Presented by-

Riya Chakrabarty – B.A hons

Sociology-SOC/23/43

Tanisha Ahuja - B.com prog – Subjective Well-Being

BCO/23/124
The Science of Happiness and Life Satisfaction
Ed Diener, Richard E. Lucas, & Shigehiro Oishi
Definition of Subjective well being
• According to scientists , essential ingredient of good life is that the person
herself likes her life.
• Definition - Subjective well being is defined as a person’s cognitive and
affective evaluations of his or her life. These evaluations include emotional
reactions to events as well as cognitive judgments of satisfaction and
fulfillment.
• Subjective wellbeing - broad concept + experiencing pleasant emotions,
low levels of negative moods and high life satisfaction.
HISTORY
• Philosophers and religious leaders suggested diverse characteristics like
love, wisdom, and nonattachment as key to a fulfilled existence.
• Utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham argued that pleasure and absence of
pain are the defining characteristics of a good life.

• Flugel's work in 1925, which recorded emotional events and summed

reactions across moments, paved the way for modern experience
sampling approaches.
• Post-World War II, survey researchers began polling people about their
happiness and life satisfaction using simple global questionnaires.
• George Gallup, Gerald Gurin, and Hadley Cantril pioneered the use of
large-scale surveys as an assessment technique. They asked people
questions such as “How happy are you?” with simple response options
varying from “very happy” to “not very happy.”
• Norman Bradburn's 1969 discovery that pleasant and unpleasant affect
are independent and have different correlates, indicating that clinical
psychology's attempts to eliminate negative states would not necessarily
foster positive states.
• Wilson's 1967 review of "avowed happiness" was limited.
• Diener's 1984 review of the growing database on subjective well-being by
mid-1980s marked the field's emergence as a science.
• Numerous books have been published on subjective well-being since
Diener's review.
• In 1999, a new review of literature in Psychological Bulletin was authored
by Diener, Suh, Lucas, and Smith.
• Handbooks on hedonic psychology and cross-cultural differences in
subjective well-being provide more detailed review.
• Rapid growth in popularity due to the rise of postmaterialistic world.
• Western nations' material abundance and health have led to a focus on
quality of life beyond economic prosperity.
• Subjective well-being is popular due to its democratic approach,
respecting individual thoughts and feelings.
• The study aligns with the global trend towards individualism, focusing on
personal feelings and beliefs.
• Scientific methods for studying subjective well-being have increased its
popularity.
• The field is poised to become a major scholarly and applied discipline.
MEASUREMENT
• Early survey instruments were single-question questions about people's
happiness or life satisfaction.
• Psychometric evaluations showed validity of these scales.
• As the field matured, multi-item scales emerged, with greater reliability
and validity.
• Multi-item life satisfaction, pleasant affect, and unpleasant affect scales
formed distinct factors.
• Researchers question the validity of self-report instruments as they may
not accurately reflect high subjective well-being.
• Self-report measures converge with other types of assessment, including
expert ratings, experience sampling, memory, family and friend reports,
and smiling.
• Despite the positive psychometric qualities of global subjective well-being
measures, a multimethod battery is recommended to assess subjective
well-being.
• Schwarz & Strack's study reveals that situational variables significantly
impact life satisfaction and mood reports.
• Life satisfaction judgments are not immutable, but are constructed using
current salient information.
• Diener & Diener's research shows that certain information is chronically
salient to some individuals but not to others.
• Individualistic nations may base their life satisfaction judgments on high
self-esteem, while collectivistic cultures base them on others' opinions.
• People may use both situationally induced and chronically salient
information to construct life satisfaction judgments.
• People use different metastrategies to base life satisfaction
judgments.Some seek positive aspects, others focus on problematic areas.
• People weigh moods and emotions differently when calculating life
satisfaction.
• Life satisfaction reflects different information for different people and can
change based on current salient information.
• Participants construct judgments about their well-being, which may not
accurately reflect average mood or satisfaction levels.
• Thomas and Diener (1990) found a modest match between people's
reports of moods and their recall of those moods.
• Estimates of happiness and affect over time are influenced by a person's
current mood, beliefs about happiness, and ease of retrieving positive and
negative information.
• A new understanding of subjective well-being involves distinguishing
between momentary feelings and global constructs. This is achieved
through experience sampling, where people report their moods,
pleasures, pains, and satisfactions online. This method offers the most
accurate estimate due to less artifacts and biases.
• Global reports of subjective well-being provide insight into how people
construct global judgments about their lives. These reports reveal how a
person summarizes their life as a whole, which may be moderately
correlated with online reports.
• People in cultures where subjective well-being is valued are more likely to
weight their most positive domains in calculating a global life satisfaction
judgment, while those in cultures where happiness is not an important
value are more likely to weight their most negative domains.
• The relationship between satisfaction with specific domains like work and
satisfaction with life as a whole depends on people's beliefs about what
information should be considered when judging life.
THEORITICAL APPROACH
• Aristotle's theories categorize into need and goal satisfaction, process or
activity theories, and genetic and personality predisposition theories.
• The first consensus suggests reduction of tensions leads to happiness.
• Freud's pleasure principle and Maslow's hierarchical needs model support
this view.
• Omodei and Wearing's research links the satisfaction of needs with life
satisfaction.
• Goal theorists believe that subjective well-being is achieved by moving
towards an ideal state or achieving a valued aim. They also consider
discrepancies from other comparison standards, such as one's wants, past
experiences, and others.
• Discords between one's "ideal self" and "ought self" can lead to negative
emotions. Need and goal satisfaction theorists argue that reducing
tension and satisfaction of biological and psychological needs and goals
leads to happiness.
• Tension-Reduction Theories:
- Happiness is achieved after meeting needs and fulfilling goals.
- Happiness is seen as an end state, with activities directed toward
achieving it.
• Activity Theories:
- Flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975): People are happiest when engaged in
activities that match their skill level. The "flow" state leads to higher
happiness.
-Active Participation (Cantor & Blanton, 1996; Harlow & Cantor,
1996):Social participation and engagement in life tasks lead to higher life
satisfaction.
- Intrinsic Motivation (Sheldon, Ryan, & Reis, 1996): People are happier
when they engage in activities for intrinsic reasons (e.g., enjoyment).

