positive psychology - sonja...

CHAPTER 31

Positive Psychology

JAIME L KURTZ SONJA LYUBOMIRSKY

In its relatively brief history positive psychology has used a variety of research methodshyologies to better understand the nature of happiness and the good life In the face of

scant empirical knowledge of positive emotions (cf Diener Suh Lucas amp Smith 1999) tightly controlled randomized laboratory studies have begun to establish the causes corshyrelates consequences and basic mechanisms underlying positive emotions and global happiness Such experiments represent a significant advance over the correlational survey studies that informed researchers understanding of well-being for decades In the purshysuit of triangulation an important next step is to examine the real-world circumstances under which people feel good and thrive According to Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) Psychology should be able to help document what kinds of families result in children who flourish what work settings support the greatest satisfaction among workshyers what policies result in the strongest civic engagement and how peoples lives can be most worth living (p 5) Realizing these goals requires the study of positive experishyences and positive emotions in everyday life and in real time Not coincidentally perhaps experience sampling methods which are used to assess aspects of daily life as they occur in the moment have their origins in positive psychology (Csikszentmihalyi Larson amp Prescott 1977)

Although a variety of positive experiences traits and states-joy anticipation optishymism compassion curiosity inspiration gratitude awe-have been the focus of research in positive psychology the majority of studies have examined happiness or subjective well-being Consequently this chapter focuses on methodological advancements in the area of well-being However as we argue later such methods are ripe to be extended and applied to other positive psychological constructs as well

Global Reports of Subiective Well-Being

Happiness-or subjective well-being (SWB-is commonly described by researchers as comprising both a hot affective component and a cold cognitive component (Diener

553

554 RESEARCH APPLICATIONS

et al 1999) First happy people typically experience frequent positive emotions and relashytively infrequent negative emotions Second when coldly evaluating their lives happy people report high levels of satisfaction with life as a whole and with specific domains such as work health and interpersonal relationships Following the positive psychologishycal literature we use the terms subjective happiness and subjective well-being synonyshymously in this chapter These constructs are labeled subjective because the evaluation is drawn from the individuals own report and the individual is assumed to be in the best position to make it In Myers and Dieners (1995) words the best judge of happiness is whoever lives inside a persons skin (p 11)

Commonly Used Global Measures

In keeping with this definition of subjective well-being the majority of positive psychoshylogical research uses broad global self-reports to assess a persons happiness For examshyple for many years single-item measures such as Taking all things together how would you say things are these days (Campbell Converse amp Rodgers 1976) were common Such single-item measures are still used particularly when questions about SWB are included in much longer and broader surveys such as a nationally representative census (eg Lucas Clark Georgellis amp Diener 2004) Given their brevity these measures are surprisingly reliable For example Fujita and Diener (2005) found a test-retest reliability of 55 over a 17-year period

Despite these strengths slightly longer scales are used more frequently The Subjecshytive Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky amp Lepper 1999) a 4-item measure of happiness includes the prompt In general I consider myself with responses ranging from 1 (Not a very happy person) to 7 (A very happy person) It also asks Compared to my peers I consider myself (1 =Less happy 7 =More happy) Some people are genershyally very happy They enjoy life regardless of what is going on getting the most out of everything To what extent does this characterization describe you (1 = Not at ali 7 = A great deal) and Some people are generally not very happy Although they are not depressed they never seem as happy as they might be To what extent does this characshyterization describe you (1 = Not at ali 7 = A great deal reverse-scored)

Probably the most commonly used scale the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener Emmons Larson amp Griffin 1985) assesses the cognitive component of SWB with five broad questions all answered on 1-point (Strongly disagree) to 7-point (Strongly agree) Likert-type scales In most ways my life is close to my ideal The conditions of my life are excellent I am satisfied with life So far I have gotten the most important things I want in life and If I could live my life over again I would change nothing

A growing number of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have used these broad SWB measures to establish that global happiness relates to a number of desirable outshycomes (see Lyubomirsky King amp Diener 2005 for a review) For instance in the realm of work happy people-that is those who score highly on SWB measures-are more likely to graduate from college (Frisch et al 2004) to be favorably evaluated by work supervisors (Staw Sutton amp Pelled 1994) and to make more money (Lucas et al 2004) Dispositionally happy people also have better social relationships They are prosocial and enjoy helping others (Krueger Hicks amp McGue 2001) They have a large network of friends and are relatively more likely to be in art enduring committed and satisfyshying romantic relationship (Diener amp Seligman 2002) Happy people are also less likely

555 Positive Psychology

to suffer from psychopathologies such as depression and anxiety (Diener amp Seligman 2002) Perhaps most strikingly happy people experience superior health and longevity (Danner Snowdon amp Friesen 2001)

In summary the literature cited earlier exemplifies some of the many studies that have demonstrated meaningful links between important life outcomes and happiness as operationalized by global measures of SWB thus providing evidence regarding their validity Furthermore these measures have been found to be psychometrically sound and to show high levels of reliability (Fujita amp Diener 2005 Lucas amp Donnellan 2007) Finally commonly used measures of SWB are efficient and cost-effective

