West Virginia: The Sourpuss State

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index ranks West Virginia last among the state in its latest measurement of "individual and collective health and well-being."

West Virginia also placed 50th in the three of the happiness survey's six sub-categories: emotional health, physical health and life evaluation.

"On average, well-being was highest in the Mountain states and West Coast states, followed by the Eastern Seaboard and then the Midwest and Southern states," LiveScience reports. "The researchers note that because a state scores high or low doesn't mean you could pluck out a resident and expect that person to be appropriately cheery or depressed. And not every state in the union sits exactly where you might expect on the list."

The article also noted this finding:

Of the personality factors, neuroticism took a toll on a state's cheery count, suggesting people living in the happiest states are more relaxed than their gloomy counterparts. For instance, West Virginia, Mississippi and Kentucky were ranked as highly neurotic and showed lower well-being scores. Utah, on the other hand, had a significantly lower level of neuroticism than other states.