families”.

The report noted that conflict zones, understandably, scored very high in negative emotions.

The angriest populations were Armenians followed by Iraqis, Iranians, Palestinians and Moroccans.

The global average of stress shot up to a new high, with Greeks coming out at the top for the third year running at 59 percent followed by Americans at 55 percent and Chadians at 51 percent.

On a happier note, Latin America dominated the positive experience list “as they do year after year”, the report stated, with Paraguay and Panama sharing the top spot at 85 points. Guatemala and Mexico came in second place and El Salvador in third.

Gallup said the results “at least partly reflect the cultural tendency in the region to focus on life’s positives”.

The only non-Latin American country to make the top 10 on positive emotions was Indonesia.

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