• Goal Theories:
- Having and pursuing important goals is a reliable indicator of well-being.
- Goal pursuit combines elements of tension reduction and pleasurable
activities.
- People with important goals are more energetic and have positive
emotions, giving life a sense of meaning.
• Stability of Subjective Well-being:
- Emotional responses can fluctuate with life conditions, but there is
evidence of stable individual differences in well-being.
- Diener & Larsen (1984): Found weak correlations in momentary
happiness but strong correlations in averaged happiness across different
situations.
- Long-term well-being is influenced by stable emotional patterns, with
correlations for life satisfaction across years (e.g., Magnus & Diener, 1991).
Set Point Theory:
- People adapt to changes in life circumstances and return to a
biologically determined "set point" of well-being.
- Diener et al. (1993): Found stability in well-being regardless of income
changes.
- Life events (divorce, widowhood) do not always lead to long-term
changes in well-being.
• Genetic Influences
- A significant portion of subjective well-being is influenced by genetics.
- Tellegen et al. (1988): Found that 40% of positive emotionality and 55%
of negative emotionality are genetically determined.
• Personality and Well-being:
- Extraversion and Neuroticism: Strongly linked to well-being. Extraverts
tend to experience more positive affect, while neuroticism is tied to
negative affect.
- Other traits like agreeableness and conscientiousness are less
consistently linked to happiness.
• Cognitive Dispositions:
- How people think about the world impacts their happiness.
- Positive thinking patterns, optimism, hope, and a sense of control over
life influence subjective well-being.
- Differences in recalling pleasant versus unpleasant life aspects
contribute to varying levels of well-being.

