Comparing global reports of subjective well-being to experiential measures

Richard E. Lucas

Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, 2021, vol. 19, issue 1, 67-89

Abstract: Subjective well-being (SWB) is an overall evaluation of the quality of a person’slife from his or her own perspective. One common method of assessing thisconstruct requires respondents to think about their life as a whole and to providea “global” evaluation that summarizes across life domains or affective experiencesover extended periods of time. The validity of these global measures has beenchallenged, however; and experiential measures, which ask respondents to reporton their momentary evaluative experiences many times over a constrained timeperiod, have been suggested as a more valid alternative. This paper addresses theempirical evidence for one important challenge to global measures: the possibilitythat temporarily salient information overwhelmingly influences global judgments,reducing their reliability and validity. This paper critiques prior evidence for thischallenge and presents new concerns about the assumed validity of the proposedalternative: experiential measures.

Date: 2021
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