Problems with Global Well-Being Measures

Although global SWB measures possess many strengths they are also characterized by several notable shortcomings Consider items such as The conditions of my life are excellent and I am satisfied with life (Diener et ai 1985) What information does a respondent use when making these broad assessments Global scales of SWB require participants to reflect on their lives accurately recall and appropriately weigh many disshycrete life episodes then offer a reasonably unbiased assessment of their overall happishyness According to Schwarz and Stracks (1999) judgment model of SWB there are many reasons why this may be difficult for participants First ones momentary mood can serve as mental shorthand when making judgments about the broad quality of ones life (eg I feel cheerful right now so my life must be going well Schwarz amp Clore 1983) although some argue that this effect is smaller than originally thought (Eid amp Diener 2004) Related to this point SWB assessments can be influenced by immediate but very minor circumstances such as finding a dime before being asked how generally happy one is (Schwarz amp Strack 1999) Global ratings are also highly sensitive to whatever information is made accessible prior to providing them For example Strack Martin and Schwarz (1988) found no correlation between life satisfaction and dating satisfacshytion when a question about life satisfaction preceded a question about dating status (eg single vs in a relationship) However when the question order was reversed a significant positive correlation emerged When respondents dating status was made accessible they appeared to use it as a heuristic (or shortcut) to help judge their overall life satisfaction Finally social comparisons-even relatively arbitrary ones-can push global SWB ratshyings in one direction or another depending on whether the comparison is favorable or unfavorable For example encountering an experimenter in a wheelchair creates a downshyward social comparison that leads to inflated SWB ratings (Strack Schwarz Chassein Kern amp Wagner 1990)

Taken together these biases highlight that global ratings of SWB do not always represent well-integrated unbiased assessments of the relevant moments in a persons life Instead well-being judgments appear to be based on a truncated search that is senshysitive to temporally accessible information Indeed in many cases researchers do not know what information is being used when a specific participant is answering very broad questions about his or her SWB rendering the results open to interpretation Of course random assignment to condition can minimize this problem in experimental paradigms thus converting it into a source of random error that is evenly dispersed across condishytions In correlational or survey data however concerns with context-dependent effects are arguably more critical Despite this situation global measures of SWB such as the


Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky amp Lepper 1999) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener et aL 1985) are remarkably temporally stable and predictive of a variety of important positive outcomes as delineated earlier Such cost-effective and selfshyadministered self-report measures will undoubtedly continue to be frequently used in SWB research However the problems inherent in retrospective global reports of happishyness have led some researchers (eg Krueger Kahneman Schkade Schwarz amp Stone 2009) to propose alternative methodologies to allow for relatively less biased real-time happiness assessments

The Experience Sampling Method

Measures of global SWB clearly tap into the cognitive component of happiness-that is the top-down global evaluation of ones life (Diener et aL 1999) By contrast the expeshyrience sampling method (ESM) sometimes referred to as ecological momentary assessshyment is more suitable for assessing the affective component-namely frequent positive affect and infrequent negative affect ESM is based on a bottom-up conceptualization of happiness From this perspective happiness is the aggregate of affective experiences encountered throughout daily life

With its roots in positive psychology the ESM actually came out of Csikszentmishyhalyis (1990) work on flow a positive state of intense focus and engagement with a challenging activity Because Csikszentmihalyi was interested in knowing when people experience flow in their everyday lives outside of the laboratory he needed an ecologishycally valid methodology that allowed for sampling participants throughout the course of the day-while they were at school work or leisure-as an alternative to retrospective reporting methods such as interviews and questionnaires

In the mid-1970s Csikszentmihalyi and colleagues were among the first to adopt ESM in their work on adolescents (see P Wilhelm Perrez and Pawlik Chapter 4 this volume) Participants were given electronic pagers which they carried everywhere throughout the day The pagers were programmed to signal the participants randomly with each signal serving as a prompt immediately to report their thoughts and feelings using a booklet of paper-and-pencil self-report forms Common open-ended questions on these forms were As you were beeped what were you thinking about Where were you What was the main thing you were doing and What other things were you doing Using Likert scales participants also rated the extent to which they were concentrating in control of the situation feeling good and living up to their expectashytions-all hallmarks of the flow state (Csikszentmihalyi Larson amp Prescott 1977) Aggregated over the course of days and weeks these data allowed researchers to operashytionalize the flow state more clearly examine the types of activities and mental states that are conducive to flow and correlate frequency of flow with characteristics of the person (Csikszentmihalyi amp Larson 1987)

The new ESM methodology also allowed researchers to understand more fully just how people spend their days For example by examining the time periods during which participants were engaging in particular activities Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues were able to estimate how much time people typically spent at work at school and at leisure and how they felt during these different episodes This research generated some surprising findings calling into question common folk beliefs about work and leisure To


wit people were found to report more flow-type engagement (eg concentration loss of a sense of tim~ ~nd challenge) at work than they did at leisure which was often spent on paSSIve ~ct~vItIessuc~ as watching television (Csikszentmihalyi 1990) With the help of ESM thIS InVestIgatIon demonstrated a disconnect between lay theories and actual experience Work is often perceived as a necessary evil something to get through before earning carefree leisure time But as Csikszentmihalyi argues leisure time should promote happiness only when it is structured and challenging (rather than passive and unengaging) This is an example of a pattern of results that may not have been identified with scales assessing peoples overall views or retrospective memories of the affective experience of work and leisure

Since Csikszentmihalyi and colleagues (1977) early work the term experience sampling has broadened to include both paper-and-pencil and computerized methods of responding The key property shared by these methods is that participants provide reports in their everyday lives-either as soon as possible after being signaled or followshying a particular event (Conner Tennen Fleeson amp Feldman Barrett 2009) ESM studies may be several days to several months duration depending on the goals and resources of the researchers and they have been used to study positive states beyond the flow experishyence Nevertheless in recent years the majority of ESM studies have examined peoples momentary experiences of positive and negative affect (eg Lucas amp Diener 2001)

Daily Diary and Day Reconstruction Methods

Despite its many benefits experience sampling is costly for researchers requiring a great deal of participant time and cooperation as well as an initial investment in pagers or personal data assistants which may not always be returned in working order at studys end When considering the large-scale data collections of SWB indicators that some posishytive psychologists and policymakers have called for (Diener amp Seligman 2004 Krueger et aI 2009) traditional ESM methods become prohibitively expensive and even logistishycally impossible ESM can also be burdensome and intrusive for participants who may be unwilling or unable to respond to a signal or page when it occurs Finally due to the random nature of the sampling process significant and meaningful but rare daily events may be missed