• These notes highlight the interplay of personality, life circumstances, and

cognition in determining subjective well-being, emphasizing both
momentary fluctuations and long-term stability in happiness.
CURRENT FINDINGS
• Wilson’s Early Findings (1967):
- The "happy person" is young, healthy, well-educated, well-paid,
extroverted, optimistic, worry-free, religious, married, with high self-
esteem and job morale.
- However, later studies showed that demographic factors contribute
little to variance in subjective well-being.
• Demographic Variables & Subjective Well-Being:
- Age, sex, and income are related to subjective well-being, but the
effects are usually small.
- Demographic factors distinguish between moderately happy and very
happy individuals (Diener & Diener, 1996).
- Income: Related to subjective well-being, but changes in income have
little effect on long-term happiness. Rising income can be offset by rising
material desires.
- Age: Small effects on subjective well-being; pleasant affect declines
with age, but life satisfaction and unpleasant affect remain stable.
- Sex: Small differences in subjective well-being; women report greater
affect (both pleasant and unpleasant), with significant differences in
unpleasant affect.
• Physical Health:
- Self-reported health correlates positively with subjective well-being,
but the correlation is weak with objective health measures.
- Subjective well-being influences perceptions of health, inflating
correlations between subjective health and happiness.
• Marriage & Religious Activity:
- Both are positively correlated with subjective well-being, but effects
vary:
- Marriage: Effects can differ between men and women.
- Religiosity: The impact depends on the type of religious activity and
cultural context.
• Personality and Subjective Perception:
- Subjective well-being is more influenced by how people perceive their
circumstances than by objective realities.
- People’s values, goals, personality, and culture mediate the impact of
demographic factors on happiness.
• Conclusion:
 - Demographic factors influence subjective well-being, but the effects are small
and complex, often dependent on the specific aspect of well-being being
measured and individual factors like personality and cultural context.
• Cultural Differences in Happiness:
- Cultural context shapes what makes people happy.
- Self-esteem and extraversion are more strongly associated with life
satisfaction and pleasant affect in individualist cultures compared to
collectivist cultures.
• Personality Congruence:
- Western/Individualist cultures: Emphasize personality congruence
(behavior aligned with inner feelings), which is strongly related to
subjective well-being.
• - Collectivist cultures: Less focus on personality congruence; instead,
alignment with the wishes of significant others is more important for life
satisfaction than individual emotions.
• Income and Subjective Well-Being Across Nations:
- Wealth has a greater influence on well-being in poorer nations where
basic needs are at risk of not being met.
- In wealthier nations, income still has a moderate effect on well-being,
potentially due to factors like material goods, human rights, longevity, and
equality.
- Even after controlling for basic needs, wealthier nations report higher
subjective well-being.
• Marriage and Cultural Norms:
- The importance of marriage for well-being varies across cultures.
- In individualist cultures, unmarried individuals living together are
happier than married or single individuals, suggesting companionship is
more valued than social approval.
- In collectivist cultures, married individuals are happier than unmarried
couples or singles, indicating social approval is a key factor in well-being.
• Cultural Norms Influence Subjective Well-Being:
- Different cultures assign different weights to demographic factors like
marriage, income, and personality traits.
- Cultural expectations and social approval play significant roles in
shaping happiness across various societies.
• INTERVENTIONS
Benefits of Increased Subjective Well-Being: Happy individuals tend to
exhibit desirable behaviors like volunteering more, demonstrating positive
work behavior, and fostering positive social interactions.
• Fordyce’s Happiness Program: Fordyce (1977, 1983) developed a program
encouraging people to imitate traits of happy individuals (e.g., being
organized, socializing more, developing a positive outlook). His studies
showed sustained increases in happiness compared to control groups.
• Seligman’s Optimism Training for Children:Seligman et al. (1995)
conducted a study teaching at-risk children to adopt optimism through
cognitive and social-problem-solving training. The intervention
significantly reduced depression, with effects growing over two years.
• Long-Term Impact of Interventions:Fordyce found that the positive effects
of his happiness program persisted in follow-up studies conducted 9 to 28
months after the intervention.
• Need for More Interventions: Although some interventions have shown
success, there is a need for more diverse and rigorously evaluated
programs to enhance subjective well-being.
• Effectiveness of Happiness Interventions: Despite limited research,
existing experiments suggest that well-designed programs to boost
subjective well-being can have lasting and significant effects.
• Future Research

1. **Need for Improved Measurement Methods:** Current research

relies heavily on global self-reports, which may not accurately reflect
individual or cultural differences in real-time experiences. Future research
should incorporate on-line experience tracking, informant reports,
biological measures, and cognitive assessments.
2. **Importance of Longitudinal Studies:** There is a need for more
longitudinal studies to understand how subjective well-being evolves over
time, and to establish the temporal order of contributing variables.

3. **Focus on Developmental Processes:** Future research should

explore the relationship between positive affect in infancy and childhood,
and adult well-being, investigating both the stability of this link and the
mechanisms that influence it over time.
4. **Impact of Societal Changes on Well-Being:** Researchers should
examine how macro-level societal shifts, such as political, economic, and
cultural changes, affect subjective well-being to better understand how to
create happier societies.

5. **Happiness as a Central Goal:** While scientific study of happiness is

in its early stages, characteristics such as a positive outlook, meaningful
goals, strong social relationships, and a temperament with low worry are
recognized as key factors in achieving high subjective well-being.