Subjective Well-Being, Ed Diener
The literature on SWB, including happiness, life satisfaction, and positive affect is reviewed in three areas: measurement, causal factors, and theory. Psychometric data on single-item and multi-item subjective well-being scales are presented, and the measures are compared.
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Throughout history philosophers considered happiness to be the highest good and ultimate motivation for human action. Yet for decades psychologists largely ignored positive subjective well-being, although human unhappiness was explored in depth.
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The literature on SWB is concerned with how and why people experience their lives in positive ways, including both cognitive judgements and affective reactions. As such, it covers studies that have used such diverse terms as happiness, satisfaction, morale, and positive affect.
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More importantly, the variance accounted for by the demographic factors is not large. This has led to an increasing number of studies on psychological causes of happiness.
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Perhaps the most important advance since Wilson's review is in defining and measuring happiness. This advance is crucial because the ability to measure SWB is necessary to scientific understanding. In addition, work on measurement is helping to provide clearer definitions of the components of subjective well-being.
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Defining and measuring subjective well-being
Definitions of SWB
Many philosophers and social scientists have concerned themselves with defining happiness or well-being. Definitions of well-being and happiness can be grouped into three categories.
First, well-being has been defined by external criteria such as virtue or holiness. Coan (1977) reviewed the varying conceptions of the ideal condition that have held sway in different cultures and eras. In normative definitions happiness is not thought of as a subjective state, but rather as possessing some desirable quality. Such definitions are normative because they define what is desirable. Thus, when Aristotle wrote the eudaemonia is gained mainly by leading a virtuous life, he did not mean that virtue leads to feelings of joy.
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