To address these challenges while simultaneously preserving the relatively undisshytorted online accounts provided by ESM techniques Kahneman Krueger Schkade Schwarz and Stone (2004) proposed a type of short-term daily diary called the day rec0nstruction method (DRM) as an alternative to ESM Using a diary format particishypants using DRM are essentially asked to generate a detailed account of an entire day broken down into distinct episodes Their typical instructions are as follows Think of the episodes of your day An episode can begin or end when you move to a different location change activities or change the people you are with (Kahneman et aI 2004 p 1777) Each episode is furnished with a concise label (eg trip to grocery store lunch with a friend) as well as a brief description of where the participant was during the episode what he or she was doing and with whom Then the episode is rated using a variety of adjectives (eg happy competent interested tense tired) on scales ranging from 0 (Not at all) to 6 (Very strongly) Findings from this paradigm include a study of 909 working women revealing that time spent in intimate relations socializing relaxing


praying or meditating and eating were among the most enjoyable whereas commuting working and child care were among the least enjoyable (Kahneman et al 2004 Krueger et al 2009)

The fact that child care was rated so low may seem counterintuitive as it is inconshysistent with widely held beliefs that raising children is personally meaningful and gratifyshying (Kenrick Griskevicius Neuberg amp Schaller 2010 Lyubomirsky amp Boehm 2010) Indeed because DRM has been used to track affective experience throughout the day it may be ignoring important-but fleeting or infrequent-experiences such as a sense of meaning perceived connection to others and engagement In a large-scale online survey White and Dolan (2009) examined the positive and negative feelings associated with various episodes in a day while also broadening the series of questions to examine the thoughts that accompany each episode Participants reported the extent to which each daily episode was personally meaningful worthwhile useful to other people satisfying and helpful in achieving important goals (0 =Not at all 6 = Very strongly) This extenshysion allowed the researchers to explain Kahneman and colleagues (2004) paradoxical findings concluding that work and time spent with children were actually highly personshyally rewarding whereas passive leisure activities such as television and general relaxation were relatively less rewarding Moreover from a methodological standpoint White and Dolan (2009) demonstrated that DRM can be used to examine momentary thoughts as well as momentary affect

Although ESM is still considered the gold standard for the study of happiness in everyday life despite its cost and generally intrusive nature DRM has proven a viable alternative with impressive psychometric properties For example DRM-reported negashytive affect has been shown to correlate positively with resting heart rate (Daly Delaney Doran Harmon amp MacLachlan 2010) Another study found that quality of flow expeshyriences (Csikszentmihalyi 1990) was highly positively correlated with DRM-reported positive affect and negatively correlated with DRM-reported negative affect (Collins Sarkisian amp Winner 2009) DRM has been used successfully in samples of college stushydents (Srivastava Angelo amp Vallereux 2008) middle-aged working women (Kahneman et aI 2004 White amp Dolan 2009) and retirees (Oishi Whitchurch Miao Kurtz amp Park 2009)

Although DRM is arguably less expensive and intrusive than ESM it still requires a large time commitment from participants with the daily diary taking approximately 45-75 minutes per day (Kahneman et al 2004) Other positive psychologists have used similar but less time-consuming daily reporting methods (see Gunthert amp Wenze Chapshyter 8 this volume) For example some studies require participants simply to report the emotions they experienced that day or sometimes over several days generally using Likert scales In addition to overall positive and negative affect experiences of exciteshyment interest guilt gratitude pride and anxiety among others have been tracked (eg Algoe Haidt amp Gable 2008 Cohn Fredrickson Brown Mikels amp Conway 2009 Oishi Schimmack amp Colcombe 2003)

What Novel Information Is Gained from Real-Time Measures

Studying SWB in everyday life whether through experience sampling or a daily diary methodology is arguably more costly and inconvenient than administering a brief one-

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shot SWB measure Hence an important question concerns what precisely can be learned from these online measures Do momentary or daily assessments provide information that broader more global reports of SWB do not

As me~ti~ned earlier these methodologies confer novel information about how peoshyple use theIr tIme how they feel and what they are thinking during different kinds of activities (Csikszentmihalyi et aI 1977 Krueger et aI 2009 White amp Dolan 2009) Momentary and daily diary measures have also been able to establish the distinctiveshyness of the affective and cognitive components of happiness For example Cohn and colleagues (2009) provided compelling evidence for the unique predictive value of the affective component (ie positive affect) relative to the cognitive one (ie life satisfacshytion) For a month participants supplied daily emotion reports using a Web-based daily diary methodology Specifically participants were instructed to reflect on their day and then report their strongest experience of each of 18 discrete emotions (eg joy pride gratitude awe anger fear embarrassment disgust) in that day using a 5-point scale (0 = Not at all 4 =Extremely) Life satisfaction (assessed with the Satisfaction with Life Scale Diener et aI 1985) and ego resilience (the ability to be flexible in response to challenging or changing circumstances Block amp Kremen 1996) were measured at the beginning and end of the study Mediation modeling revealed the unique contribution of positive affect in predicting ego resilience as reported in the computerized daily diaries when controlshyling for general life satisfaction This study offers persuasive evidence that daily reports of affect are distinct from one-time global evaluations of life satisfaction

Online measures of positive affect and enjoyment have also demonstrated interesting disconnects from their more global retrospective counterparts in the realm of judgment and decision-making For example Mitchell Thompson Peterson and Cronk (1997) used ESM methodologies to study rosy prospection (or anticipation of future experishyences) and rosy recollection (or memories of past experiences) Using a variety of familshyiar experiences such as a vacation abroad Thanksgiving break and a bicycle trip they found that peoples predictions and memories of those experiences were more positive than were their actual online (or momentary) experiences

