Gallup Daily

Just checking out the measures Gallup have been tracking on a daily basis in the U.S. over the last couple of years. Something like Obama's approval rating strikes me as hugely informative with a 60 percentage point difference between the approve-disapprove groups crashing to a 5 point difference in 6 or 7 months. The life evaluations of the US population are clearly responding to economic changes with Christmas bringing about an increased percentage of people 'struggling' as would be expected. The surprise for me was the mood ratings which are practically invariant, with happiness showing a slight decline prior to Christmas which is about the only visible trend aside from weekend peaks and mid-week declines. Contrasting these ratings with the swings in measures of life evaluations, consumer confidence, political confidence, spending, does this mean that emotions are largely unresponsive to such changes?