The Definition andMeasurement of Well-Being

Ulrich SchimmackUniversity of Toronto

Mississauga

CIFAR, October 1, 2010, Toronto

Well-Being, Welfare, Good Life, Happiness, Subjective Well-Being, Psychological Well-Being, Authentic Happiness, True Happiness, Utility, Pleasure-Pain Balance, The Greatest Good, The ultimate motive, Meaning of Life, Optimal Functioning, Health

Well-Being Definition

An evaluation of a life.

Evaluations require a criterion. - Actual-ideal discrepancy.

What is the criterion for life evaluations?

Well-Being Prototype

An individual with high well being …% A

A. is rich B. is poor 96%

A. is healthy B. is ill 98%

A. is free B. is unfree 98%

A. is safe B. is threatened 96%

A. feels happy B. feels unhappy 99%

Responses by UTM psychology students taking PSY324 “Well-Being” course.

Scientific definition should be consistent with prototype.

Problems of prototype definition:

- unrealistic goal to maximize everything

- neglects other aspects that vary across people

- does not provide a standard for quantitative measure of well-being - rich & unhealthy vs. poor & healthy

Classical Definitions of Well-Being

- Taxonomy of Definitions

- Where do the criteria come from? - Objective

- Outside - Same for all- “The ideal life”

- Subjective- Inside - Vary across individuals- “My ideal life”

Objective Definition I:

- Aristotle’s Eudaimonia

- Well-being is well-functioning

- Functions provide objective evaluation criteria (car, organs)

- But, what is the function of a life? [42]

- Not a definition of well-being because there is no objective function of lives.

Objective Definition II: Hedonism

"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure" (Bentham)

- Objective - assumes the same criterion for everybody

- Problem: - Treats all pleasant experiences as equal. - Ignores other aspects of human lives. - Can be influenced by illusions.

Nozick’s Experience Machine

What would you choose:

A. Your real life 78%

B. Your brain is hocked up to 22%a compute that simulates your ideal life and you don’t know that it is a simulation.

Subjective Definition I:Desire Fulfillment

- Desires are subjective

- Desires imply low well-being

- Increase well-being - fulfill all desires (market economy) - get rid of desires (Buddhism)

Problem:

- Desires are future-directed.

- Retrospective evaluations can differ from anticipated evaluations (disappointment, regret, pleasant surprises).

- “be careful what you wish for”

Subjective Definition II:

- Well-being as a retrospective evaluation.

- Individuals have ideals, preferences, values- do not disappear when matched

- Ideals can be used to evaluate actual lives.

- Cantril (1965) 0 = worst possible life (self-defined)10 = best possible life (self-defined)

Problem I: Illusions

- Happiness/Self-Evaluation- Mental State- Can be influenced by illusions even if

ideals assume accurate beliefs.

- Preference Realization- Not a mental state- Illusions increase well-being only if people prefer illusions over reality

Nozick’s Virtual Vacation

A. Spend reading week living your real life. 48%

B. Spend reading week in an experience 52%machine that simulates your ideal life and makes you forget that it was a simulation.

Problem II: Inauthentic Preferences

- Where do individuals’ ideals come from?

- Culture may teach some people to want too much or too little

- too little: cast system in India - too much: advertising

- Preferences should be the result of free choice

Correlations among Self-Report Measures of Well-Being in the SOEP

Schimmack (2009)

Are all Domains Equal?

- Only modest agreement between direct ratings of importance and indirect evidence (regression)

- Some domains are not important (weather)

- some domains are important (health, family)

Zou & Schimmack (2010)

Do People Not Care About Housing?

Nakazato, Schimmack, & Oishi (2010)

Self-Informant Agreement

- Average correlation ~ .4

- Has not increased since first study in 1934

- higher agreement for domain satisfaction than for global judgments

- agreement is explained by important life domains (health, family, academics, recreation)

Schneider & Schimmack (2009, 2010)

Self-Informant Agreement

- Cultural differences in self-ratings

- Mediated by positive illusions

- Not replicated with informant ratings

- Important to use multiple raters.

Kim, Schimmack, & Oishi (2010)

Final Conclusion

- Well-being is a life that matches individuals’ subjective ideals (preference-realization).

- Cognitive and affective measures are partially valid indicators of well-being.

- No evidence that one indicator is better than another.

- Increasing the validity of measures is essential for progress in well-being science.

The End

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