A similar study examined the relationship between online and retrospective reports of a college spring break trip (Wirtz Kruger Napa Scollon amp Diener 2003) Particishypants reported their anticipated levels of affect 2 weeks prior to their trip and were given personal digital assistants (PDAs) to take with them on the trip The PDAs signaled them several times a day at which point they reported their affect and enjoyment They also completed retrospective reports of their spring break trip several days after being back on campus and again 4 weeks after spring break At this final measurement point they also reported the extent to which they wished to take a similar trip in the future The researchshyers findings suggested a discrepancy between the anticipated online and recalled experishyences of positive affect and enjoyment Specifically a strong correlation emerged between anticipated and recalled affect but associations with the online reports were substanshytially weaker As in the Mitchell and colleagues (1997) studies online reports generally indicated greater negativity than had anticipated or recalled This is not surprising given that vacations are often filled with neutral or even negative moments (eg waiting in line feeling tired and irritable) that may not be taken into account when anticipating and investing in a future vacation When looking back perhaps with the assistance of meanshyingful souvenirs and a desire to reduce dissonance (Mitchell et aI 1997) the neutral and stressful moments of a vacation can easily fade from memory leaving a biased recollecshytion of an enjoyable vacation Interestingly Wirtz and colleagues (2003) found that it was


actually the retrospective accounts of positive affect and enjoyment that predicted the desire to go on a parallel adventure in the future

The phenomenon of duration neglect is another related source of the divergence between online and retrospective accounts According to the peak-end rule recollecshytions of an experience are most powerfully influenced by its emotional high point (peak) and its ending (Fredrickson amp Kahneman 1993) When people recall and evaluate past experiences they are inclined to neglect the duration of those experiences As a result retrospective ratings of happiness are likely to be fundamentally flawed The discrepancy between online and recalled affect is more than a topic for academic debate A practical application of this research is that greater insight into momentary affective experience could promote more optimal happiness-boosting decision making

The disconnect between online and global or retrospective accounts has fostered a lively debate within positive psychology about not only how best to measure happiness but also the very nature of happiness itself Is happiness signified by an individuals global evaluation of his or her life or is it the aggregate of many moments as measured by ESM Consider some of the most counterintuitive findings about happiness such as the classic study of lottery winners and paraplegics (Brickman Coates amp Janoff-Bulman 1978) or a study comparing the happiness of Southern Californians and Midwesterners (Schkade amp Kahneman 1998) Taken together such studies which use broad global measures of happiness provide evidence for the existence of a hedonic treadmill-namely that people typically adapt to their life circumstances (eg winning money becoming confined to a wheelchair or moving to Southern California) such that any momentary increases or decreases in their happiness after such events are unsustainable as they gravitate back to a hedonic set point (Brickman et aI 1978 Diener Lucas amp Scollon 2006 Lyubomirsky Sheldon amp Schkade 2005)

An intriguing question is whether such studies would still evince evidence of adapshytation if they included an experience sampling component Perhaps not A wheelchairshybound participant in an ESM study may frequently be paged during moments of discomshyfort or a sense of futility A Southern Californian may be paged while sitting in a traffic jam a Midwesterner may be paged on a warm sunny day Although these ordinary life experiences might not carry enough weight to affect global ratings of SWB they arguably produce a strong affective experience in the moments during which they occur

Although this issue is interesting from both conceptual and methodological standshypoints online and global reports of well-being frequently complement each another For example as described earlier many studies have established a robust association between the quality of a persons social relationships and his or her global SWB (Diener amp Seligshyman 2002) Consistent with these findings a study that used an ESMto examine the link between social interactions and moods throughout the course of a day found that momentary mood was significantly more positive when participants reported being in the presence of others compared to being alone (Lucas amp Diener 2001)

Another example of congruence between real-time and global reports comes from a recent longitudinal study of happiness over the lifespan (Carstensen et al in press) These researchers used ESM to predict longevity and other important outcomes over a 10-year period with participants reporting their emotional experiences five times per day over the course of a week Furthermore this ESM procedure was repeated 5 years and 10 years later Frequency of positive emotions (relative to negative emotions) experienced throughout the day was significantly related to longevity Notably however they also

1


found that Lyubomirsky and Leppers (1999) Subjective Happiness Scale was highly corshyrelated both with momentary positive affect and with longevity

Although a case can be made for always using online measures in well-being research (Krueger et ai 2009) such measures should be of higher priority in situations when researchers have reason to believe that they will provide information above and beyond that of global well-being measures After all observation of disconnects between online and global SWB ratings may be especially likely in certain types of situations First experiences that are self-contained and physically arousing-like the bicycle trip studied by Mitchell and colleagues (1997)-may be difficult to reconstruct and evaluate accushyrately Due to duration neglect for example when making retrospective ratings of the experience cyclists may fail to consider appropriately the length of time they felt tired or uncomfortable on the trip (Fredrickson amp Kahneman 1993) Furthermore despite the moments of physical pain and exhaustion the cyclists may have experienced in real time later on they are likely to have difficulty mentally recreating these physical sensashytions (Loewenstein 1996) In hindsight they may know that the trip was difficult at some level but they will be unable to recall fully just how physically uncomfortable they felt A related more overtly motivated reason for a disconnect applies to an experience that has a personally relevant outcome In an attempt to maintain self-esteem as well as to reduce dissonance people may recall an experience as more happy or more positive than it really was For example after the bicycle trip the cyclists may have preferred to recall moments when they felt strong and fit rather than weary and defeated They may also have wished to persuade themselves that the decision to make the trip was the right one Finally temporal construal theory (Trope amp Liberman 2003) predicts that as time passes a self-contained experience such as a bicycle trip will increasingly be recalled in terms of abstract features (ie personal growth life experience) rather than mundane concrete features (ie rain sore legs) that characterized the trip in the moment For these reasons a clear divergence between online and retrospective measures of happiness can be expected in keeping with the idea of the rosy view (Mitchell et aI 1997)

