Subjective well-being : measuring happiness, suffering, and other dimensions of experience / Panel on Measuring Subjective Well-Being in a Policy-Relevant Framework, Arthur A. Stone and Christopher Mackie, editors ; Committee on National Statistics, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, National Research Council of the National Academies.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Stone, Arthur A., editor.

Mackie, C. J. (Christopher J.), 1954- editor.

National Research Council (U.S.). Panel on Measuring Subjective Well-Being in a Policy-Relevant Framework, issuing body.

National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on National Statistics, issuing body.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political planning.

Policy sciences.

Well-being.

Quality of life.

Physical Description:

xiii, 188 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : The National Academies Press, [2013]

Summary:

Could gathering data on subjective well-being help governments and organizations develop policies that better serve the needs of their constituents? This book explores that question, focusing on the policy value of gauging "experienced well-being": peoples' moment to moment and day to day feelings of pleasure, contentment, pain and other emotions and sensations. This report identifies areas of policy and practice where such data would be useful -- ranging from city planning to custody policy to end-of-life care -- and discusses additional aspects of subjective well-being that are important for policy makers to consider. This report also assesses approaches for gathering these data, identifies surveys that should collect them on an experimental basis, and discusses methodological questions that remain.

Contents:

1 Introduction 15

1.1 Overview of Subjective Weil-Being 15

1.1.1 Evaluative Well-Being 16

1.1.2 Experienced Well-Being 17

1.1.3 Eudaimonic Well-Being 19

1.2 Study Charge 20

1.3 Motivation for Study 21

1.4 Report Audience, Report Structure 26

2 Conceptualizing Experienced (Or Hedonic) Well-Being 29

2.1 Distinctiveness of Experienced and Evaluative Well-Being 30

2.2 Dimensions of ExWB 36

2.2.1 Negative and Positive Experiences-Selecting Content for Surveys 36

2.2.2 Eudaimonia 40

2.2.3 Other Candidate Emotions and Sensations for Measures of ExWB 44

3 Measuring Experienced Well-Being 49

3.1 Ecological Momentary Assessment 49

3.2 Single-Day Measures 52

3.2.1 End-of-Day Measures 52

3.2.2 Global-Yesterday Measures 54

3.2.3 Appropriateness and Reliability of Single-Day Assessments of ExWB 55

3.3 Reconstructed Activity-Based Measures 59

3.3.1 Comparing DRM with Momentary Approaches 61

3.3.2 Time-Use Surveys 66

4 Additional Conceptual and Measurement Issues 69

4.1 Cultural Considerations 69

4.2 Aging and the Positivity Effect 71

4.3 Sensitivity of ExWB Measures to Changing Conditions 72

4.4 Adaptation, Response Shift, and the Validity of ExWB Measures 75

4.5 Survey Contextual Influences 79

4.6 Question-Order Effects 81

4.7 Scale Effects 83

4.8 Survey-Mode Effects 84

5 Subjective Well-Being and Policy 87

5.1 What Do SWB Constructs Predict? 91

5.2 What Questions Can Be Informed by SWB Data: Evaluating Their Uses 95

5.2.1 The Health Domain 95

5.2.2 Applications Beyond the Health Domain 98

6 Data Collection Strategies 103

6.1 Overall Approach 103

6.1.1 The Measurement Ideal 105

6.1.2 Next Steps and Practical Considerations 109

6.2 How to Leverage and Coordinate Existing Data Sources 112

6.2.1 SWB in Health Surveys and Other Special-Purpose Surveys 113

6.2.2 Taking Advantage of ATUS 116

6.3 Research and Experimentation-The Role of Smaller-Scale Studies, Nonsurvey Data, and New Technologies 120.

Notes:

Includes bibliographic references.

ISBN:

9780309294461

0309294460

OCLC:

869266259