Italians Aren't That Emotional

Italians are often stereotyped as overly emotional (always yelling, sobbing or singing), but a recent Gallup poll that surveyed people around the world about their emotions found that Italian levels are about average and don't stand out as unusual. An article in the Washington Post added a color-coded map to better visualize the results (click here for the original data).

Gallup measures daily emotions in more than 150 countries and areas by asking residents whether they experienced five positive and five negative emotions a lot the previous day. Negative experiences include anger, stress, sadness, physical pain, and worry. Positive emotions include feeling well-rested, being treated with respect, enjoyment, smiling and laughing a lot, and learning or doing something interesting.

To measure the presence or absence of emotions, Gallup averaged together the percentage of residents in each country who said they experienced each of the 10 positive and negative emotions.

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Results are based on telephone and face-to-face interviews with approximately 1,000 adults, aged 15 and older, in each country each year between 2009 and 2011.