Finally researchers should consider the extent to which peoples global reports of what makes them happy might be biased by preconceptions and cultural values For example although people tend to rate leisure time as desirable and pleasant ESM studshyies reveal that many do not enjoy it as it occurs (Csikszentmihalyi 1990) Similarly as described earlier vacations are eagerly anticipated and recalled fondly but do not seem to be nearly as pleasant in the moment (Wirtz et aI 2003) This problem can be partially addressed by ordering survey items so that happiness is reported first hence beliefs that may bias responses are made relatively less accessible (Schwarz amp Strack 1999) The deeper definitional issue however still remains A multimethod approach that uses both online and global or retrospective measures is ideal

Other Positive Psychology Constructs

Positive psychology researchers aim to understand a variety of positive states To this end online measures may serve as a valuable tool in investigations of other positive psychoshylogical constructs A notable example comes from recent work on inspiration The first brief global trait measure of inspiration created by Thrash and Elliot (2003) includes items such as I experience inspiration and I am inspired to do something (p 889) This scale has been shown to correlate in the predicted direction with a number of posishy


tive constructs such as intrinsic motivation openness to experience positive affectivity and creativity The researchers also examined the extent to which people are inspired in everyday life using a daily diary method Over 2 weeks participants received a daily e-mail containing a prompt and a questionnaire They reported the extent to which they felt inspired throughout the day as well as a number of correlates of inspiration such as creativity positivity competence openness and freedom When frequencies of these experiences were aggregated over the course of the 2-week study the findings revealed that these constructs often co-occur Moreover the diary method allowed for testing directional relationships between constructs For example inspiration was shown to preshycede feelings of creativity but not vice versa

Thrash and his colleagues also found that reports of inspiration in the morning are predictive of well-being later in the day (Thrash Elliot Maruskin amp Cassidy 2010) and that feelings of inspiration mediate the relationship between having a creative idea and a creative end product but that other positive states such as awe effort and posishytive affect do not (Thrash Maruskin Cassidy Fryer amp Ryan 2010) Going beyond correlations to establish the temporal precedence of inspiration would be difficult if not impossible with traditional trait-like measures By employing a daily diary methodolshyogy the relationship between inspiration and related constructs becomes much more interpretable

An important distinction between happiness and other positive psychology conshystructs is worth noting People can fairly easily report on their affective state much of the time Indeed what makes ESM possible is that people are seldom feeling nothing affecshytively speaking (Diener Sandvik amp Pavot 1991) By contrast because other types of positive experiences such as inspiration do not occur frequently in everyday life obtainshying a random sample of moments throughout the day is likely to miss such experiences Recounting ones day in a diary format or using an event-contingent sampling method (see Moskowitz amp Sadikaj Chapter 9 this volume) appears to be most appropriate for relatively more rare types of positive experiences

Challenges Involved in Real-Time Measurement

In the words of economist John Stuart Mill (187311989) Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so (p 94) Consistent with this notion participating in an ESM or daily diary study may encourage respondents to reflect on their own happiness more than they would otherwise Excessive focus on and monitoring of happiness levels (ie Am I happy yet Am I happy yet) is thought to be counterprodu~tive prompting a reduction in positive affect (Conner amp Reid 2011 Schooler Ariely amp Loewenstein 2003) For this reason researchers may want to keep the signals per day in ESM studies at a reasonable number with the goal of obtaining adequate data to address their research questions without engendering reactance in their participants (see Barta Tennen amp Litt Chapter 6 this volume Miron amp Brehm 2006)

Another challenge to studies of everyday life is that participants are expected to provide reports as soon after being signaled as possible This charge however is someshytimes impossible or highly unlikely which results in important experiences being missed Diary studies by contrast face a different challenge because they require that reports be made at the end of each day Consequently study participants may be tempted to turn


in backdated entries rendering their reports prone to retrospective biases Fortunately new technologies are mitigating this problem because computerized diary methodologies and online submission methods provide a time stamp for the completion of each diary This procedure both increases compliance and discourages backdating (Stone Shiffman Schwartz Broderick amp Hufford 2003)

Finally despite the rich information to be gained by online methodologies such methodologies are arguably underutilized in psychological research because they require an initial investment of time and money and the data may be difficult to analyze (Conshyner et aI 2009) However such limitations may diminish as new technologies evolve and expertise becomes more widespread

Looking Ahead

Recent technological advances from specialized websites to global positioning systems (GPS) have taken the study of happiness in everyday life to a new level Authentichappishynessorg is one example of a website that allows individuals to create an account to track their happiness over time providing both customized feedback and a source of data for researchers This site contains a wide variety of validated measures commonly used in positive psychological research and has attracted a large number of participants (300 per day) who complete measures without financial compensation Data from this site have been used to demonstrate the efficacy of happiness-promoting techniques in an adult sample of over 400 (Seligman Steen Park amp Peterson 2005)

The ubiquity of mobile phones with text messaging and Internet capabilities also creates exciting new possibilities for the study of happiness in everyday life Recent research on the quality of family interactions for example used text messaging to signal participants to provide ESM reports eliminating the need for pagers or PDAs (Ronkii Malinen Kinnunen Tolvanen amp Liimsii 2010) Smartphones such as the BlackBerry and the iPhone can serve as platforms for applications created for the specific purpose of monitoring and increasing happiness Because many individuals hold happiness as a highly desired goal they do not have to be compensated for submitting their data In fact people are willing to pay to access some of these applications hence self-help applicashytions with names like the Habit Factor Gratitude Journal and iStress have proliferated

