After months in decline, the collective emotional well-being of the nation had its strongest rebound of the year last month. The CivicScience Well-Being Index showed an increase of 1.1 points from October to November, rising to a monthly average score of 56.9%.
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October saw the lowest monthly average on the index in well over a year, meaning Americans were reporting less happiness and excitement, and greater stress, worry, sadness, and fear. Even though respondents continued to report increased negative emotions in November, they reported much larger gains in feelings of happiness and excitement.
It’s no surprise the Thanksgiving holiday helped to boost the mood of the nation, which had been on a downward slump the second half of the year, much like economic outlook. After October’s low point which coincided with the start of the Israel-Hamas war, well-being spiked in November during the week of Thanksgiving.
Despite the added stress of the holidays, Americans are reporting heightened well-being around Thanksgiving year-over-year. Well-being was even higher this year than last year (59% to 58.3%) for the week of Thanksgiving, the highest weekly average since July. However, the comedown the week after Thanksgiving was steeper this year, falling two points versus 0.6 points.
Will spirits continue to run high throughout the rest of the holiday season? If well-being follows last year’s pattern, expect to see stable, if not slightly higher well-being for the month of December. However, fluctuations in well-being are strongly connected to national and global events such as elections, market changes, and conflicts – making it critical to track consumer sentiment as they unfold.
CivicScience’s “always-on” approach can help your brand stay ahead of consumer trends in real-time, with more than 4+ million responses collected daily. Learn more about how we do it.
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What is the CivicScience Well-Being Index?
Everything affects everything – that includes how a person feels at any given moment in time. The CivicScience Well-Being Index rapidly captures the collective emotional well-being of the population on a daily basis by asking thousands of survey respondents to report on how strongly they feel different emotions. Through living indexes like the Well-Being Index, CivicScience helps businesses and organizations better understand what’s driving consumer choices, empowering them with the data-driven insight needed to navigate our rapidly changing times.
