WASHINGTON: Does misery really love company? An intriguing new study suggests that may be the case. Researchers who study how people's sense of well-being varies from place to place decided to compare their findings with suicide rates. The surprising result: The happiest places sometimes also have the highest suicide rates. “Discontented people in a happy place may feel particularly harshly treated by life,” suggested Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in England. Or, put another way by co-author Stephen Wu of Hamilton College, NY, those surrounded by unhappy people may not feel so bad for themselves.