Although this new technology is in the early stages researchers have begun using it to obtain online data from a large number of participants LiveHappyTM (Lyubomirsky Della Porta Pierce amp ZiIca 2010) an inexpensive iPhone application is geared toward increasing participants happiness by encouraging the performance of empirically valishydated activities such as expressing gratitude focusing on meaningful goals savoring the moment performing acts of kindness nurturing interpersonal relationships and focusshying on best possible selves The iPhone itself is used as a tool to facilitate engagement in these activities-for example users might express their gratitude by emailing texting or calling someone on their contact list Unlike traditional ESM this application does not signal participants to report their affect in the moment Rather participants choose to provide information about their current mood and their overall global happiness as measured by the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky amp Lepper 1999) They can also determine the extent to which a particular happiness-promoting activity fits with their preferences and goals (Lyubomirsky Sheldon et aI 2005) Results are then stored


to track within-person change over time Preliminary data are promising showing sigshynificant increases in positive mood after participation in the activities available on the application especially those involving the expression of gratitude nurturing relationshyships and visualizing ones best possible self (Lyubomirsky et al 2010) Additionally by providing information on the sorts of activities people naturally enjoy doing and opt to do this methodology is a useful complement to laboratory studies in which participants are randomly assigned to take part in a specific happiness-promoting activity (see Sin amp Lyubomirsky 2009 for a review)

By contrast Killingsworth and Gilberts (2010) free application Track Your Happishyness is more similar to ESM On registering for the service on the applications website participants complete a brief measure of global happiness and provide demographic inforshymation They also indicate their preferences for the ESM portion of the service including how frequently they want to be signaled (three times per day is the default) and in what 12-hour period of time they prefer to receive the daily signals Signals can take the form of a text message or e-mail with each signal providing a link to a website that contains a questionnaire Although the questionnaires vary slightly they assess factors such as how participants feel in the moment what kinds of activities they are engaging in feelings of productivity the extent to which participants are focused on the task at hand whether they are alone or with others and the quality of their sleep After providing a minimum number of responses participants can access a summary of their data on a correspondshying website Although this procedure may seem intrusive to some many participants are likely to be motivated to access their own Personal Happiness Profile available after a certain number of responses to gain greater insight into how they spend their time and how they feel throughout the day At the time of this writing Killingsworth and Gilbert have received an estimated 190000 responses from a diverse sample of over 5000 people (Killingsworth personal communication June 9 2010) suggesting that this approach is sufficiently motivating to participants even without monetary compensation

A possible limitation of studies using such mobile or Web applications is that the participants are self-selected and may not be representative of the general public After all application users possess relatively expensive smartphones are technologically savvy and are motivated to gain insight into and increase their levels of well-being Although the demographics of smart phone users have not yet been established not surprisingly higher levels of education and income have been found to characterize Web-based samshyples (Gosling Vazire Srivastava amp John 2004) However as some researchers have conshyvincingly argued Web participants are usually sufficiently diverse and take the research quite seriously even though they are doing the studies on their own time unsupervised by an experimenter (Gosling et al 2004) Although it is too soon to tep such Web and smartphone applications available for free or for a small fee may shape the future of happiness research

Given the central role that interpersonal relationships play in happiness another I recent methodological advance that allows researchers to study the nature of everyday

social interactions is worth noting The Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) an I unobtrusive and reliable methodology that does not rely on self-report can be used to I examine the social interactions that characterize everyday life (see Mehl amp Robbins

r

Chapter 10 this volume) For example a recent study of conversational styles required participants to wear the EAR which recorded 30 seconds of sound every 125 minutes over the course of 4 days (Mehl Vazire Holleran amp Clark 2010) Results indicated that


happier people as measured by both a global and a single-item measure were more likely to spend time discussing substantive topics than to make small talk This study suggests that it is the quality rather than the sheer frequency of social interactions that matters most thereby shedding new light on the robust relationship between interpersonal relashytionships and happiness (Diener amp Seligman 2002 Krueger et aI 2001)

Other recent developments in the unobtrusive study of everyday life include wireless sensing devices worn on the body to detect physical activity room temperature amount of light exposure heart rate and even positional data (as determined by a GPS locating device eg Tapia Intille Lopez amp Larson 2006 see Goodwin [Chapter 14] and IndUe [Chapter 15] this volume) Combining these technologies with ESM data can provide potentially rich new insights into some of the more subtle or as yet unidentified predictors of everyday happiness

Finally the geographic information system (GIS) a powerful computerized mapping software has recently been used in conjunction with a phone survey to determine a posishytive correlation between a geographic locations population density and the self-reported SWB ratings of a locations inhabitants (Davern amp Chen 2010) The authors conclude that the GIS has the potential to identify links between well-being and numerous other features that characterize a geographic location such as proximity to services (eg public transportation health care) crime rate climate and demographic makeup Although it has received little attention from psychological scientists thus far GIS seems particushylarly compatible with the recent call for research on broad national indicators of SWB (Diener Kesebir amp Lucas 2008 Krueger et aI 2009)

Conclusion

In summary global SWB measures have been found to be reliable and valid and have provided positive psychology researchers a wealth of information about the causes correshylates consequences and stability of happiness However as described earlier mounting evidence suggests that real-time measures in the form of experience sampling or daily diashyries contribute unique and novel information about what people do and how they feel in their everyday lives As work on happiness becomes integrated with national indicators of the quality of life (Diener et aI 2008) as positive psychological science becomes increasshyingly popularized and-perhaps most important-as technology becomes increasingly accessible these types of measures will arguably become much more common

In recent years researchers understanding of happiness and other positive constructs has grown rapidly As the field moves forward and as technology advances positive psyshychologists should continue to complement rigorous laboratory research with a greater focus on what people do think and feel in their daily lives

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Block J amp Kremen A M (1996) IQ and ego-resiliency Conceptual and empirical connections and separateness Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 70 349-361

Brickman P Coates D amp Janoff-Bulman R (1978) Lottery winners and accident victims Is happishyness relative Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 36 917-927


Campbell A Converse P E amp Rodgers W L (1976) The quality ofAmerican life New York Russhysell Sage Foundation

Carstensen L L Turan B Scheibe S Ram N Ersner-Hershfield H Samanez-Larkin G et al (in press) Emotional experience improves with age Evidence based on 10 years of experience sampling Psychology and Aging

Cohn M A Fredrickson B L Brown S L Mikels J A amp Conway A M (2009) Happiness unpacked Positive emotions increase life satisfaction by building resilience Emotion 9 361shy369

