Vikings behind Scandinavian happiness

A team of scientists in my native town of Århus has concluded that the historical background for the famous Scandinavian trust (see also this post) has it's origin in the society of the Vikings. Because they didn't have a legal system (not really, unless you count blood-revenge as a legal system) and they had a small empire stretching from Scotland to Volga, they had to trust each other in dealings. Science has documented a link between trust and general happiness in a population. And again and again Scandinavian countries grab the top spots in international "how happy are the nations"-surveys. Personally I also believe the climate plays a role. Traditionally we say that the darker and wetter climate in Scandinavia breeds depression, which is true in many cases, while the sunny climate of the Mediterranean brings a more light mood. But if you consider that the Scandinavian people in the middle ages and before that had to struggle to survive the hardship of winter, to work constantly, this might have put their threshold for happiness quite low. They are in rough generalization a hardworking, realistic people, who don't expect a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (the Vikings knew well you had to fight for the gold;-)). So don't expect the Danes, Swedes, Norwegians or Finns to dance in streets to reggae (Although the Finns dance a lot of tango, it's their own version, mainly written in minor key - to give a taste of it here is a clip from Finnish tango competition:
)

In conclusion, the Scandinavians rate as a happy people, partly because trust is a historical tradition. Its worth also noting the absence of great violent revolutions in Scandinavian societies - mostly the transitions between different government forms has been reletively peaceful.

Again, if you read the exotic language, here is a newspaper report from JP.