The emotions behind words

There is an interesting post on Freakonomics with many comments. It reminds me how words can evoke emotions. Justin Wolfers is commenting on an Op-Ed piece that concludes that despite the economic crisis. people are still happy. Using daily survey data on life satisfaction based on the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, Mr. Wolfers attempts to show factually that people are not happy. He bases his argument on the results of questions about thriving, struggling, and suffering. The comments are a very interesting read. At one point it devolves into a discussion about Communism.

Several years ago in my career I was part of a team that audited Multnomah County's adult foster care regulatory program. We designed a checklist and performed surprise visits on the foster care homes to determine the quality of the care. One of the criteria we measured was the "home-like" environment. One of the strongest responses I ever got to an audit was because of our finding that some of the homes were not "home-like." It was a very emotional discussion. The manager who objected to us trying to measure that quality felt that we were applying middle-class values and could not adequately understand or measure what home might be like for other cultures.