Collins A L Sarkisian N amp Winner E (2009) Flow and happiness in later life An investigation into the role of daily and weekly experiences Journal of Happiness Studies 10 703-719

Conner T S amp Reid K (2011) Paradoxical effects of intensive momentary reporting of happiness Manuscript submitted for publication

Conner T S Tennen H Fleeson W amp Feldman Barrett L (2009) Experience sampling methods A modern idiographic approach to personality Social and Personality Psychology Compass 3 1-22

Csikszentmihalyi M (1990) Flow The psychology of optimal experience New York Harper amp Row

Csikszentmihalyi M amp Larson R (1987) Validity and reliability of the experience sampling method Journal ofNervous and Mental Disease 175 526-536

Csikszentmihalyi M Larson R amp Prescott S (1977) The ecology of adolescent activities and expeshyriences Journal of Youth and Adolescence 6 281-294

Daly M Delaney L Doran P P Harmon C amp MacLachlan M (2010) Naturalistic monitoring of the affect-heart rate relationship A day reconstruction study Health Psychology 29 186-195

Danner D D Snowdon D A amp Friesen W V (2001) Positive emotions in early life and longevity Findings from the nun study Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 80 804-813

Davern M T amp Chen X (2010) Piloting the geographic information system (GIS) as an analytic tool for subjective well-being research Applied Research in Quality of Life 5 105-199

Diener E Emmons R A Larson R J amp Griffin S (1985) The Satisfaction with Life Scale Journal ofPersonality Assessment 49 71-75

Diener E Kesebir P amp Lucas R (2008) Benefits of accounts of well-being-for societies and for psychological science Applied Psychology An International Review 57(Suppl 1)37-53

Diener E Lucas R E amp Scollon C N (2006) Beyond the hedonic treadmill Revising the adaptashytion theory of well-being American Psychologist 61 305-314

Diener E Sandvik E amp Pavot W (1991) Happiness is the frequency not the intensity of positive versus negative affect In F Strack M Argyle amp N Schwarz (Eds) Subjective well-being An interdisciplinary perspective (pp 119-139) Elmsford NY Pergamon

Diener E amp Seligman M E P (2002) Very happy people Psychological Science 13 81-84 Diener E amp Seligman M E P (2004) Beyond money Toward an economy of well-being Psychologishy

cal Science in the Public Interest 5 1-3l Diener E Suh E M Lucas R E amp Smith H (1999) Subjective well-being Three decades of progshy

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long-term stability Social Indicators Research 65 245-277 Fredrickson B L amp Kahneman D (1993) Duration neglect in retrospective evalua~ions of affective

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Predictive and treatment validity of life satisfaction and the Quality of Life Inventory Assessment 101-13

Fujita F amp Diener E (2005) Life satisfaction set point Stability and change Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88 158-164

Gosling S D Vazire S Srivastava S amp John O P (2004) Should we trust Web-based studies A comparative analysis of six preconceptions about Internet questionnaires American Psychologist 5993-104

Kahneman D Krueger A B Schkade D Schwarz N amp Stone A A (2004) A survey method for characterizing daily life experiences The day reconstruction method Science 306 1776-1780

Kenrick D T Griskevicius V Neuberg S L amp Schaller M (2010) Renovating the pyramid of


needs Contemporary extensions built upon ancient foundations Perspectives on Psychological Science 5 292-314

Killingsworth M amp Gilbert D T (2010) A wandering mind is an unhappy mind Unpublished manushyscript Department of Psychology Harvard University

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Krueger R F Hicks B M amp McGue M (2001) Altruism and antisocial behavior Independent tenshydencies unique personality correlates distinct etiologies Psychological Science 12397-402

Loewenstein G (1996) Out of control Visceral influences on behavior Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 65272-292

Lucas R E Clark A E Georgellis Y amp Diener E (2004) Unemployment alters the set point for life satisfaction Psychological Science 15 8-13

Lucas R E amp Diener E (2001) Understanding extraverts enjoyment of social situations The imporshytance of pleasantness Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81 343-356

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Lyubomirsky S amp Boehm J K (2010) Human motives happiness and the puzzle of parenthood Perspectives on Psychological Science 5 327-334

Lyubomirsky S Della Porta M Pierce R S amp Zilca R (2010) How do people pursue happiness in their everyday life Data from a survey study and the Live Happy iPhone application Unpubshylished manuscript Department of Psychology University of California Riverside

Lyubomirsky S King L amp Die~er E (2005) The benefits of frequent positive affect Does happiness lead to success Psychological Bulletin 131803-855

Lyubomirsky S amp Lepper H (1999) A measure of subjective happiness Preliminary reliability and construct validation Social Indicators Research 46 137-155

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Mehl M R Vazire S Holleran S E amp Clark C S (2010) Eavesdropping on happiness Well-being is related to having less small talk and more substantive conversations Psychological Science 21 539-541shy

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tion of events The rosy view Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 33 421-448 Myers D G amp Diener E (1995) Who is happy Psychological Science 6 10-19 Oishi S Schimmack U amp Colcombe S (2003) The contextual and systematic nature of life satisfacshy

tion judgments Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 39 232-247 Oishi S Whitchurch E R Miao F Kurtz J L amp Park J (2009) Would I be happier if I moved

Age and cultural variations in the anticipated and actual levels of well-being Journal of Positive Psychology 4 437-446

Ronka A Malinen K Kinnunen U Tolvanen A amp Lamsa T (2010) Capturing daily family dynamics via text messages Development of the mobile diary Community Work and Family 135-21shy

Schkade D A amp Kahneman D (1998) Does living in California make people happier A focusing illusion in judgments of life satisfaction Psychological Science 9 340-346

Schooler J W Ariely D amp Loewenstein G (2003) The pursuit and assessment of happiness can be self-defeating In I Brocas amp J D Carrillo (Eds) The psychology of economic decisions Vol 1 Rationality and well-being (pp 41-70) New York Oxford University Press

