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2 Conceptualizing Experienced (or Hedonic) Well-Being
Pages 29-48

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From page 29...
... to global-day assessments or day reconstructions at the longer end.1 As the reference and recall periods lengthen, a measure takes on more and more characteristics of an evaluative well-being assessment. Specification of the reference period has a strong impact on the results of affect questions and, indeed, on what is being measured.2 1 Week-long reference periods have also been used in ExWB assessments, particularly in health contexts (e.g., a respondent may be asked about pain last week)
From page 30...
... The problem arises when a hedonic construct such as happiness, which can fluctuate throughout a day, is assessed with a long reporting period, say, "over the past week." Long reporting periods are associated with a shift from an immediate recall of emotions during recent experience to respondents' overall perception of their emotion (Robinson and Clore, 2002)
From page 31...
... One example of how this difference plays out occurs in measures that track the day-to-day experiences of the unemployed but do not track the unemployment rate. Just as evaluative well-being and ExWB are conceptually distinct, at the empirical level positive and negative experiences are also separable and influenced by different factors.4 As detailed below, evidence of this distinctiveness rests not only on correlations and factor analysis but also on multimethod assessments employing measures of SWB beyond self-report surveys.
From page 32...
... (2013) , using a specially designed experimental module for the RAND American Life Panel that included measures of evaluative well-being and ExWB, also found life satisfaction and the positive and negative dimensions of ExWB to be distinct, although they found additional factors when different response scales were employed.
From page 33...
... What unique information, then, do ExWB measures add beyond that which can be gleaned from evaluative well-being surveys, as well as other economic or demographic measures? It would make little sense to measure ExWB (and, in turn, recommend data collection on it to statistical offices)
From page 34...
... (2010) found that income better predicts life evaluation scores, whereas "psychosocial wealth," which includes factors such as social support and learning new things, better predicts life satisfaction.
From page 35...
... , based on data from Latin America, found lower levels of evaluative well-being among individuals who planned to migrate in the next year -- a relatively extreme behavioral choice with future benefit in mind. Health also correlates differently with different aspects of SWB.
From page 36...
... Going ­ forward, statistical agencies will also be asked to consider additional lines of demarcation that may not fit neatly into the positive and negative emotion categories, some of which the panel discusses later in this section. 2.2.1  Negative and Positive Experiences -- Selecting Content for Surveys Empirical SWB research (see Diener et al., 1999; Kahneman, 1999)
From page 37...
... Within the clusters, however, the construct measures appear to be fairly robust with regard to the selection of particular adjectives from the cluster. The multidimensional character of negative emotion suggests a need for more questions about it (relative to positive emotions)
From page 38...
... A targeted policy to assist the poor may focus on negative experience, but it may be linked to positive affect as well. This line of reasoning suggests the value of framing measurement in terms of experience, which can reasonably include pain and other sensations that factor into suffering but may be omitted by a narrower hedonic approach.
From page 39...
... Instead, including a term signifying misery or suffering in addition to positive emotions would be more balanced. For the fullest possible descriptive accuracy, having two words (one for positive and one for negative experiences)
From page 40...
... A balance concept could encourage investigating actions that might increase positive emotion (and possibly thereby increase positive aspects of SWB, and possibly health) , as well as actions that might reduce suffering.
From page 41...
... Literature cited in that volume suggests that eudaimonia correlates less closely with the other SWB measures than do measures of positive or negative affect or of life evaluation. Gallup World Poll data for the OECD countries show the highest correlation between positive and negative affect (–0.39)
From page 42...
... can be an important driver of behavior and is experienced in much the same way as emotion. And of course, an ExWB measure might capture some purpose dimensions.
From page 43...
... The extent to which volunteering makes people happier is unclear, as is the extent to which happier people tend to engage in more volunteerism. However, the latter seems to be part of the story, as the measurable association is reduced considerably when fixed effects are controlled (Meier and Stutzer, 2006)
From page 44...
... . The 2012 Health and Retirement Study is a good example of a survey module that asks about negative emotions and physical pain, as is the 2010 version of the American Time Use Survey.
From page 45...
... . There ­ is considerable evidence that the range of emotions can be usefully characterized as a two-dimensional space, with high and low arousal as one of the dimensions and positive and negative emotion as the second (see the "circumplex" model of affect, Watson et al., 1988)
From page 46...
... One of the great advantages of ExWB measures is that they seek to capture the flow of experienced utility over time. Experienced utility is largely influenced by where attention is directed, sometimes voluntarily (such as when an author is focusing on writing a sentence)
From page 47...
... One of the attractions to policy makers of "happiness" as represented by evaluative SWB measures is that it allows people to consider the importance of a range of things, including intrusive thoughts. But it does so in rather artificial and abstract ways by asking respondents to consider their life overall.


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