Schwarz N amp Clore G L (1983) Mood misattribution and judgments of well-being Informashytive and directive functions of affective states Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 45 513-523

Schwarz N amp Strack F (1999) Reports of subjective well-being Judgment processes and their methshy


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Seligman M E P amp Csikszentmihalyi M (2000) Positive psychology An introduction American Psychologist 55 5-14

Seligman M E P Steen T A Park N amp Peterson C (2005) Positive psychology progress Empirishycal validation of interventions American Psychologist 60410-421

Sheldon K M amp Lyubomirsky S (2006) How to increase and sustain positive emotion The effects of expressing gratitude and visualizing best possible selves Journal of Positive Psychology 1 73-82

Sin N L amp Lyubomirsky S (2009) Enhancing well-being and alleviating depressive symptoms with positive psychology interventions A practice-friendly meta-analysis Journal of Clinical Psycholshyogy In Session 65 467-487

Srivastava S Angelo K M amp Vallereux S R (2008) Extraversion and positive affect A day reconshystruction study of person-environment transactions Journal of Personality 42 1613-1618

Staw B M Sutton R 1 amp Pelled L H (1994) Employee positive emotion and favorable outcomes at the workplace Organization Science 5 51-71

Stone A A Shiffman S Schwartz J E Broderick J E amp Hufford M R (2003) Patient complishyance with paper and electronic diaries Controlled Clinical Trials 24 182-199

Strack F Martin L L amp Schwarz N (1988) Priming and communication Social determinants of information use in judgments of life satisfaction European Journal of Social Psychology 18 429-442

Strack F Schwarz N Chassein B Kern D amp Wagner D (1990) The salience of comparison standards and the activation of social norms Consequences for judgments of happiness and their communication British Journal of Social Psychology 29 304-314

Tapia E M Intille S S Lopez L amp Larson K (2006) The design of a portable kit of wireless senshysors for naturalistic data collection In K P Fishkin B Schiele P Nixon amp A Quigley (Eds) PERVASIVE Vol LNCS 3968 (pp 117-134) Berlin Springer-Verlag

Thrash T M amp Elliot A J (2003) Inspiration as a psychological construct Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84 871-889

Thrash T M Elliot A J Maruskin L A amp Cassidy S E (2010) Inspiration and the promotion of well-being Tests of causality and mediation Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 98 488-506

Thrash T M Maruskin L A Cassidy S E Fryer J W amp Ryan R M (2010) Mediating between the muse and the masses Inspiration and the actualization of creative ideas Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 98469-487

Trope Y amp Liberman N (2003) Temporal construal Psychological Review 110403-421 White M P amp Dolan P (2009) Accounting for the richness of daily activity Psychological Science

20 1000-1008 Wirtz D Kruger J Napa Scollon C amp Diener E (2003) What to do on spring break The role

of predicted on-line and remembered experience in future choice Psychological Science 14 520-524

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HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH METHODS

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EDITED BY

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Foreword by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

~ THE GUILFORD PRESS New York London


et al 1999) First happy people typically experience frequent positive emotions and relashytively infrequent negative emotions Second when coldly evaluating their lives happy people report high levels of satisfaction with life as a whole and with specific domains such as work health and interpersonal relationships Following the positive psychologishycal literature we use the terms subjective happiness and subjective well-being synonyshymously in this chapter These constructs are labeled subjective because the evaluation is drawn from the individuals own report and the individual is assumed to be in the best position to make it In Myers and Dieners (1995) words the best judge of happiness is whoever lives inside a persons skin (p 11)

Commonly Used Global Measures

In keeping with this definition of subjective well-being the majority of positive psychoshylogical research uses broad global self-reports to assess a persons happiness For examshyple for many years single-item measures such as Taking all things together how would you say things are these days (Campbell Converse amp Rodgers 1976) were common Such single-item measures are still used particularly when questions about SWB are included in much longer and broader surveys such as a nationally representative census (eg Lucas Clark Georgellis amp Diener 2004) Given their brevity these measures are surprisingly reliable For example Fujita and Diener (2005) found a test-retest reliability of 55 over a 17-year period

Despite these strengths slightly longer scales are used more frequently The Subjecshytive Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky amp Lepper 1999) a 4-item measure of happiness includes the prompt In general I consider myself with responses ranging from 1 (Not a very happy person) to 7 (A very happy person) It also asks Compared to my peers I consider myself (1 =Less happy 7 =More happy) Some people are genershyally very happy They enjoy life regardless of what is going on getting the most out of everything To what extent does this characterization describe you (1 = Not at ali 7 = A great deal) and Some people are generally not very happy Although they are not depressed they never seem as happy as they might be To what extent does this characshyterization describe you (1 = Not at ali 7 = A great deal reverse-scored)

Probably the most commonly used scale the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener Emmons Larson amp Griffin 1985) assesses the cognitive component of SWB with five broad questions all answered on 1-point (Strongly disagree) to 7-point (Strongly agree) Likert-type scales In most ways my life is close to my ideal The conditions of my life are excellent I am satisfied with life So far I have gotten the most important things I want in life and If I could live my life over again I would change nothing

A growing number of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have used these broad SWB measures to establish that global happiness relates to a number of desirable outshycomes (see Lyubomirsky King amp Diener 2005 for a review) For instance in the realm of work happy people-that is those who score highly on SWB measures-are more likely to graduate from college (Frisch et al 2004) to be favorably evaluated by work supervisors (Staw Sutton amp Pelled 1994) and to make more money (Lucas et al 2004) Dispositionally happy people also have better social relationships They are prosocial and enjoy helping others (Krueger Hicks amp McGue 2001) They have a large network of friends and are relatively more likely to be in art enduring committed and satisfyshying romantic relationship (Diener amp Seligman 2002) Happy people are also less likely



























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